Creativity & Business | 10 Ways to Celebrate | World Creativity and Innovation Day

10 ways to celebrate Creativity & Innovation Day (or week) at work

There are varying degrees of improvement garnered from "creativity" programs. "Crazitivity©" - a term Dr. Edward de Bono coined to reflect the pure play aspect of creativity - is on one end of the spectrum. Crazitivity activities help bond the team and get creative problem solving and applied imagination sessions going. Advanced creative problem solving, applied imagination and productive thinking methodologies are at the other end of the spectrum. And of course, there is everything in between.

No matter which end of the creativity spectrum one uses, experts agree the most important factor in enhancing creativity and innovation at work is senior level "buy-in" and championing. The next, having a person trained to facilitate and doesn't have a vested in the process or outcome. And creating an environment or "climate" for creativity.

In "Leading on the Creative Edge", Roger L. Firestein, PhD, outlines Dr. Goran Ekvall's method for measuring the environment for creativity - the 10 Factors of the CCQ (Climate for Creativity Questionnaire) are:

Challenge.
The people in this organization really care about their work and take pride and ownership in what they do.

Freedom.
People in this organization are free to try new ways to get their work done.

Idea Support
People listen to each other and encourage each other's ideas.

Trust/Openness
People feel comfortable discussing their ideas with others.

Dynamism/liveliness
There's a great deal going on in this organization. It's an exciting place to work.

Playfulness/Humour
It's common here to see people joking good naturedly, laughing, and enjoying their work.

Debates
It's common to see people discussing each other's ideas and ways of accomplishing things in this organization.

Conflicts
People generally don't talk negatively behind each other's back, and when conflicts arise, they are quickly resolved
.

Risk-Taking
People in this organization are generally not penalized for failure. They can take risks on new initiatives and put those ideas into action.

Idea Time
There is ample time to discuss, develop, and initiate new ideas in this organization. It is common to have regular sessions where employees meet to discuss better ways of doing business.

Click here to view the 2007 Creativity Week Poster

With the above in mind, here are 10 ways to celebrate Creativity & Innovation Week at work:

Weird Challenge.
Idea: Provoke and challenge new thinking every day of Creativity & Innovation Week

Find the smallest or zaniest problem your organization faces and challenge people to come up with THE Worst solution.
For example, a small problem could be that people leave their computers on at night and they need to be turned off to conserve energy. A zany problem could be toilet paper is being stolen.

Tips:

By working together on the problem, contributors feel more ownership of it even if it is small or zany.
By taking more time to define the real problem (the problem hidden within the problem), the solutions become more innovative.
No matter what idea is presented, ask everyone to build on the idea.
Involve the senses.what does the problem smell like, taste like, feel like, sound like.what colour is that problem?
Encourage people to showcase the Ideas on their Office doors or walls.
Run a poster campaign with different creative solutions every day.

Watch how "Worst" ideas spawn great ideas.

Born Free
Idea: Promote workplace freedom. Everyone is creative, we each do it differently.
Some prefer to come up with lots of ideas and share every one of them, others prefer to share a few select, sound ideas. Some prefer to work in chaos, others prefer order. It all works and it's all good. Celebrate the differences and allow each preference to thrive.

Ask each person to identify their favourite way to work, post it on their door/wall and then encourage them to work that way all week long.
Have a creativity showcase of things colleagues do that are creative in their personal time
- art
- models
- music
- acting
- etc.
Have a special event that celebrates the creativity in everyone you work with.

Idea Coffee Buzz
Idea: Offer free coffee every Friday morning and encourage colleagues to hang around and talk to each other - this helps stimulate conversation and thinking and new ideas inevitably pop up. When ideas do pop up, encourage the group to find ways to support the idea no matter how good or bad it is.

Over coffee (or water.its better for your brain) generate a list of 100 ways to compliment an idea.
Put a whiteboard in a high traffic area and ask for colleagues to contribute ideas. Ask passers-by to take one of the ideas and add something to it make it better.
Create some idea recognition cards and send someone a note of recognition for being creative.
Hold outings (field trips) to where you consumers shop. If you run a retail outlet, work in the store for a day. Talk to consumers. Be a consumer.
Run a lunch and learn on creativity.
Over Innovation week, have a different department host a lunch event in the cafeteria and have them come up with the creative ideas.

The Great Hall of Trust
Idea: Celebrate good and bad ideas at a town hall or post-launch party.

Tips:

Do what the Emergency Task Force does after every project (which often includes shootings, bombings, hostages and generally things that can really go wrong). The entire team enters a "no rank room" to debrief. There, no one has a title, rank, or seniority position. Both positive and negative concerns and ideas flow and once the debrief is over, they exit the room and resume their rank.

Lunchbox Surprise.
Idea: Surprise colleagues with a string quartet over lunch - sounds stimulate different parts of the brain and create new pathways to new ideas.

Try some of the ideas shared on this site under "10 ways to celebrate creativity at school".

Daily Ha Ha's for AHA's
Idea: Every day during Creativity & Innovation Week, ask a different team to provide an email chuckle of the day.

Make laughing a goal for every meeting.
Put playtime/funny story time on each agenda.
Engage in Creative problem solving. Research shows that those involved in creative problem solving laugh more, have more fun, feel better about their work and come up with more ideas, better ideas, more often.

The Grape Debate
Idea: Practice the fine art of debating without attacking and practice building on ideas. Split the group into pairs (not pears) and give each person a grape. The challenge is to debate the merits of each person's grape - all of the attributes that make the person's grape the best grape in the world.

Encourage people to respond to each person's case for their grape in the following ways:

First, argue loudly and disagree passionately
Second agree, agree, agree.

Next, ask each person to share an idea for the best way to eat a grape.

Their partner is respond to the idea in the following order:

Positives about the Idea
Pluses or Potentials of the idea
Concerns.yet state the concern as "How might we.?"

It takes discipline to respond to an idea positively every time, so practice, practice, practice. The benefit? Each time one finds the positive in another person's point of view or idea there is greater opportunity to find new ideas and creative solutions.

Conflict Conflab
Idea: Some people run from conflict and others run to it. Here's a way to turn everyone in the opposite direction. Ask them to take someone else's point of view. To do this, Identify a contentious issue and ask each person to write down their thoughts and ideas about the issue on one piece of paper. Collect all of the pieces of paper, mix them up and redistribute them to the group.

The assignment: Continue the meeting using the point of view of the piece of paper in front of you.

Mistake Party

Celebrate mistakes..really celebrate mistakes.

A big part of creativity is taking risks and sometimes risks lead to mistakes. Risks and mistakes are a great time to celebrate.

Make a pact with the team that for the day each time someone makes a mistake they are to celebrate it and the team is to celebrate with them.

Celebrating includes:

throwing one's head back and enthusiastically shouting 'I made a mistake!!!!!"
clapping
cheering
whistling
dancing
shakin' and shimmying

Break Brains (pathways that is)
The brain is a wonderful machine yet, if one does the same thing and thinks the same way day in and day out, big ruts form and it becomes tough to pull out of the rut when change occurs. The goal is mental flexibility - generating new pathways in the brain.
This takes time and practice.

To do this, encourage people to take time to:

do things that are new, different or do things differently
move
move their feet and their body
use their hands
80% of the brains neurons are connected to the hands and when engaging ones hands in creative problem solving one engaging a deeper level of the imaginative mind.

Idea
Encourage colleagues to start their day off with different perspectives by taking a different way to work (transit, route, carpooling, time, etc.)

Host an art class (pottery or drawing)
Give out stress balls or plastercine to all colleagues to relieve stress and get the creative juices flowing.

Bonus Idea: Myth Buster
Idea
Look up and post all of the myths about creativity on this site under "Resources".

"10 ways to Celebrate Creativity & Innovation Day (or Week) at Work" created by Megan Mitchell and Elizabeth (Buffi) Huggins.

To add your ideas click info@creativityday.ca

"There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to." Joseph Heller (1923 - 1999), Catch 22

To make the world a better place and make our place in the world better too, we need to ask new questions so we can find new answers. If you had the chance to ask the world a question what would it be? Well, you do have a chance. Click here to post your question for World Creativity and Innovation Week April 15 - 21.