![]() |
Creativity Information |
|
|
Improve Your Bottom Line, Kens Idea Saved over $100,000
Engaged employees can show us the way to continuously improve. Customers want our products and services to be better, delivered faster, and produced less expensively. This means that everything we do needs to be improved. All employees can be thinking about how to reduce costs, looking at safety issues, reducing wastes, and improving the environment, while at the same time developing skills to identify, articulate and communicate those kinds of things. The Gallup Organization has studied thousands of companies and surveyed millions of employees. Their research has shown that very few employees are engaged and that a relatively small increase in the amount of engaged workers can reap great benefits for a company. At the lowest level, engaged employees help a company stay in business and at a higher level employees start thinking about how they can improve themselves. They can take some ownership over their job; and also over their own development. It starts people thinking in new and different ways about the things they do. In the book, ??First, Break All the Rules?? by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman from Gallup, it is noted that the manager, not anything or anyone else, was most critical in building a strong workforce. A lot of companies struggle with leadership skills, communications interaction, and improving management skills. We are now undergoing a paradigm shift as many organizations are beginning to realize that management??s job is to support the people doing the work as opposed to dictating how to do the work. Engaging employees in improving their work creates new levels of communication and gives the ownership of improvements to the worker. We now recognize that ??you know your job better then management does because you are the one that does it every day.?? Since people are the expert in their work, who better to come up with ideas to improve it then them. We all want, need and deserve respect. Claudia designed a fixture to hold bubble wrap she used for packaging. It made her job easier. Ken saw the fixture; thought paper would work just as well and asked his customers. The switch to paper saved Ken??s employer about $100,000 a year and a lot of storage space. Engaged people see the fruits of their labor as their ideas are implemented. They now receive positive feedback for a ??job well done.?? Any process, any product, any service can be made better in some way, somehow. One plant manager said, ??It used to be that my problem solvers were solely the management team, but now my problem solvers are everybody in the building.?? How can you beat that? Copyright © 2005 Chuck Yorke - All Rights Reserved Chuck Yorke is an organizational development and performance improvement specialist, trainer, consultant and speaker. He is co-author of "All You Gotta Do Is Ask," a book which explains how to promote large numbers of ideas from employees. Chuck may be reached at ChuckYorke@yahoo.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Creativity - Google News |
RELATED ARTICLES
Analysis of The Monkeys Paw by W. W. Jacobs: A Study in Lateral Thinking I first read The Monkey's Paw as a youngster in Junior High School. I was touched by how an elderly couple received the gift that everyone would want, three wishes, and how the gift turned into a curse. Creativity Management - Overcoming Blocks Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. Re-Energize Your Brain We all use tools in our work, and all of these tools need to be re-energized in some way over time. They need to be polished, sharpened, refurbished. Trying to Create From Distorted Perceptions? We've all met people who are "negative" - negative thinkers who consistently see the glass as half empty.In certain situations, particularly stressful ones, even the most positive person can fall victim to this distorted thinking. Creativity: The Key To Getting More Done In Less Time If your to-do list seems as long at the end of the day as it did at the start (or worse yet, longer!) then you could definitely use an injection of creativity in your work day.Here are five simple ways of using your creativity to improve the quality of your day:1) Stop banging your head against the wall -- A good chunk of the time people waste in a day is due to stressing over the same problems that face them day after day. Stress VS Creativity Now when I use the term "creativity", I mean the kind of states of mind and body where thoughts and ideas flow freely; where there is a STREAM of data information that comes clearly from a very different place than one might normally inhabit and which translates smoothly and perfectly into colours, visions, sounds, patterns, movements, actions and resolutions.These are very beautiful states, very precious; this flow of "creativity" is nourishing, enlivening and one can do so many things for a long time without feeling in the slightest bit tired; when it is done, one is happy, very much at peace and delighted, too. Creative Drought For the past several hours, I've struggled with this week's message, the words, "what will I write?" screaming in my ears. I've felt like the princess who promises her first born child to the little man named "Rumplestiltskin" if only he will spin straw into gold. Tips on Breaking the Creative Block There's no question that creating anything is hard to do. Here are some tips if you find yourself creatively blocked. Are You Creative? Have you ever heard the saying, "The harder I work, the luckier I get?" Guess what? That's the way it is with creative inspiration too.Don't Wait For Creative InspirationGraham Green, the famous English writer, attributes much of his success to a simple habit: He forced himself to write at least 500 words daily, whether he felt like it or not. Creativity Management - Its All About Routine Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. Creativity Myths Sustained myths about Creativity and Innovation lead to confusion, bad practice and bad decision making. Some of them include:1. Dancing On Your Brain: The Cha-Cha Effect My grandmother used to say that the secret to living a good life is maintaining a flexible spine and a flexible mind. Whether we're talking about joints or brains, there's just no room for rigidity. Creative Thinking versus Critical Thinking The process of creative thinking is often, mistakenly, intertwined with critical thinking. There is a tendency to write and edit simultaneously, couple hypothesis generation and evaluation, combine problem identification with solution. Improve Your Bottom Line, Kens Idea Saved over $100,000 Engaged employees can show us the way to continuously improve. Customers want our products and services to be better, delivered faster, and produced less expensively. I Want To Create... What would you like to create? A peaceful life, a successful life, a good life, a sculpture, a piece of art, a book? What is it that you would like to create? Whatever you want you can achieve it. All you have to do is follow your natural compass. Learn A Life Skill TODAY! Did you ever watch your grandma knitting?Wasn't it boring? Didn't it seem to take forever?Most of us live life in the fast lane.Who needs to buy balls of yarn, search for patterns and spend - heaven forbid - the next three months making a jumper, when we can buy one in the high street for next to nothing. The Sylvia Plath Pattern Of Creative Flow * Sylvia Plath teaches a valuable lesson about the Even Flow - opening the channels for creativity, regardless of this is for poetry or not.Sylvia Plath was a poet and that was her job and her life. Mindfulness and Independence: Observing Fireworks "It's a free country," they say. "Celebrate our independence," I hear. New Inventions - From Absurd to Wacky! New inventions? Heard of a revolving restaurant combination television tower? How about color x-ray pictures? Or heard of a new invention that turns the sea's salt water drinkable? These are wacky new inventions not having been fully used!Are you on the lookout for shirts that don't require ironing? For $4,000.00, you are able to purchase a shirt processed out of titanium-alloy fibers interwoven with nylon. Get your Creative Juices Flowing Copyright 2005 Cherry Communications/Be Heard SolutionsThe creative arts enhance our lives in countless ways. They make us think. |
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |