4 Ways To Unlock Creativity — Event Recap: WIN LDN x Engine
Everyone is creative. But for a lot of us creativity is an untapped resource; blocked by our own insecurities, stifled by client pressures, or suffocated by corporate agendas.
And yet, creativity is at the heart of innovation. It is what drives new thinking, helps us devise unexpected solutions and gives us the competitive edge. That is why WIN London joined forces with the team at Engine to uncover how to unlock and nurture creativity at all levels; from the individual to the organisational.
WIN Ambassador and Consultant at Engine, Martta Oliveira led a thoughtful discussion unpacking some of the common misconceptions around creativity, before we broke out into smaller groups to workshops solutions to the everyday challenges we all face in trying to continuously harness creativity.
Here are 4 key takeaways from the session:
1. Cultivating your creativity requires rerouting your habitual thought patterns
Creativity aims to deliver original thinking, but we don’t always address the unconscious and subconscious behaviours that play a part in our creative thinking. Try to look inward and address the biases that might be holding you back and challenge them to explore ideas you didn’t know you had.
To tackle creative block: try the “Morning Pages” exercise. Morning Pages is a practise to help unblock creativity popularised by the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. As soon you as you wake up in the morning, set out to write 3 pages of anything that comes to mind. The aim is to not stop until you complete the pages, and not to overthink the words, but just let flow like a stream of consciousness. Making it a daily practise helps you to clear your mind, release any frustrations and open yourself up to creativity.
2. Accepting vulnerability removes the stifling fear of not being ‘creative enough’
Everyone faces imposter syndrome and the fear of not being good enough, but by understanding that creativity is a journey and not a destination you shift your focus towards embracing uncertainty. At the end of each day, write a list of things you accomplished that day, reflect on the successes, instead of the challenges and roadblocks.
3. Creativity is about fostering safe spaces: practice respectful honesty
Creativity can be unleashed by the environment around us. As a leader, you need to channel openness and trust amongst your teams to encourage creativity. Be honest with your feedback and accept feedback openly. Ask for feedback regularly. Offer feedback regularly and always start from a place of kindness in delivering it.
The best of creative teams feel like all ideas are valid, heard, and assessed against the same criteria - this is proven to unlock new thinking. Creating a framework or set of criteria for what a great idea looks like will help even out some of the unconscious biases we all hold, that prevent us from making meritocratic decisions.
4. Go to unexpected place to find inspiration
If your team needs a breath of fresh air to shake things up - take people out of their comfort zone so that they aren’t restricted by their day-to-day job. Changing the environment is proven to enable new energy to flow and galvanize a creativity boost. Get out of the office or invite brilliant outsiders into your space to allow them to share their point of view. Redecorate your “war room”. Go on a “safari”. Lead the charge on unleashing creativity by encouraging new source of inspiration to fuel as much idea sharing as possible. Create internal chat channels, initiate cross-functional workshops, and collaborate with unlikely partner to unearth new perspectives to foster a company culture that embraces creative thinking.
A huge thank you WIN Ambassador Martta Oliveira and the team Engine for hosting such an inspiring event and to our WIN LDN Community for their inputs and thoughtful discussion. See you at the next one!
WIN London Ambassador: Martta Oliviera
Engine Facilitators: Libby Landenberg, Laura van Krieken, Ana Clara Burin, Itamar Ferrer, Julia Dudley
Photography: Carolina Gomez
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