Page 16 - AeM_Sept_2017

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

How to train your dragon

When was the last time you were really taken by sur- the rabbit hole? Surely, if innovation is the new bread
prise? and butter, we should be laying the table to serve it up?

It happened in a rather humdrum construction meeting The problem is that, in an effort to transform, compa-
the other day, when a lawyer walked into the room. nies are still concentrating on the wrong things to get
There was a tricky problem thrown down on the table; all there. ‘Beer and pizza hackathon weekends’ aren’t
thirty construction personnel were either nodding off or enough to turn our work cultures into innovative bee-
furling their brows at it ‒ not a creative dragon among hives, if our people themselves are not innovating be-
them. The client wanted to reduce the time it took to in- tween Mondays and Fridays. After all, it is people ‒ not
stall a monster pump, and no one seemed to have the companies ‒ who bring transformative ideas to life.
solution.
We need to foster spaces and conversations that move
Then from the sideline: “why don’t you just build an ac- beyond the jargon and the generic, and tap into the
curate mock-up and have one last weld instead of two?” uniquely creative thought processes of the individual.
Science and experience tell us that humanity is hard-
The silence in the room indicated a bomb had just ex- wired to harbour a creative dragon within. Our job is to
ploded. Who would have expected the answer to come find it, and to wake it up.
from the one in the designer suit, who doesn’t own a
toolbox? But in fact, it was the only possible solution A case for creativity
there was, and it seemed to have taken an untrained eye
to not see the obvious limitations. We’re sure you’ve heard it said many times before, that
so-and-so is ‘oh so left-brained’. The idea is a rather
In today’s corporate world, you need sharp elbows and nifty, convenient one, where personality traits and cog-
quick instincts to stay onboard the innovation bandwag- nitive defaults are thought to be cultivated on one side
on. Creativity is now elemental in the race to stay on top. of the brain. Those known as left-brainers are logical,
So, why is it that (all too often, it seems) we need a com- analytical, focused, sticklers for details, while the right-
plete outsider in the room to help us see our way out of brainers are creative, intuitive, saving the world one
16 September 2017 - Immersive & Engagement Marketing (AR / VR)