 Why Do We Need a Creative Process?
There is a misconception that creativity is very much associated with people in artistic arena such as performing artistes, painters or writers. However, in today’s highly competitive professional environment, the need for creativity in the business world has become increasingly important for organisations. Creativity plays a big role for organisations - whether to distinguish themselves from competitors, solve problems internally or that of their clients’, or even elevate themselves to match international standards. From the employees’ perspective, the ability to generate new ideas to meet organisational objectives is crucial. “We are in a creativity workshop. And creativity is supposed to be chaotic. Why we then need a creative process?” asked one of my participants, during a creative problem solving workshop I conducted in 2008. Everyone has a creative mind; but as humans, we do get stuck for ideas once in awhile. More so, attracting creativity into our daily work activities may not be something easy to do. That is why, everybody in the organisation needs to have a creative process, no matter what role or function we play in the organisation. The creative process would facilitate us to get unstuck and move forward. If you read books on creative problem solving, there are many types of creative process that are being offered that you can use. Some use a three-step process, whereas others have 7 steps. In the design thinking module I’m currently lecturing on at polytechnic, we use a 5-phase model - Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test. As a rule of thumb, a creative process has two stages: Divergent stage; followed by the Convergent stage. Divergent Stage is where you generate ideas. There are various brainstorming techniques and tools you can use. Once the ideas are listed down, the next stage is the Convergent Stage. This is where we select suitable ideas. Ideas are selected based on set criteria. What if these two stages are reversed? You will be stuck. We often heard company meetings that take up so much time, so much so that employees started to feel tired and bored. This is usually the case when the leaders who call for these meetings are not sure which stage of the creative process they are at. This is something we need to avoid. In conclusion, as humans, we have this ability to be able to think creatively. As humans too, we do have the tendency to get stuck for ideas, and that is when a creative process will come in handy. For it to work effectively, there is a need to understand which stage of the process you are at. Hope this helps. If you need more assistance on personal and workplace creativity, do keep yourself available on Saturday 29 June 2019. On that day, together with 17 other international speakers, I will be taking the stage at the World Success Summit 2019, and will be speaking on the topic “How to Unlock Your Creative Process”. For details and tickets, visit: worldsuccesssummit.com. Keep moving forward, Hazriq Idrus Workplace Creativity & People Engagement Strategist Author of 8 books, including "The Stage Fright Antidote" Hazriq Idrus is a professional speaker on Workplace Creativity & People Engagement. Using techniques from the theatre he learnt as a stage actor, Hazriq delivers keynote talks and training programmes that are interactive and experiential in nature. He founded The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd with a mission to help people & teams unlock their creative potentials so that they can connect, communicate and co-create with impact. Hazriq is also currently an adjunct lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic delivering the module on Creativity & Innovation. Hazriq is contactable at [email protected].
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In partnership with Up Your Game (UYG) Personal Development Community, The Speaking Factory had the opportunity to share with the Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC) beneficiaries on the topic on "Overcoming Stress using Creativity" on 25 March 2019. For me, I did feel the 'stress' when I was invited to speak and share, especially when I found out that that the audience were going to be retirees. As the session progreesed, I was inspired by their humility, sheer grit and determination to learn. Some even attended after their dialysis session! They were very inquisitive. One of the audience, Mr Aziz, who claimed he's "27" years old (but i'm pretty sure he's 72!), said that "Learning never stops!" I admired them! Really! Keep moving forward,
Hazriq Idrus Founder, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd  Hazriq Idrus sharing as one of the panelists. On 19 January 2019, I was invited to be one of the panelists at a Focus Group Discussion conference in Batam, Indonesia, organised by Matahati Foundation. The objective of the event was to gather insights from various professionals and thought leaders on how to turn Batam, Indonesia, into a key venue in creative and education tourism 10 panel sessions consisted of professionals, thought leaders, international networks, academicians, entrepreneurs, among others. I sat in Panel 2, together with fellow Singaporeans, Andrew Chow (Social Media Strategist), Daryl Chung (Project Director of E27, a tech media platform) and Tiziana Tan, Founder of Brain Juice Collective. The panel was moderated by Elmi Ong, the co-founder of Matahati Foundation herself. During the session, among the questions we received include “How to change the negative perception of Batam?” It was indeed an interesting question, for a fact that there were pre-conceived perceptions of Batam. In the panelist discussion, we recommended for Batam to acknowledge such situation but to focus more on building the brand that Batam is promoting. It is like a cup filled with coffee. To change its content to plain water, we need to focus in pouring plain water in it; and slowly, but surely, the coffee will be replaced by plain water. From the creativity perspective, I recommended Batam to look into the word ‘Creative” itself (from the phrase ‘Creative Tourism”), because Creative does not necessarily means ‘the arts”. Go beyond that thinking to identify what’s unique for tourists to come, experience and learn. Focus on the "experiential learning" aspect. I cited an example where in Singapore, the country tapped on already-popular Formula One, and ‘rebrand’ its day races (conducted in other countries) into a night race (that’s a creativity technique) in Singapore; and attracted more visitors to experience the event. I hope the focus group discussion provided new insights and ideas to make batam achieved its plans of becoming a key venue in creative and educational tourism. Yours creatively, Hazriq Idrus Applied Creativity/Creative Leadership & Public Speaking Strategist Author of 7 books, including "The Stage Fright Antidote" Hazriq Idrus is a professional speaker on Applied Creativity/ Creative Leadership and a Public Speaking Strategist. Using techniques from the theatre he learnt as a stage actor, Hazriq delivers keynote talks and training programmes that are interactive and experiential in nature. He founded The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd with a mission to help people and teams innovate and communicate with impact by tapping on their inner creative genius. Hazriq is contactable at [email protected]. Occasionally, there will be somebody in the audience who seems to know more than you do - or rather they think they do. This are what I called the "self-proclaimed experts". What can we do to manage these people?
I had my fair share of "self-proclaimed experts" in my workshops. Once in one of my creative problem solving workshops, as soon as I opened the door for the participants to enter, an 50plus year-old man came in. He was one of the first to enter. He went straight to an empty chair and sat down. He looked around the room and started asking me questions. He sounded like an interrogator at first; asking me on my work experiences, how long I have been conducting training and various other kinds of questions. Some tough ones. I chatted with him while providing the answers he asked for. It turned out that he had been in the company for years and would be retiring in a few years' time. That was my cue "win" him over. So here are some tips that you can do if you face audience who are "self-proclaimed experts: 1) Chat and engage small talks with him/ her 2) Find out what are their strengths/ likes etc. 3) Acknowledge and lavishly (and sincerely) praise them on those areas 4) Get them to be on your side 5) Keep the conversations positive and professional throughout More often than not, these steps helped me in managing these situations. And back to the 50plus year-old participant I mentioned earlier, we turned out to be best of buddies during the session. He was very supportive of my presentation, willingly shared his experiences in the company to value-add my points which I shared and willingly offered to volunteer when I needed assistance to do some demonstrations. How about you? Do you face something familiar? Would like to hear from you too. Towards your speaking success, Hazriq Idrus Author, The Stage Fright Antidote! Founder, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltds
Let say your team of 4 is making a decision as to which is the holiday destination that the four of you would want to go to; among the three countries already identified. eg Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan.
One method of creative decision making is to use "$10" voting. Which means each team member can vote by "allocating" the different amount (based on total $10 per person) for each country. Then, after the voting session, tally up the totals allocated amounts. The country with the highest amounts wins. Eg: Member A votes : HK = $5; Vietnam = $3; Japan=$2 Member B votes : HK = $2; Vietnam = $7; Japan=$1 Member C votes : HK = $3; Vietnam = $4; Japan=$3 Member D votes : HK = $5; Vietnam = $2; Japan=$3 Total Tally by each country: HK = $15 Vietnam = $16 Japan = $9 In this example, Vietnam wins as it has the highest amounts ($16). So, Vietnam is the holiday destination for this example. Yours creatively, Hazriq Idrus Author, The Stage Fright Antidote! Founder, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd
Recently, I was asked to solve this word riddle: "I am a word of five letters! People eat me! If you remove my 1 letter, I will be a a form of energy. If you remove my first 2 letters, I will be needed for living. If you remove my first 3 letters, I will be a preposition. If you remove my first 4 letters, I will be a drink for you. Answer if you are a mastermind!" I enjoy solving such riddles, because it helps to engage my brain into lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is important if we want to solve problems differently or to inspire ourselves to new ideas. When I was first asked to solve this riddle, all it took me was about 4-5 minutes to find the solution (but I am sure there are others who take shorter time than me!). So the question was, how did I solve it? One of the lateral thinking method which I frequently use is the "thinking the opposite". Rather than look at things sequentially or in running order, I look at it from the opposite direction. Here are my steps I used to solve this riddle: Step 1: I rearranged the sentences into such (below)and numbered them: 1) If you remove my first 4 letters, I will be a drink for you. 2) If you remove my first 3 letters, I will be a preposition. 3) If you remove my first 2 letters, I will be needed for living. 4) If you remove my 1 letter, I will be a a form of energy. Step 2: I looked at Sentence 1 of the "newly" arranged sentences and I listed down all possible letters that sounded like a drink. The letter "T" rings the bell because it sounded like "Tea". So first sentence is solved! 1) If you remove my first 4 letters, I will be a drink for you => "T" Step 3: I then looked at Sentence 2. With the letter "T' already in place, I listed down all vowels that can connect with "T" to make a preposition. The letter "A" struck my head! 2) If you remove my first 3 letters, I will be a preposition => "AT" Step 4: At the next sentence, I played with a few words that were needed for living. Words like "oxygen", "drink" & "food" came to my mind. I used "association" method to see if any of the words linked with "AT"... it seemed that "food" could be a choice and in order to have food, we need to eat! 3) If you remove my first 2 letters, I will be needed for living => "EAT". Step 5: With "Eat" was a big clue itself, I tried figuring out the last sentence - what 1 letter that could be added to "EAT" to form an energy? Words from my Primary 3 School Science textbook started to fly and i vividly remembered "HEAT" in one of the science lab experiments. Closing Step: With the word "HEAT" already formed, naturally, if we could add a letter that could mean something edible, it had to be a "W". So, yes. I got it! The answer to the word riddle is "WHEAT"! Yours creatively, Hazriq Idrus Author, The Stage Fright Antidote! Founder/ Lead Consultant, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd In one of the methods in creative thinking, we take two random words, put them together, and come up with something new.
Today, let's look at the words "Water slide + Tallest". What do we get? The world's tallest waterslide is set to open in the US next year. Called "Verruckt", it is about 17 stories high, and is definitely not for the faint-hearted. Water-slide, anyone? You can count on me to look after your bags on the ground floor! Yours creatively, Hazriq Idrus Founder, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd Author, The Stage Fright Antidote!  In Creative Problem Solving, never (I repeat, NEVER!) ever dismiss or laugh off any idea(s) during the ideation segment. All ideas are good ideas. Some ideas may not be suitable at that point of time, but at different circumstances, they would be.
Do you know that the 3M's post-its adhesives were not meant for, well, post-its? Spencer Silver, a chemist and worked t 3M, was trying to create a super strong adhesive. Somehow, things went worng and it turned out to be weak adhesives. His friend and colleague, Aurthur Fry, was part of a choir member at his church. While singing, he got frusrated that his music sheets kept flown off because of the wind. He then realised that Spencer's weak adhesive could be the one he needed most; to keep his song sheets intactm yet not spoilt if they were to be separated. And that was the birth of Post-its! Yours creatively, Hazriq Idrus Founder, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd Author, The Stage Fright Antidote!  One of idea triggers that I frequently use in my workshop or consultation work is using a theatre game we called "Metaphora!".
Usually played in a small group, participants would need to come up with a list of metaphoric statement that consists of three elements; (i) attributes of the problem, (ii) a metaphor item(s) , and (iii) possible solution/ reasons in this sentence format : The (attribute of problem) is like (a metaphor item(s)) because (possible solution/ reasons). Let say the problem is "On how to increase sales". Therefore, using this game, a group could come up with the following potential statements <with idea explanation>: 1) Selling is like eating ice-cream, because it is a 'cool' career path. <Idea Explanation: Useful for recruiters who would want to promote sales position as a fun and 'cool' way as a career. When sales become a career, the staff would definitely give all out and that will increase sales. 2) Buying popcorn is like watching sea lions, because both delight kids. <Idea explanation: Useful for campaigners who would want to consider looking at what attracts children and kids; that could be the trigger point to increase sales (of particular products) This game encourages participants not to censor ideas and expand their thinking. Useful for brainstorming and also energisers after breaks. Yours creatively, Hazriq Idrus Founder, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd Author, The Stage Fright Antidote!  Creative Problem-solving:
A British ship was en route in the open sea. The captain went for a shower removing his dimond ring and Rolex watch on the table. When he returned, his valuables were missing. Captain immediately called five suspected crew members and asked each one where and what he was doing for the last 15 minutes. The Cook (in a heavy overcoat) : I was in fridge room getting meat for cooking. The Engineer (with a torch in hand) I was working on generator engine. The Seaman: I was on the mast correcting the flag which was upside down by mistake. The Radio Officer: I was messaging to company that we are reaching next port 72hrs. from now that is wednesday morning at 1000hrs. The Navigation Officer: I am on night watch, so sleeping in my cabin. The captain caught the liar. So who is the thief? Why? The Model Answer: The Seaman was the thief, of course. Because it didnt make sense for him to correct the flag as the Union Jack will still look the same even if it was placed upside down. In Problem Solving, sometimes we need to look at a bigger picture and find out if there is any misconnection to the situation. In this case, correcting the flag when the ship is already on it journey sounds fishy. And when we connect the ship to the flag, something is not right. If we look into our vocabulary of flags, the flag gives it away. Well, for me, following the World Cup helps because it gives me the knowledge about countries and flags. Yours creatively, Hazriq Idrus Founder, The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd Author, The Stage Fright Antidote! |
