Is creativity born or can be learn? How can I promote creativity in my team?

Hello Hoa,

According to Utah Study on creativity, in general people become less creative as they get older :P

Age Creativity
Kindergarten 95%
Primary school 75%
Senior school 50%
University 25%
Adult 15%

This is because people become more reserved as the society thinks differently about them when they grow older. For example, if a 4 yr old kid talks to a teddy bear, that’s absolutely ok. However, if a 12 yr old still keeps the habit of talking to his teddy friend, it’s considered strange. And if an adult does that, that person is definitely crazy and you’d better stay away from him. Through the societal expectations, people have lost their creativity, out of fear of being different.

Good news. Yes, creativity can be awake / learned / improved. Here's a few tips for you to promote creativity in your team:

* Ask question: different questions lead to different answers & solutions.
Ex. A fun story about my friend saves money when using airlines services. What he does is he often waits until the airplane is about to take off. With his nicest smile, he will ask the air hostess if he can take the vacant seat (normally in the business class area) so that he can stretch his legs. This works sometimes :)

Instead of asking himself “How do I save more money?”, he asks a different question: “How do I get things for free?”

* Look at things from different angles:
Ex. How can you move 1 digit to make this right?
26-63=1
Hint: think of the opposite things that you had done ;)

* Association: relate new thing with things we already know

Ex: A new yoga club in town did a very creative and inexpensive marketing campaign by giving café/bars free straws which printed a yoga woman right at the straw curve and the club contact (you can google to view this image). Same with the Blush store story, they sell underwear and try think of something small, sexy and hot to do marketing for their shop. And there you go, they come up with the idea of small match boxes with sexy underwear image. They also give this free to the bars/shops that they know.

In short, remember that not everyone is super creative like Leonardo Da Vinci, who is super good at both science and art. Start your creative ideas with thsi formular:
Creative Genius = Copy (benchmarking) + innovative (adding your own ideas)

Good luck!

P.S. answer for question 26-63=1 --> you move number 6 up (hai mũ sáu)