“Please follow the process!”. “Why aren’t you following the process?”. “The processes are there to help you”.

We hear such lines all the time in our working environment. Processes, processes, processes. They are there to assist us to be more productive. They are there…well….to calm down the bosses because if we follow processes, things won’t easily go out of control. Well, not THAT much anyway.

To be honest with you, processes are fine but sticking too much to the processes can be counter-productive. But most importantly, it dulls the creativity of your people because they are being given a pretty tight constraint to work within. After all, most processes exist in order to control the people so that they don’t stray too far away from what they are supposed to do.

The funny thing is, after introducing such limiting processes, the bosses will start questioning their employees why aren’t they using their creativity at work? Then they will try to come out with MORE processes to promote creativity among the employees.

I guess the bosses or whoever that wants to come out with processes, should remember that creativity is not something that can be calculated – unlike the results of following a process. And it is not something which should be restrained by the processes. If you want to promote creativity, then remove the processes. Those 2 can hardly work together – there are occasions where the 2 can work together, but companies have the thread carefully…because not everyone can do that successfully without screwing up or making the bosses angry.

So yes, processes do dull creativity. Tell me if you think otherwise. I cannot think of how someone can be creative when he/she has to follow step (1) to step (10) as per the process.

Last but not least, people should remember that nowadays, companies need to rely on creativity and innovation more than they need to rely on boring processes. Processes are there to help, but creativity and innovation are there to make them win in the competition. So which should you be focusing on? It’s your choice.

p/s….. having said that, I don’t deny that certain processes should always be to keep things under control. Imagine what is it like if your HR person or account person try to be too creative by ignoring the processes.

In school, our teachers told us to use those notepads with the thin blue lines in them. This is to prevent our handwritings from becoming messy. Well, not a bad thing for someone who was learning how to write. The funny thing is, after 12 years in school, we were still being asked to write in between those thin blue lines. This to me, seems more like limiting our creativity than anything else.

It’s the same in life. Some people say that life is like an empty piece of blank paper and it’s up to us to scribble on it using our creativity. But most often than not, the blank papers that we are provided with are those with the thin blue lines which actually limit us. We are confined to those ‘lines’. Rules, processes, procedures and regulations to name a few. Try drawing some diagrams or writing vertically instead of horizontally, or just try something different and I am sure everything will be very messy. But when we wanted to use the blank white paper, whatever we wrote on it will be ignored because it’s just not the ‘right’ format.

I do understand that some people can really make a big mess by writing on those blank white paper but I also believe everyone should be allowed to be creative. Who knows what they might come out with? If you are one of the people who are still using those notepads to write your own notes, maybe it’s time for a change? Unlease your creativity by writing on the blank white paper. Throw away those lined notepads which have accompanied us all these years. Don’t limit yourselves. And I think it’s actually more fun to write on the blank papers too.

Remember, doodle more, write more, visualize more and use more blank white papers – not those boring notepads.

And don’t forget to recycle them properly.

Just a few days ago (or was it last week? or the week before? I couldn’t remember), I mentioned to some people that the level of creativity among companies/corporations/businesses (and sadly, criminals as well) will rise in 2009 due to the recession. And my “wild guess” seems to be heading to the right direction as mentioned by this article – Recession = More Creativity + Higher Rates of Entrepreneurship.

Why is that so?

This is good!! Maybe we'll have an automated coffee machine as well?

Reason is simple. When everyone is having a good time in the good economy, there’s no reason why people should take such high risks and venture into something uncertain – when creativity and entrepreneurship are  concerned, it means uncertainty, even with a proper plan. People are willing to just sit down, relax, and enjoy the benefits and money that the good economy brings. After all, nobody is going to take their rice bowls away from them. And those competitors who try to be too creative? They’ll either perish before we know their name, or they’ll become very successful……….which is VERY RARE.

Well, that’s the assumption of most people anyway.

But when time is bad and economy has gone terribly wrong, some people will lose their jobs and some businesses/corporations/companies will be forced into a corner or a tight spot. Remember that I mentioned before, when one is pushed to a corner without anywhere to run……..one will be forced to take the risk which he/she was not willing to take few months before. Dire circumstances call for desperate changes. If they don’t change, they’ll just perish like the rest.

That is why when people have nothing more to lose (like jobless people), they will be willing to take up higher risks and be creative. Same goes for businesses and corporations because when the “normal way” doesn’t save them…….maybe the “abnormal way” will.

So expect to see more creative products (and sometimes useless) and ideas coming out in 2009. As consumer, let’s enjoy the ride. We deserve it! After all, our money is becoming a rare commodity in 2009!

You don’t have to be the most creative person in the world to come up with the best idea ever. And even if you do come out with a ground breaking idea, do you think you can implement it and most importantly, market it successfully? Coming out with an idea is not difficult but coming out with a good idea is not easy too.

That’s why some businesses especially the big boys don’t tend to come out with their original ideas. They steal other people’s ideas or buy from them. Well, not many buy actually, most of them prefer to steal or …improvise. For example, Apple did not come out with the first MP3 player of the world. They did come out with the first IPod in the world and the first ITunes (which is pretty similar to Napster, except you need to pay). What they did is to capture the heart of the consumers and to see what they need – performance and beauty. That is why IPod is such a big hit. It sounds better than most MP3 players and it looks a lot prettier than its competitors. Same idea, different implementation and marketing plan.

What about Google? They are definitely not the first company to come out with a search engine. We have Lycos, Yahoo, AltaVista (which..somehow..disappeared) and the terribly unsuccessful MSN Search. You might argue that Google was the engine behind Yahoo’s search engine…but that’s a totally different story. What matters here is who came out with the idea first? Maybe it’s Yahoo and maybe it’s Google…but from what I can see now, Google is far more successful than Yahoo because they redesigned the search engine and added a lot of goodies to the users. More features, better and more optimized results, but all built from the same idea.

Another example, our very own Air Asia. Are they the one who came out with the idea of budget airline? Definitely not. There are already other such ideas being implemented in the world but mainly in US and Europe. What Air Asia did was to take the idea and reimplement it in this region because nobody else has done this before. And they become a very big hit in a very short amount of time. Same idea, same implementation, different location and different timing.

From the above examples, you can see that you don’t really need to come out with a good or even great idea. Because it’s not that easy. If you can come out with one, then kudos to you but if you can’t, don’t blame yourself and it’s not the end of the world. You can still start a successful business and have a successful product. At the end of the day, it’s not just about the idea, but the way you market it, the way you position your product, the overall implementation and the timing.

So for those people who always say “Why do you want to start a business when you don’t even have a great idea? Come out with one first before you plan anything!”, maybe it’s time to reposition your stand?

I’ve noticed that nowadays, there are not many companies (maybe these companies actually don’t exist?) which promote creativity among the employees especially in this South East Asia region. Most companies will just ask the employees to hit the ground running and throw them into projects. Once completed, or when there’s no project, they will throw them to work on internal project or just let them idle. Reason? So that when a new project comes in, they can start immediately. And why they don’t allow employees to try and be creative? Because that’s not considered to be productive.

I think this is a very bad idea. Without creativity and innovation, how can a company progress? Just crunching the numbers and sales figure, or get more sales team out to win more projects? Maybe it CAN indeed work, but is it for short term or long term?

In my opinion, bosses or supervisors should start promoting innovation and creativity among the employees. Invent more innovative and creative products. Produce efficient solutions. Who knows, maybe they can come out with something really useful which can benefit their customers greatly, rather than just giving the same solution over and over again (for different customers). After all, the most successful and popular products are results of creativity and innovation.

But well, that’s just my opinion anyway. Deep inside my heart, I really hope that more companies will behave like Apple and Google – to promote creativity and innovation. And hopefully, there will be more cool, creative and useful products for people to use (and buy).

As for our beloved country Malaysia, I think we will need to wait for few more years (10? 20? or maybe 30 years) before the companies here can change their mindset and start promoting creativity and innovation.