I’ve always found being creative within a business context to be problematic at best. You have to be creative to be successful yet the business day is, most of the time, designed for anything but creativity.
I’ve gone off on this tack after reading the Stimuli and Inputs post on Jennifer Rice’s blog, What’s Your Brand Mantra? But I often think about this because I have always found it difficult to be "creative" at work. And this has always been a probelm because I’m usually the one they expect creativity from.
But let’s be honest: you don’t just schedule creativity into your day. ("Sorry, I can’t make the 2:00 meeting. I’m scheduled to be creative between 2 and 3.") It doesn’t work that way. Still, a business can’t function if their people are wandering off to be creative in the park at any time of the day or night.
At the risk of making creativity sound a bit like a prima-donna antic, the brain wave activity required by most business activity is beta (the 40HZ frequency). This is the world of meetings, presentations, spreadsheets and so on.
But it’s the alpha range where creativity happens (7-12 HZ). And alpha borders (at 7 HZ) on theta, where dreaming occurs. The thing about alpha is it is the place you reside when you are stress free. Relaxed. Not giving a rat’s behind about anything. When you go there, ideas start popping up.
I think, however, once you’ve snagged your ideas in alpha you then likely go to beta to work out the kinks, strategize and develop. But generating the ideas requires alpha. For me, I usually find it very difficult to jump back and forth. When I’m in beta, I’m in beta. It takes a while to go to alpha. (I think it may be easier, though, going from alpha to beta.)
Mind you, I ain’t no expert. This is simply how I read it.
I’m sure there are a number of approaches to take for dealing with this apparent conflict. I’ve been in businesses where they’ve tried to create conditions for idea generation. (Personal note: I hate brainstorming sessions.) As a rule, I don’t find them successful – at least for me.
This is where, I think, a freelancer has an advantage over a writer on salary. Freelance, I can (and have) simply walked away from my work and done something very stress free. Sometimes it’s as simple as buying groceries. Wandering the aisles, in no great rush, I find myself thinking about whatever the problem is and I come up with ideas. Later, I return and find the work gets done very quickly.
In fact, I think if you don’t take this kind of approach, the work takes a lot longer – there’s a big negative impact on efficency and quality. Still, how does a business accommodate this kind of thing and still function smoothly as a business?
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