Creatives make more successful business owners
Written by Clare Whalley, Meta4 Business Coaching
Creatives by nature love to learn – they’re curious beings. They’re innovative in their thinking – with an aptitude for problem solving and they are open-minded – happy to hear about and embrace new ways of working.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou
All-important attributes for running a successful business. So far…
Their love of learning means that they progress and evolve their business, if they act and implement the learning of course. There is a business owner danger where we believe we must keep learning and getting the next qualification, because there’s no one around to tell us when enough is good enough. This is imposter syndrome kicking in.
Being innovative is a business superpower. The most successful businesses have a core of ‘best sellers’ but are always seasonally or with a nod to events innovating their products. Think McDonalds, Costa and Apple.
And prove innovation doesn’t always have to be a big and bold statement, enter the McDonalds ‘Hat Trick’ triple decker cheeseburger:
“Innovation is the creation of the new or the re-arranging of the old in a new way.” Mike Vance.
Finally, creatives open mindedness enables them to collaborate more, they’re more willing to hear others’ ideas and try them! They are more open to new experiences which brings in new ways of thinking and working into their business. Unlike non-creatives they are not just focused on tried and tested things that have worked in the past so why-should-we-do-it-differently-now approach.
The antithesis to creative working is structure. Or conformity.
Lack of conformity is why many creatives are self-employed in the first place! They rebel against rules. This rebellion can make many creatives become untethered in business…
Creativity might give off a lack of rules and free-spirit vibes. However, in reality, creativity thrives within a framework – it is structure and boundaries that enables more creativity.
Think Coldplay at Glastonbury. They had a set time to be on and off stage. Everybody was given a wrist band (which they had to take back) to create the incredible glow and atmosphere and Chris Martin encouraged an entire 100,000 heavy crowd to put their phones away to enjoy an encore of Fix You. An incredibly creative set guided by boundaries and structure.
Structure and boundaries in business help to organise and add creativity to the parts that are generally seen as non-creative, they allow for boundaries to be set around your time and resources and regularly followed processes mean increased focus can be directed towards client work where you thrive the most…
So, if you are a creative resisting structure because it’ll dampen your creativity… think again.
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