When reading the title before getting into this article, what was your first impression? What do you think the common denominator is? I believe there are two pieces that are important to all three of these roles, creativity, and execution. Some people feel one is easier than the other, but without both, there is no success, so how does one succeed in cultivating both?
Creativity is something that it seems most people believe “just happens”. That is true to some extent, but just like going to the gym and doing a workout puts you in a much better position to be in good shape over time, creating time and space for creative work allows for one to train your creative brain. While it is true that true creative solutions happen in the most random of times, such as the classic “in the shower” aha moment, if you are not actively pursuing creativity, the time from one aha moment to another may be longer than you would hope. We at Abundance believe that creating space for creativity is key to long term success in finding creative solutions to the problems you are seeking to solve.
The second piece needed for success is execution. This is both simple and challenging. Simple in the fact that it is easy to understand how to make things happen, challenging in the fact that most people get in their own way, as decision fatigue can be a real challenge.
Then how do you set up for sustained success? By creating a schedule that short circuits the decision fatigue that can be associated with execution. By putting time on the calendar for execution time, just like you need to for creative time and team meeting time, you can make sure to make consistent progress towards your biggest goals.
At first, it seems contradictory in some ways that creativity and execution both have similar solutions for success, but once you realize that both scheduled time, and allocated brain-space are the recipe for success, you can take your problem solving to the next level whether you are an Innovator, Entrepreneur or Intrapreneur.
A quick recap on how to be successful in problem-solving:
- Create time on your calendar for both CREATIVITY and EXECUTION.
- Stick to your scheduled time. Even if the time doesn’t feel productive every day, the key is consistency.
- Every day won’t be a breakthrough day, don’t get frustrated and trust in the process.
- Creativity does have some randomness to it, BUT creating a practice for cultivating it will lead to better results and outcomes.
- Execution is the missing ingredient for many “Creative” types. Don’t fall into the trap of labeling oneself too drastically on either side of the execution/creative framework, as you will be doing yourself a disservice to creating value by solving problems.
Our passion at Abundance is creative problem solving to find novel solutions. We hope that by using a “Creativity/Execution” framework on a weekly basis, you will find success and joy in the process as well.
Cheers
Team Abundance