Of all the skills you need to develop in your business career, few if any will be as important as your creative abilities in bringing new ideas to the table. Business is all about growth and expansion and to do that, a constant flow of creative ideas needs to be sought and the person that can do that will be sure to excel in their line of work.  The problem is that it’s one of many skills that doesn’t fit into a traditional education.  Too some extent it’s a skill which comes with experience, however there’s no doubt that some people are much better in this area than others.

These sort of soft, creative skills are valuable to any organisation but are traditionally more valued in some than others.   The internet and technology is changing all this though and businesses which don’t embrace change and development are unlikely to survive in the long run,  But how can a person develop an ability in themselves that is not taught in schools or generally perceived to even be a skill at all?

The way to so this is not really so different from the development of any other skill whether it be physical or mental in nature. For example, if you need to be a better athlete and compete for the top achievements, you need to train hard and regularly and push your body to its limits.

Similarly, if you want to achieve a tough intellectual goal or aim for a high educational qualification, you have to learn all you need to know and then study hard so all the information is crammed into your memory for you to recall at will.  You can’t get this by sitting around watching TV, real learning comes from proper studies.

Well, you can go about nurturing your creative talents in a similar way by practicing coming up with new ideas and repeating that procedure regularly and often, which is a broad subject covered amply at axcp.org. What you are essentially doing is re-wiring your brain to use its creative faculties, which are things we all possess but few use to their fullest capabilities.

If you find at first you are simply stumped to come up with even one simple idea, the trick is not to give up at the first hurdle, but keep trying until you succeed. As long as you go at the task with the sure belief that you can manifest ideas, they will come while you remain calm and don’t let yourself get stressed over it.  Nowadays there’s always a way to find inspiration and ideas for virtually any concept – it’s called the internet.  Indeed many marketing firms use the web in creative ways to find new concepts and ideas.  One of them involves scraping data and ideas by using proxies to hide their real location and browse from the perspective of someone located in another country.

The ability to relax and remain calm is a secondary trait that will stand you in good stead when you are trying to come up with ideas and insights that can overcome problems. When you are stressed and uptight, the creative part of your mind gets locked out and the flow of imagination dwindles to nothing. But as soon as you relax, that flow is restarted and you might just surprise yourself at what you can come up with.

The most creative employees are a company’s greatest asset as it is their insights and good ideas that can lift the company to new heights in whatever area of business it happens to occupy. Being one of those people can being greater rewards that you might imagine.

Find out more here: 21st Century Skills