Talent
Development of creative intelligence at organisations
The development of creative intelligence in professional environments pursues the transfer and application of ideas in professional fields. To achieve this, we must consider people, teams and the way in which creativity is used to transform it into innovation.
By Joaquín Monzó
People and their creative intelligence
What usually happens at organisations is that when you attend a creative meeting, you do not contribute anything new due to the failure to use lateral thinking amongst team members. Brainstorming meetings are often not productive. Workers do not know how to put their creative talent to work to solve problems or respond to professional challenges. Habits and ways of working that make them efficient have been forged, but this blocks lateral thinking, meaning their day to day has become "groundhog day", every day is the same. We have creative intelligence that we don't use or take advantage of.
The first thing we have to realise is that the brain's capacity to have ideas is infinite, until now there was a gap between the attitude towards creativity and the generation of ideas. In other words, workers want to have new and different ideas, they get together to do some brainstroming and they usually have the same ideas as always. To reduce this phenomenon and to make creative meetings different, we must use the 5 routines that trains creative intelligence to harness all the creative potential that our brain has.
Neuroscience teaches us that the brain has an infinite capacity to come up with ideas and new solutions to our day to day challenges. Neuroplasticity teaches us that every day the brain seeks new connections to develop its full capacity (around 1,500 new connections a day). According to neuroplasticity, the idea banks we have in the brain can grow. The 5 routines method harnesses this ability to expand our banks of ideas and exploit our full creative potential.
The method is based on training lateral thinking to leave our comfort zone and re-connect with lines of thought that, due to lack of use, had been eliminated by the "synaptic pruning" that occurs in our brain. And also, make new connections with new lines of thought and generate totally new and different ideas to those we are used to.
We are all creative. Creative intelligence is not a gift, it is honed and developed. We are used to having ideas out of necessity, you have to have them out of habit.
Teams and ways of working on creativity
How to find ideas and develop them within the organisation
Companies must form high-performance transversal teams oriented towards innovation and continuous improvement, providing them with the necessary tools and methods.
If our aim is to improve what we are already doing (processes, ways of working in departments or areas, project management, ways of working within a team, etc.) we can use Lean Manufacturing. Using this method, we focus on finding the "seedlings" and eliminating them ("seedlings" are anything that does not add value to the customer).
Another way of developing innovation is by generating ideas and using the Lean Startup method. This can be used when we already have ideas and want to develop them. It consists of developing ideas through hypotheses and gradually creating a minimum viable product, as we test the hypotheses and receive feedback, we improve that minimum viable product until we consider that it is finished and can be developed and converted into innovation.
We can also use the Design Thinking method; this is the most comprehensive method of all, as it serves to solve any problem or need. An initial phase is dedicated to increasing knowledge of the problem or need and analysing all the information we obtain. Once this phase is finished, ideas are generated to solve the problem, the most viable ones are chosen and prototypes of the idea are developed for testing. Using the prototypes, we create a minimum viable product just like in Lean Startup (bear in mind that the prototypes in Design Thinking are the hypotheses in Lean Startup). Once the minimum viable product is finished, the idea starts to be developed so it can be transformed into innovation.
The Design Thinking method can be used in parallel to other techniques or methods, making it the most comprehensive.
“We are all creative. Creative intelligence is not a gift, it is honed and developed”.
In the phases of empathising with the problem and definition, we can use Lean Manufacturing, in the devising phase, we can use the 5 routine method to generate new ideas. And in the prototyping and testing phase, we can use Lean Startup.
Once the final idea has been selected, it is time to prepare the sale of the idea to management. This sale must include:
- Current situation.
- Problems.
- Solution (where you develop on your idea).
- Strategic alignment.
- Feasibility.
- We create a full Pecha Kucha that serves as a support.
When we are clear about the idea that we are going to develop and it is approved by management, a creative team must be set up to develop the innovation. This can be the same team that has generated and tested the idea or a new one, depending on the resources needed.
These teams should be created as follows:
- First, we look for volunteers.
- If there are no volunteers, by referrals.
- If you can't form the team by referrals, then by delegation.
Once the team has been formed, an Agile Inception must be performed, completing all the necessary steps. The aim of this is to clarify expectations and make sure that all team members are clear about the objective, scope, possible problems, risks, etc. before starting to work.
Once the Agile Inception has been completed, the vision of the challenge must be expanded, being clear about the information required to get started and the possible barriers that we might come up against and the solution to them.
It's time to start. First, hold a planning meeting as you need to know all the tasks to be performed. Kick off with a brainstorm of tasks to be done without any particular order. Each task is put on a post-it, the more tasks the better. Once we have defined all the tasks to be performed, prioritise them and prepare a Kanban panel. In the "To Do" column, insert all the tasks prioritised by urgency, the first ones that have to be performed, and so on.
Then plan the next 3 months, introducing the sprints that we are going to perform and their duration. Normally, these sprints last 15 days, but can last a maximum of one month.
When the duration of each sprint is clear, it's time to decide what tasks are going to be performed in that sprint and create a "To Do" column for the sprint.
Finally, the Scrum meetings or ceremonies must be scheduled, first setting retrospective meetings and then daily meetings. Innovation team using hold one or two dailies a week at most. One retrospective meeting should be held per sprint. To round off Scrum meetings or ceremonies, it is a good idea to have one OKRs meeting per month, where you should only look at results, what was planned, the progress made and the problems that have arisen.
“Companies must form high-performance transversal teams oriented towards innovation and continuous improvement, providing them with the necessary tools and methods”.
This is the right way of harnessing creative intelligence within organisations: harnessing all the creative talent of workers, forming innovation teams and employing the method correctly. This offers the company a series of advantages, such as:
- Development of Kaizen culture in teams. To get into the habit of having ideas
- Improved engagement. Improved employee satisfaction and builds team awareness and pride of belonging.
- Improves communication, efficiency, motivation and collaboration within teams.
- Improve the customer experience.
- Most importantly, increased productivity, better use of available resources in a more dynamic was and improved production in line with the priorities of the company and the team.
The development of creative intelligence at organisations is an indispensable element of any company; thanks to it, organisations have evolved and individuals and teams have developed.
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