Don’t Get Too Comfy for Creativity

Offices these days have made multiple attempts at increasing the rate of productivity in their employees by implementing fun in the office -- from providing ping pong tables to installing a slide inside the building. All of these “bonuses” done in the name of fun and spontaneity are major additions to the enjoyment of everyone as a stress reliever, but it doesn’t really help with creativity.

To gain inspiration for creativity, you need to have a vivid imagination -- and imagination wouldn’t be there if your situation is as comfy as a cloud. In order for a creative thinker to strive, he must put himself in a position of discomfort. Yes, discomfort. If everything were neat and tidy, there would be nothing for him to improve, and nothing to push him to imagine and innovate.

Contentment is the Enemy of Imagination

It doesn’t matter whether you subscribe to the popular “right-brained” or “left-brained” myth. The key to maximizing your creativity is to use both logic and creativity to come up with innovative ideas.

If you laid out everything for a creative thinker, there would be no room for him to improve and to think outside the box. Challenges stimulate the brain and force the person to think of creative ways to make his situation better in the least amount of time, and impel him to be resourceful. He will analyze his current plight, and come up with an inventive way out. Creativity is not about simply giving a solution to a problem; it’s about asking more questions about a problem, so you can come up with different solutions.

Now, we’re not saying you should pull out all the fun privileges you have given your employees. By all means, keep them as stress relievers and tools for bonding with one another. But if you want to make your employees more creative, give them fun challenges and activities. You could give them puzzles, trivia quizzes, and even group competitions to raise their will to succeed against every obstacle by putting their ideas together and forming a creative solution.

Studies have shown that there are two approaches to harnessing creativity: in a group or individually. However, this theory also supports that the best way to utilize creativity is through a hybrid circumstance. That is, individuals can contemplate ideas on their own, then discuss it with their other groupmates afterwards, so they can bounce back their ideas to one another. Individuality is essential to a unique creative process and thinking, but having opinions from other like-minded people will make one’s ideas flourish.

Make your workplace spontaneous and fun. Keep your minds pumping and working on challenges that everyone would enjoy. Activities that stimulate the mind will help you in the long run by impelling you to look at a situation in different ways and on different perspectives; thereby allowing you to come up with different solutions to a single problem.

The key to being creative is by not settling down for contentment -- it’s about challenging yourself in a difficult situation and thinking of innovative ways to make your situation better.