Creative Thinking is a thought process that can help your company culture in unlocking:

• New and novel workplace ideas
• Different ways of doing things at work
• Fresh perspectives beyond traditional legacy approaches

Despite popular misconception, Creative Thinking is not something you must be born with. It is a skill you can develop with intentional effort and practice.

How to develop your Creative Thinking?

Here are 4 key principles you can apply, using the G.I.F.T. acronym:

• Growth mindset
• Ideas
• Fit for purpose
• Take action

1. Growth mindset

A growth mindset here involves adopting a belief that creativity can be learned and trained, as compared to a fixed mindset where your limitations of creativity are predetermined and unchangeable.

It is vital to adopt this growth mindset, being the needed mindset to have for Creative Thinking. It is not just about coming up with fresh ideas and possibilities, but also removing the misbelief that you are not able to be creative.

2. Ideas

Creative Thinking is mainly about divergent thinking for ideas, where you focus more on ideating multiple different perspectives and solutions to a specific situation without early judgments.

Free-flow and explore with curiosity! Your ideas may initially be raw at the beginning but they don't have to be 'perfect' to start things off. They can always be refined and fine-tuned as you continue working on them.

3. Fit for purpose

When generating your ideas, remember to align with the specific situation you are actually looking to address. Your ideas must be fit for purpose of the situation.

As you are coming up with your ideas, a good place to start is by asking, "Are the ideas suitable for the situation and delivering value?"

4. Take action

Many a time, the potential of ideas go to waste not because they are not good but because the ideas were simply, not worked on properly.

In fact, many 'not so good' ideas turn out to be great ideas because they were worked on properly. The execution is arguably as important, if not more than the idea itself.

Hence, you need to take action. Validate your ideas. Refine them. Get feedback. Build on them. Great Execution > Great Idea.

Concluding remarks

Thinking creatively can be a challenge at times for your company culture, especially with mindset barriers and creative blocks. However, this is a skill that can be developed with the right approach by using your G.I.F.T.

Don't waste your G.I.F.T. of Creative Thinking. Apply it with practiced innovation in creating meaningful business value for your company! You can also check out our write-up post on practicing innovation here.

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