We were on a call with an extended creative team generating ideas for client videos. During breaks, I found myself jotting down examples of important creative thinking skills the team was exhibiting.
7 Important Creative Thinking Skills
Infographic by and courtesy of Diane Bleck - DoodleInstitute.com
These seven creative thinking skills demonstrated during the call are ones which benefit both those who display them and those working with them too:
1. Suspending advocacy of your own idea to push for another person's concept.
It’s helpful to be able to come into a creative situation and demonstrate your willingness to champion another person’s idea. It can open the way to getting others to support your thinking, as well.
2. Putting your own idea to the same test you apply to an idea from someone else.
When it comes to your own ideas, it’s easy to be a hypocrite and apply all kinds of hurdles to other ideas while letting your own thinking slide by unchallenged in your own mind. Just one thing to remember: don’t become somebody known for doing this!
3. Combining two different ideas and making them better (not muddled) as one idea.
Often (maybe “almost always”) compromising on creative ideas leads to something nobody likes, recognizes, or thinks satisfies the original objective. Being able to dissect ideas to pull out highlights and put them together as something new, however, is entirely different, and a great skill to have.
4. Letting someone else take "ownership" of your idea in order to build support for it.
This skill really tests whether you believe so strongly in an idea you’re willing to let someone else step up and take it on as their own idea to see it prevail. The key to seeing your idea win out can be letting somebody else be the vocal proponent for it.
5. Displaying the patience to wait for someone else to say what needs to be said so all you have to do is agree.
It's tempting to jump in right away and make all the points you feel necessary in a creative discussion before anyone else talks. At times though, patience and silence are called for when it becomes clear someone can and will express your perspective – and can do it more appropriately than you can.
6. Sticking to your guns amid challenges to a creative idea which makes solid strategic sense.
There are many creative ideas which, while being really cool, have nothing to do with what you’re trying to achieve and how you should be achieving it. When confronted with others who are passionately arguing for highly creative yet hardly strategic concepts, make and remake your case if the idea you’re advocating is on the mark strategically.
7. Always looking for new creative skills to develop in yourself and those around you.
Not only do you want to make yourself stronger creatively at every juncture, it’s in your best interests to help improve the creative performance of your overall team. Creative meetings are a great opportunity to spot gaps others labor under as well as seeing your own creative shortcomings. Inventory what you saw (or didn’t see) after a creative meeting and get to work filling the gaps.
How are you doing on these 7 creative thinking skills? How about your team? – Mike Brown
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