How can you inspire creativity when developing a new strategy?

Easier said than done, but yes, what is the challenge you're solving for? What is the business challenge vs the real human obstacle to overcome. If your brand/product overcomes a real problem it will open up multiple strategic and creative avenues. When we skip over the challenge, we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Creative solutions happen because everyone that should have a voice in the problem solving phase get a chance to contribute. If people don’t weigh-in, they won’t buy-in to the solution. Surveys, town hall meetings, and simply asking for feedback during one-on-ones go along way. Just the exercise of listening helps other to feel heard. Listen. Consider. Implement.

Question preconceived notions and assumptions to get to the core of the issue. Start by identifying and understanding the foundational principles or facts that constitute the challenge. Analyze each element independently, gaining a clear understanding of their properties and how they interact. It's fundamental building blocks you can reimagine and design solutions from the ground up, ensuring they align with the essential truths of the problem.

Defining challenges can be challenging in itself. If we can understand the situation properly then it would already start to solve the problem as well. Basically, challenges must be identified at the very beginning of the operation. It's the Leadership's responsibility to create a certain framework of spotting Issues and Opportunities for an action plan up to recovery as well. It's always better to have clarity and better understanding which articulate the positive impact, and the impact create a determination to success. We must set the goal and timeline together with team for every single even small ‘Challenges to be converted towards Opportunity ‘

Understanding the Problem or Goal: Define it clearly: What exactly is the issue? If it's a goal, what is the desired outcome? Be as specific as possible. Understand the context: How did this problem arise? What are the underlying causes? What are the consequences if it remains unsolved? If it's a goal, why is this objective important? What benefits will achieving this goal bring? Identify stakeholders: Who is affected by this problem or goal? Who would benefit from a solution or the achievement of this goal? Stakeholders can provide valuable insights and feedback.

When you are looking to create a strategy, get a variety of perspectives. One of the most exciting things about meeting and working with so many people is you get to learn from them. What they are thinking about. How they solve problems. What they view as challenges or opportunities. Strategy can be informed by others that aren’t just consultants, in the strategy department, or C suite. Accountants, IT, Clinicians, Operations, and trades people can offer insights that others might miss. And, don’t forget to talk to your customers/patients. Ask them what they want to see improved and what the pain points are. Listen to the feedback, find the trends, collaborate to develop solutions, and watch efficiency and morale improve.

Exploring diverse perspectives by engaging a wide array of resources, encompassing various ages, races, educational backgrounds, experiences, roles, and more, is a powerful strategy for enriching understanding. People from different age groups and life stages can offer distinct viewpoints based on their experiences. Varying educational backgrounds can bring forth different methodologies and approaches to problem-solving. Diverse professional experiences and roles contribute nuanced understandings of the same situation. Collectively, this diversity enhances creativity, fosters innovation, and cultivates a more inclusive and holistic perspective that can lead to well-rounded and effective solutions.

Take the notion of exploring perspectives further. Challenge team members to walk in the shoes of the customer (or other stakeholder) for a week, keeping the challenge in mind but also keeping an eye out for the challenges that lie below the surface that are also influencing your stakeholders. When we get into strategy/creative development mode, as marketers, we can be susceptible to tunnel vision where all we see is our problem and our solution. It is natural because we are focused on the project at hand, but it can blur out the real opportunities and insights we need to build on when we see the reality of those we are trying to serve. Finding ways to live our stakeholders' experience will bring us closer to connecting with them.

Boards are responsible for the strategic direction of any business, with the CEO held responsible ultimately for successful execution. My experience is that creative thinking is best achieved by having a diverse Board and then asking the whole Board to bring its whole self to the development or revising of strategic direction and supporting strategies. The Non Executives have a crucial role to play from the beginning of the process through to final oversight.

The best way to ensure you've explored all different perspectives/different customers, is to have varied voices and points of view in the process! No way you can address what a Gen Z customer wants, if you don't have any Gen Z voices and presence in the process/team! If you don't have employees in the demographic (well then you need some!), but at least, do customer research/insight, formalize insight from friends/family members. Don't assume you know what customer type XX wants, ask them!

Be sure to encourage diversity of thought by inviting different perspectives from different stakeholder groups, customer groups, user groups or staff. Don't leave this up to happy accident or chance. Set up a system or framework to ensure that these different perspectives are covered.

I particularly like “open ended thinking” sessions. It really encourages creativity. The sessions can be time boxed, but in that time no conclusions or goals need to be defined or reached. Once people get the hang of it and get comfortable it can result in clarity and a stronger strategy.

Quality and relevance trump sheer quantity. While having a high quantity of ideas can indeed demonstrate a breadth of thinking, it doesn't necessarily guarantee enhanced creativity or effective solutions. A barrage of ideas can be overwhelming, making it challenging to sift through and identify truly innovative and valuable concepts. Moreover, an emphasis on quantity can lead to superficial brainstorming, where individuals may prioritize generating numerous ideas quickly rather than deeply exploring and refining a select few. Ultimately, it's the insightful, applicable, and transformative ideas that drive true creative progress.

Brainstorming is an act of collective creativity. Here are some techniques to brainstorm. ?? The 'Target' Method: Visualize your problem as a target, and your ideas as arrows. The closer to the center, the more relevant the idea. ?? The 'Role-Playing' Approach: Immerse yourself in a different persona. How would an artist, a scientist, or a child approach your problem? ?? The 'Branching' Technique: Think of your problem as a tree. The trunk represents the main issue, the branches signify the different aspects, and the leaves are potential solutions. ?? The 'SWOT' Method: Analyze Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. These techniques not only foster innovation but also improve team dynamics.

If you're naturally a creative person, it can be stifling to have too many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to generating ideas. I personally find it most effective to set aside days/times where I can be uninterrupted to research and develop different concepts. When the strategies are better baked, then I can leverage my team to choose which idea will resonate and take to the next level, and play devil's advocate to see where it may fail.

Refining ideas is often about discerning what needs to be removed, as the right ideas usually exist within the initial pool if the ideation process was executed effectively. The subsequent refinement stage entails careful analysis and synthesis, identifying the essence and core value of each idea. It's about stripping away extraneous elements, simplifying complexities, and distilling the concepts to their fundamental and impactful components.

Refining ideas is the toughest part. I'll suggest an unpopular way to do this - BUDGET. If your client has a limited budget, there's an additional impetus to be more creative within the constraint. Often times creative teams will pretend like budget can be dealt with later and that's when campaigns go south. Instead, start with the constraints and unlikely audiences and find ways to make good ideas stick. Consistency and longevity matter!

Combining and refining ideas should not always be about elimination; however, how to organize the strategy. Organization does not need to be reduction, yet how to strategically manage resources to execute. When combining and refining ideas, consider owners (from data, human capital, and financial assets) and also determine timeline -- some ideas can not nor should not be immediate and may be dependent on other ideas to complete first. This will help you to form priorities and maximize the impact of the strategy.

Once I got my feedback on the idea clinic, I would select a dozen ideas that I would craft into concepts and expose them to consumers via focus groups. The group is not meant to vote on the best but to highlight issues with the idea you did not think about or areas to develop further.

Após coletar um conjunto de ideias, é o momento de combiná-las e aprimorá-las para criar conceitos mais sólidos e atrativos para sua estratégia. Identifique conex?es, padr?es e temas entre as ideias e ajuste, adicione ou remova elementos conforme necessário. Utilize métodos de avalia??o, como análise SWOT, prós e contras, ou matriz de pontua??o, para filtrar e priorizar suas ideias de acordo com os critérios estabelecidos. Esse processo ajudará a desenvolver conceitos mais refinados e viáveis para sua estratégia.

Creating a prototype can be a relatively straightforward task, but finding the right group to test it and obtaining relevant feedback is the critical focal point. Identifying the right target audience for testing is paramount, as their insights and reactions will provide invaluable information for refining and optimizing the prototype. Engaging with a diverse group that mirrors the potential end-users ensures a comprehensive understanding of the varying needs, preferences, and challenges that may arise. Ultimately, successful prototyping hinges on the quality and relevance of feedback obtained, allowing for informed decisions and iterative improvements in the design and functionality of the envisioned solution.

Prototyping and testing ideas is the best way to gain advocacy, support, and evolve the strategy. Prototyping first helps to break down the implementation of the strategy into phases. It will help you to learn, collect feedback, and evaluate the success of the strategy. From this understanding you should evolve and more importantly communicate how the strategy has evolved based on lessons learned, best practices, and feedback.

We utilize a combination of Design Thinking and Agile methodologies. This approach is a test-and-learn methodology that enables us to prototype and swiftly test business models, ideas, and products. We test various Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) to comprehend the value that each feature or combination of features provides to the customer, ultimately addressing their needs effectively.

What this is referring to is not about nor reliving to developing a new strategy. Low fidelity prototyping is not a component of strategy development in the way this article is trying to demonstrate it. This would be useful for a new product, system, or process, but not in the development of a new strategy.

Prototyping is a step often missed by organizations in a rush to bring to market. Then you realize your mistakes and need to go back to the drawing board to fix the problems wasting more time and resources. In my experience, prototyping (or soft launch in a service business) is critical to simulate any issue in execution. Likewise, testing the aspects of your idea which have the biggest financial impact, may be a good thing. Testing may allow you to sell at higher price, to launch a different size, flavor, change the name etc.

I use an agile, iterative approach to rapidly refine and enhance my innovations based on user feedback. This cycle of prototyping, testing, and improvement sharpens my solutions, delivering greater customer value and alignment with market needs.

Iterating means having a continuous evolution mindset. Taking top three ideas and simulating them for UX helps a lot. I'd also warn against the dangers of over iterating an idea. Instinct also plays a role here along with data!

As a leader, say ‘yes’ more than you say ‘no’. Enabling your team to try, and try, and try, is where true innovation comes from. Empowering them to actually do so comes from your willingness to being open-minded, your fearlessness in the face of possible (and likely) failure, and your humbleness in knowing you don’t hold all of the ideas. Innovation is a team effort and leaders must pave that path for all.

Two things are crucial to create an innovative environment. If your company culture encourages Interactivity with team members preferably mixed with diverse background on a regular basis which create out of the box ideas And, If your company culture allows your employees to posses responsibility,authority and accountability in real terms which has a tremendous effect on their ownership of their companies which has also great triggering effect

Embrace Failure: Understand that every idea might not be a winner, and that's okay. Failure can be a stepping stone to innovation. Continuous Learning: Encourage team members to constantly learn, be it through courses, reading, webinars, or conferences. A well-informed team is more likely to come up with innovative ideas. Feedback Loops: Regularly seek feedback on ideas and strategies from various stakeholders. This iterative process can refine and improve the strategy over time. Time for Reflection: Allow people to have quiet time to think, meditate, or even take a walk. Sometimes, the best ideas come when we step back from a problem.

Your customer is always the first priority! Not the shareholders, not the CEO, not the social media. If your customer is not at the center and the reason for everything, then you're failing and doing a disservice to your customer and your product/service/company potential.

In my experience, creativity is a shy creature. When searching and thinking hard about a problem the ideas, solutions and creativity are elusive. Its when you're in the shower, walking the dog or shopping that the idea hits you, and your creativity floods you with possibilities. I think for creativity to blossom, we need space to do nothing, and what I mean by that is: headspace to do nothing, where we let our minds wander and open. As for the strategies to solve a problem, I often start a the "End Goal" I to want to achieve. I then work backwards, listing all the parts I need to have in place, defining mechanisms and actions, to establish a solution or process to reach the goal.