7 Ways To Finally Get Your Team On The Same Page Making sure everyone know’s what’s going on isn’t just courteous–it’s essential to a smoothly functioning business. Photo: Flickr user. Signing your child up for drama camp, art class and pottery club can't really hurt, of course, but after-school and weekend classes aren't what matters most when it comes to nurturing creativity. What's essential is giving your child the space and freedom to discover and develop his/her own creative passions in unstructured ways.
Creativity is something that many look beyond and don't even think of as something of importance in the world of business, or in the nature of the success you build for yourself. Creativity is one of the greatest qualities any of us can be blessed with, yet many never allow their true creativity to be expressed.
Our society doesn't approve of creativity, nor does it ever encourage it. Why? Because it never wants people to think for themselves or create their own paths in life. Think back from the point you were a child to the point you are an adult- you are always told what to do by society and that you have to do it.
School actually limits our creativity more than anything else because it is so egregious and is solely focused on how well you can cram and memorize things you will forget right after the fact, which is why we all hate it.
'Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.'-Pablo Picasso
What many don't realize is that the reason society does this to us is because it doesn't want us to think for ourselves. It basically wants us to be robots and live the average, pedestrian, American dream that entails nothing more and nothing less than what our basic needs are.
Because our creativity is stripped by the time we are ready to enter into the real world, many decide to take the easy way out and get that job that doesn't require much effort, forever living life the way society wants us to rather than the way we ourselves want to.
This is the exact reason why so many become miserable before their 30s and feel like they have gone no where in life. This is the exact reason why so many people within Generation-Y are so lost in life and have no idea what route to take when it comes time to making a decision.
“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try” – Dr. Seuss
The reason they have no idea what they want to do is because they hate everything they do- all because society is telling them what to do rather than allowing us to create our own ideas and make our own decisions.
In today's business world the only way to separate yourself from the rest is not with your fancy resume that you printed at Kinkos, or your GPA that you basically overdosed on Adderall in order to attain. It is how well you can think for yourself and actually use your creativity that separates you from everyone else.
When most people out there see a problem, they just complain about it instead of trying to resolve it because they never had to use their creativity to problem shoot before.
We live in a world that is constantly becoming innovated with new concepts, ideas and technology. Having the creativity to help innovate something that has never been created before- anything from a product to a piece of art- is all based on where your mind wants to take you. But so many never even allow their mind to journey out of their cubicle, but instead get stuck in that cubicle for the rest of their lives.
People in today's world need to realize that individuals in leadership positions must be creative and become creative problem solvers as these are skills of the future. You need to unleash your creativity and understand how important it truly is to have it flourish throughout your life and career.
“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity” – Charles Mingus
Many times in today's world there is little time to no time allocated towards real thinking and brainstorming, or even experimentation without judgment. With so much pressure to produce quick results in the current economic environment, it may seem like a luxury to walk away from the mountain of tasks to be accomplished.
What you need to understand is that your creativity is what makes your life fun and is what gets you excited each and everyday you wake up in the morning.
That is when you allow yourself to be your true self- you must stop worrying about what other people think or say about you. If you have fun doing it and it keeps you constantly thinking and trying to figure out a new and better way, then that is what you need to focus on in life because creativity is what pushes passion.
Think about it like this: How many times have you heard about a producer say he was up all night working on a song? Or an artist working 5 days straight on a new piece? They don't complain about it; they love it and live for their creativity, allowing it to push them beyond their limits and above their boundaries.
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, the just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while” – Steve Jobs
When you allow your creativity to prosper, don't even worry about money because that comes as a result. You will truly live life when you are doing what you like to do, what excites and challenges your mind each and everyday. That is what allows you to inspire those around you and have them work their ass off for you each and everyday, because they love your creativity and you let them feed off of theirs.
Without creativity there would be no innovation. We would continue to be cavemen. They say some of the most creative people work for Apple and that they regularly set time aside from each day to brainstorm and let their minds take them somewhere that they didn't think existed.
You are blessed with creativity. It can be in any industry, so go out there and don't be afraid to show it to the world. The saddest thing in the world is a wasted talent. Don't be just that. Live up to your potential.
Preston Waters | Elite.
To make a good decision, you need to have a sense of two things: how different choices change the likelihood of different outcomes and how desirable each of those outcomes is. In other words, as Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb have written, decision making requires both prediction and judgment.
But how do you get better at either? We’ve published volumes on this subject —hereare a fewofmyfavorites — but there are three rules that stand out. Following them will improve your ability to predict the effects of your choices and assess their desirability.
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Rule #1: Be less certain.
Nobel-prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman has said that overconfidence is the bias he’d eliminate first if he had a magic wand. It’s ubiquitous, particularly among men, the wealthy, and even experts. Overconfidence is not a universal phenomenon — it depends on factors including culture and personality — but the chances are good that you’re more confident about each step of the decision-making process than you ought to be.
So, the first rule of decision making is to just be less certain — about everything. Think choice A will lead to outcome B? It’s probably a bit less likely than you believe. Think outcome B is preferable to outcome C? You’re probably too confident about that as well.
Once you accept that you’re overconfident, you can revisit the logic of your decision. What else would you think about if you were less sure that A would cause B, or that B is preferable to C? Have you prepared for a dramatically different outcome than your expected one?
You can also practice aligning your level of your confidence to the chance that you’re correct. Try out quizzes like this one or this one. You’ll realize that while it’s not possible to always be right, it’s totally possible to become less overconfident.
Rule #2: Ask “How often does that typically happen?”
Kahneman tells a story of a time when he was collaborating on a textbook and asked his coauthors to estimate the date on which they’d complete their first draft. Everyone, including Kahneman, said somewhere between 18 months and two and a half years. Then he asked one of those coauthors, who had been involved in countless textbook projects, how long it typically took. In fact, the collaborator answered, 40% of groups never finished the book, and he couldn’t think of a project that had finished within seven years. This was a textbook about rationality, and the coauthor had answered without thinking about previous cases. That person’s mistake, and the point of Kahneman’s story, is that they should have thought about how long similar projects typically take.
In general, research suggests, the best starting point for predictions — a key input into decision making — is to ask “How often does that typically happen?” If you are considering funding a startup, you might ask: What percentage of startups fail? (Or, what percentage succeed?) If your company is considering an acquisition, it should start by asking how often acquisitions enhance the acquirer’s value or otherwise further its goals.
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This rule, known as the base rate, comes up a lot in the research on prediction, but it might be helpful for the judgment side of decision making, too. If you think outcome B is preferable to outcome C, you might ask: How often has that historically been the case? For instance, if you’re thinking about starting a company, and you’re weighing the possibility of spending years on a company that will fail against staying in your current job, you might ask: How often do entrepreneurs who fail end up wishing they’d stayed at their previous job?
The idea with both prediction and judgment is to get away from the “inside view,” where the specifics of the decision overwhelm your analysis. Instead, you want to take the “outside view,” where you start with similar cases before considering the specifics of your individual case.
Rule #3: Think probabilistically — and learn some basic probability.
The first two rules can be implemented right away; this one takes a bit of time. But it’s worth it. Research has shown that even relatively basic training in probability makes people better forecasters and helps them avoid certain cognitive biases.
If you’re not comfortable with probability, there’s no better investment to improve your decision making than spending even 30 minutes to an hour learning about it. You can start with Khan Academy’s introduction on coin flipping.
Improving your ability to think probabilistically will help you with the first two rules. You’ll be able to better express your uncertainty and to numerically think about “How often does this usually happen?” The three rules together are more powerful than any of them alone.
Even though these rules are all things you can start using relatively quickly, mastering them takes practice. In fact, after you use them for a little while, you may become overconfident about your ability to make decisions. Great decision makers don’t follow these rules only when facing a particularly difficult choice; they return to them all the time. They recognize that even seemingly easy decisions can be hard — and that they probably know less than they think.