Within the banking industry we do not often think creativity is a requisite for management, (maybe for some people writing credit applications they do apply creativity) and we do not draw the correlation between creativity and leadership. There are many leaders who now credit their success to their creativity and how they have applied this skill to their job. However we do not need to be the inventor of the next Ipad to utlize creativity in the workplace. Too often as leaders we leave our creative side for our outside of work hobbies rather then applying this skill set to our working environment. I know of many leaders within RBC who paint, draw, play music and create outside of work. Perhaps a sharing of these accomplishments inside the workplace would promote more prevalent use of creativity as part of your company's culture?
As an example many do not realize that I enjoy building and fixing things, with a concentration primarily on woodworking. While I a consider myself moderately creative, I find most of my designs revolve around somebody else's design that I have modified such as this bench, a modification of one I saw designed by a great american craftsman. Throughout my career I have attempted to use creative modifications to adapt my leadership style and actions to the current situation, but does this allow creativity to shine through?As leaders and managers we are often implementing strategy on behalf of others, and on the surface this does not promote creativity. This is one of the reasons I have always been envious of those who have the creative insight to build something that nobody else has ever thought of, whether that 'something' is the next great symphony or the latest electronic gadgets. One of the great designers in history was Leonardo deVinci who is still considered one of the world's greatest creators. I recently came across this video that was very reminiscent of deVinci and had me admiring the creative process of the inventor. This is as close as I have seen to deVinci's quest to make a perpetual motion machine.
Wind Powered Robots
A mentor of mine once told me that if you need to try to think outside of the box you will always be stuck inside, so today I will just try to be creative.
