Column 4X4 CHANGES: ON BECOMING A "CREATIVE" EXECUTIVE OFFICER

       Vision can only be realised by creativity. We are moving from an information age to a conceptual age in which survival will depend on high concept and a deft touch.
       In order to understand the urgency surrounding your job, your company and your responsibilities to your staff, ask yourself three questions:
       Is anyone cheaper than I am? Is anyone faster than I am? Do I add value with the products and services I offer?
       If you answer the first two questions with yes and the last with no, then you have good reasons to worry and a need to change.
       Start with unusual, "crazy" thinking to find "out of the box" ideas. Issues could be solved a lot faster if all CEOs followed George Bernard Shaw's great portrayal of a visionary: "Some men see things as they are and say: 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say: 'Why not?'"
       In crisis times, a CEO must perceive himself or herself as a creative executive, and not a rank- and status-driven chief executive.
       In order to add value, you need ideas and a creativity-focused company culture. There are many ways to learn creativity and what the left and right sides of your brain can do for you. Books by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Daniel Pink are a great start. Creativity can be enhanced by lateral thinking, mind mapping, brainstorming and synectic thinking, to name only a few techniques I work with.
       I have interviewed more than 100 people of different nationalities to see where ideas come from - where and how people get ideas. To understand what culture you need to create, undertake this exercise with your staff.
       There are three questions that will help you to research and understand the "idea development" process in a team: where do you get ideas? Do the ideas come in a structured or haphazard way? Do the ideas come in a state of stress or relaxation?
       If you know the answers to these questions, you will know where and how to get ideas. Create for your team a working place and a situation in which they can generate new ideas. Good ideas are everywhere: at your job, in your hobbies, in your people, in the hospitality economy. You must become a "sponge", with curiosity about everything around you, based on all your senses: observe, read, write, listen, smell, taste and feel new ideas.
       Regard other people's brains as gold mines. Do not be afraid to recruit employees with higher IQs than yours, but keep your creative juices running. Fashion designer Paul Smith sums it up in a nut shell with the advice: "Be unique."
       This is the fifth of a seven-part series on 4 x 4 Changes, authored by Mercedes-Benz (Thailand) president and CEO Alexander Paufler.