The Creativity Spark

In the last post, we talked about hunting fireflies as a metaphor for creative teamwork within a company. In this post, we’ll endeavor to clarify the definition of creativity, and the scope of what we are undertaking.

There are many books on developing wacky, brainstorming prompts and driving organizational creativity. While many of these contain great tips and tools for discovering new product ideas, and can be useful with marketing teams for that very purpose, regular business teams focus most often on finding effective ways to capitalize on business opportunities and solve tough challenges. The goal here is not to try and incite a creativity revolution across entire companies, but rather to provide tools that can help guide you down a path that will dramatically improve your team’s effectiveness.

Your time is valuable and limited, and if you lead teams, this blog is worth your while. Team leaders, along with aspiring team leaders and ambitious team members, will find new insights and approaches that will make you even more effective in your role. Your entire team will benefit from applying what you learn here.

To quote Samuel Johnson, “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” My hope is to remind you, in meaningful and memorable ways, of those unique differences that truly distinguish the very best aspects of powerful teams. These things are not hard to understand, but will require the group members’ commitment to stay on track. I have shown teams that once they take that first step and thereby experience—and celebrate—their early successes, a magical transformation occurs.

And the momentum of their collective results sparks new levels of team effectiveness. Each posting will be brief and to the point, while also being fun, entertaining, and memorable through the use of firefly analogies and stories designed to create a flash of “Aha!” Here is a partial listing of topics to be covered:

• What to do when the fireflies don’t show up (or when creativity dries up).
• How to know when it’s time to find a new meadow (or a new approach, place, or process).
• What to do if the leader is keeping too tight a lid on the jar (and team innovation is gasping for air).
• How to get inventive when it rains on your firefly hunt (or parade of ideas).
• What happens when everyone is too busy to join in (and group problems remain unresolved)?
• How synchronizing makes everyone’s light brighter (and how to tap into the power of synergized effort).

You can create the Firefly Effect in your team, group, or organization; and these weekly postings will show you how to go about doing so. The first step on this path is to rediscover your creative spark, helping your team to do so as well. You have creative power within you, and we’ll talk about that, and how we’ll proceed, in our next post.

Let's talk! Reach me by email or phone: 770-989-7030.