Leadership Memo 2024-1
Happy New Year! Did you have a refreshing time away from work? Now that you’re back from the break, do you find yourself having lots of ideas swimming in your head or flashes of insights that enable you to solve some problems that have been bugging you last year?
If you answer yes, you have just found the secret to innovation!
You see, creativity is the fuel for innovation. To be creative, we cannot be in a hurry or have too much on our plates. Creativity can’t be rushed, planned, or managed. The creative process must include time for reflection and quiet—moments of rumination and time for ideas to be on our brains’ back-burners.
So, let’s dissect what you’ve done over the holiday that rejuvenates your creativity and see if we can replicate that without taking long breaks every time (though having periodic breaks and vacations is an excellent practice).
1. Sleep
Hopefully, you got more sleep during the holidays. Resting is critical to the creative process. New research published in Trends in Creative Sciences Journal suggests it boosts creative problem-solving. Sleep is good for the brain and helps cull thoughts and cement synapses. Staying up until all hours getting the project done or rising at the crack of dawn to get ahead of your emails compromises creativity. Rest well to think well.
2. Connecting with people unlike yourself
During the holidays, you probably reconnected with people unlike you. They are not part of your company, your industry or your function. They do different work, spend their time in different places and think differently than you do. That is great because their new ideas will spur your thinking. So, be intentional about connecting with people who are less like you in your everyday life.
3. Unexpected experiences & different destinations
From week to week, we tend to get into predictable patterns and things get into a routine. During the holidays, your out-of-the-norm experiences help you be more creative. While it’s great to immerse ourselves in unusual destinations on a vacation, you can start with something small, like taking a different route to work or signing up for a class outside your comfort zone. Or just get away from your desk and work somewhere else, or have your meeting in the comfy space near the window rather than the standard conference room. During the weekends, go to the beach, sit in the park or go on a hike. Seeking experiences out of your norm and finding places that stimulate you will help you be more creative.
4. Unplug
Hopefully, you were not always connected during the break, with devices in your hands, checking emails whenever you had a moment of free time. Your brain could finally breathe, consider, and ponder. Now that the holidays are over, resist the urge to be “on” all the time and allow for in-between times to give your brain time to reflect.
So, how might you shake up your current routines and habits to spark more creativity?
Comment below and let me know what you think.
Latest happenings:
SFBABAM (San Francisco Bay Area Business Agility Meetup) is excited to have Steve Denning, Forbes Senior Contributor and acclaimed author of seven leadership and management books, help kick off 2024 with an inspiring event that promises to transform your perspective on management in the digital age. In his talk “Re-imagining Management”, Steve will shine a light on how some pioneering companies are navigating declining productivity, low employee engagement and other troubling trends by adopting a digital-age mindset and processes. You don’t want to miss it! RSVP now!
When: 10 Jan. 11am PST, 2pm EST, 19.00 GMT | 11 Jan. 6am AEDT, 8am NZDT
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a brand new podcast series on “Our Agile Tales” – “Scaling Agile Cross Companies” where we dive deep into the world of Lean-Agile Procurement and explore how it enhances business agility across companies. Join us as Mirko Kleiner, a renowned thought leader in Lean-Agile Procurement, takes us on a journey through a radically different procurement process. In this very first episode, Mirko unveils the innovative approach where all potential vendors meet together with the client, resulting in a groundbreaking example of sourcing an ERP system in just 4 weeks!
Click here to listen or you can go to Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Stitcher.
2 comments