Everybody knows creativity is important in the entertainment world, right? So why bother to write a blog post about something so obvious? Good question. I hope you like the answer.
In the circumstances many, if not most, radio folks find themselves in today it can be difficult to hold on to creativity as a major priority. Fewer people are doing more jobs, and doing them as fast as possible. Creativity becomes a “nice to have” instead of a must.
For winners, big winners, creativity remains a key principle in what they do. It’s one of the key characteristics of such diverse organizations as Google, Pixar, and the New England Patriots.
But don’t take my word for it. McKinsey and Company, the world’s largest management consulting firm, recently published a study that looked at the relationship between creativity and financial success at a large number of companies. As a proxy for company-wide creativity they used a measure based on winning creative advertising awards at the Cannes Festival.
What they found was that the most creative companies had higher revenue growth, shareholder return, and enterprise value. Clearly, more creative = more profitable.
Then they did two more studies, this time looking for business practices common to the most creative companies. They found four key practices or principles;
1. They make creativity a business priority. In other words, at these companies creativity and innovation are seen as essential, not desirable. There are goals and deadlines attached to creativity (yes, there are ways to make creativity happen on schedule).
2. They are fanatically devoted to understanding their customers. If you’ve ever watched a set of radio focus groups, you know how just listening and watching listeners talk helps you generate tons of ideas – promotions, imaging, new product benefits and attributes, etc. Focus groups and large perceptual studies are great, but not the only ways, to get to understand your target. It can be as simple as just talking to them (a lot of them) and asking good questions. And for P1s at least, a Survey Monkey questionnaire sent to your database can generate a lot of information about your users.
3. They act quickly. Once they understand something important, they translate insight into action focused on clear goals. I found it interesting that none of the companies ranked in the bottom 25% of creativity scores said risk-taking was encouraged at their firm.
4. Once they make changes, they continue to learn from customer and marketplace reaction. Thus these four practices create a cycle: It’s important > learn from the audience > create for the audience > monitor the response and keep learning > create more.
One thing I would add to that is something that shouldn’t need saying, but does: think about the audience. Learning and thinking about the customer is how you generate insight – and insight is what keeps you fresh and helps you avoid the trap of doing something because others do it, or doing it the way the others do it.
Here are a few things you can do to increase creativity in your department or organization:
1. Make sure creativity is valued and recognized. That encourages the behavior.
2. Make sure your people know that everyone has the ability to be creative. It isn’t a gift given to some people and not others.
3. Make it clear that creativity is a high priority, and keep reminding people of that.
4. Schedule creative sessions. You can’t sit around hoping for a spark to strike you. As the writer Jack London noted, “You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” Important things get scheduled so that they get done.
5. Make the sessions fun and playful. Throw a ball around. Never criticize or allow others to criticize an idea, no matter how wacky or undoable it might seem at first. Most good ideas start out looking like bad ones.
Have another way to generate creativity at your place? I’d love to hear it.
If you’d like to read the McKinsey report for yourself, it’s right here.