Being Creative and Encouraging Innovation in Your Business
When running your own small business, we are often called to be creative and innovative. Without this ability, I have discovered it is nearly impossible to be successful, let alone stay afloat. This innovative and creative spirit is especially important to small business owners because they do not have the kind of budgets the big corporations can play with. Small business owners are required to craft new and innovative ways to get the most bang for their buck whether that be refurbishing old unsuccessful projects into successful ones, cutting costs without cutting corners, and of course, thinking of new ways of marketing or boosting sales. While most of the small business owners I work with do embody this innovative spirit, they often forget to foster this spirit throughout their company. To run efficiently and productively as possible, they need their entire team to be on the pai skincare same creative page. In Adrian Browns Creativity & Innovation he highlights five characteristics that he has observed in creative organizations. All of which I believe are important not just for large corporations, but especially for small business. They are: 1. Information is free flowing: Creativity is partially about making new connections. For example: applying a familiar technology to a completely new application. 2. New ideas are welcomed: It is easy for individuals and companies to become stuck in its ways. Habitual behaviors, a rigid adherence to best practices and groupthink can all act as barriers to new ideas 3. Good ideas are nurtured: New ideas are delicate and can easily be killed off with an executive shrug or simply a lack of care and attention. 4. Risk taking is accepted: Experimentation and innovation involve some failures along the way.