In Simply Brilliant, Bernard Schroeder explains how specific “tools” can unlock creativity and spark new ideas.
I agree with Abraham Maslow: “The key question isn’t ‘What fosters creativity?’ But it is why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative?…We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.”
The fact is, almost anyone can be more creative. In Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All, David and Tom Kelley explain that their book “is about what we call ‘creative confidence.’ And at its foundation is the belief that we are all creative…Creative confidence is a way of seeing that potential and your place in the world more clearly, unclouded by anxiety and doubt. We hope you’ll join us on our quest to embrace creative confidence in our lives. Together, we can all make the world a better place.”
Schroeder offers his Creativity Works Framework whose components are mindset, environment, (leadership and culture), habitat, and powerful brainstorming tools. In the final chapter, he shares some excellent ideas about how and why two market segments probably offer the best opportunities to solve a major problem, thereby enabling a business to achieve breakthrough growth.
“Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. And these 71 million boomers own about 80 percent of the wealth in the United States and account for more than 40 percent of net household income. In other words, they have the money and they will spend it. Solve their problems and you could do amazingly well.
“The second segment will be the largest in the United States by 2025. Millennials, born between 1982 and 1994, will number over 81 million by then…Not only are they drivers of innovation (e.g. want everything yesterday, willing to pay for quality), but they will be a part of the largest wealth transfer in history from their parents, the baby boomers.
“By connecting the dots backward, can you anticipate what they will need next? What are their current or future problems?”
Can you answer those two questions? If not, why not?
Meanwhile, tick tock, tick tock….