If you answered mostly a’s and c’s you are likely to be a Lone Ranger. Ways to maximise your creativity can include:1. Have a specific ‘creativity’ room which people can spend time in. A dedicated and comfortable space for ideas can help generate ideas. 2. Avoid setting tight deadlines and putting too much pressure on employees to come up with ideas.3. Create an intranet / extranet site where people can share, exchange and dump ideas as and when they think of them.4. Have flowers and plants in the office. Research has shown that this can help to produce 15% more ideas in the workplace.*5. Make music available for people to listen to, letting their mind wander, before coming back to solve a problem / create an idea.6. Visit www.spaceforideas.uk.com and read Richard Wiseman’s amusing essay on how to prime your brain to enable you to generate more ideas, like disposable socks!If you answered b’s and d’s you are likely to be a Tribal Thinker. Ways to maximise your creativity can include:1. Consider re-organising office layouts to enhance working relationships.2. Provide food and drinks in group brainstorming sessions to fuel creativity.3. Enable people from different departments or disciplines to come together regularly to exchange ideas and provide fresh thinking to challenges.4. Encourage everyone to speak at brainstorming sessions – there are no wrong answers and each input may trigger an idea with someone else.5. Alternate between holding more formal, structured brainstorming sessions and more informal get-togethers as different approaches can generate different results.6. Visit www.spaceforideas.uk.com and visit the Ideas Centre for tips on how to get the most out of brainstorm sessions.
Back* The Impact of Flowers and Plants on Workplace Productivity Study was conducted by Roger Ulrich, Ph.D., Behavioural Scientist, Director of the Centre for Health Systems and Design, Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, 2004
