Appendix B – Implementing MGMT 2275 Creativity in the Workplace Principles to Public Relations and Communications
Written by Mikayla Kardynal – April 2018
Principle: Creativity will improve your workplace
Creativity infused in the workplace is like superfood for your brain. If it is practiced with dedication, patience, and persistence – a valuable change in a workplace or individual’s personal development will flourish and ream in benefits: see an improved flow of workplace culture/personal growth, problem-solving abilities, and resilience to tackle problems.
Tony Buzan, a leading expert in education and popularized mind mapping, shows how to embrace a more flexible and creative way of thinking in the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO2LdDpx-Tc
The correlation between this principle and PR
In PR/communications, the ability to not only adapt to the constantly evolving industry is a must, but practitioners must be creative with planning, communication, and implementing strategies.
The University of Southern California depicts how creativity in one of the five essential skills a PR specialist needs. Whether you’re solving problems and coming up with solutions, writing content or engaging new customers – the creative process is leverage to be competitive, innovative, and successful in PR in the resource below:
How to employ the principle at work/school:
Not sure where to start? Let’s start with now, rather than later!
● Schedule “creative thinking time” in your schedule once a week. Practice = results! And PR is results driven!
● Find items (pictures, quotes, music) that inspire you to use your imagination – then incorporate them into your workplace to brainstorm ideas for your PR project.
● Conduct experiments like, how can I accomplish this next task in half of the time? PR is a demanding and busy industry so learning how to be more efficient is good for maximizing your time!
● Observe the times you get a “energy rush/creative burst” and use this to your advantage. Being creative in PR will help you to keep up your competitors and stand out!
● Think creativity is important? Explain the values to others on your team so that they join your mission. Creative collaboration in PR will ensure that fresh perspectives are always brought to the project.
“Creativity is the power to create something new, to reach deep into our subconscious for that “aha” solution. Sometimes it happens in a nanosecond, and sometimes that solution can take a lifetime to reveal itself.” – Linda Naiman
Principle: Creativity is fun
Could you imagine having fun while completing daily tasks? Working doesn’t have to be so daunting when you’re finding ways to embrace the work you do while having fun. You know that feeling when your creativity expands after you do hobbies make you forget about time? That is the seed of creativity that enhances everything you do.
MIT Sloan Management Review shares a Deloitte case study that reflects that when employees were encouraged to be creative – they found a sense of play and relief from normal repetitive reporting methods. Read the article to learn how Deloitte motivated its employees to perform better – while having fun!
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/bringing-fun-and-creativity-to-work/
The correlation between this principle and PR
In PR/communications, it can be tedious keeping up with trends and ensuring your client, boss, or professor is pleased by your deliverables. But you can attain better results when you experience more enjoyment out of your projects because you have the ability to turn a complicated task into an exciting game. The best part is, having fun while being creative will only enhance your creativity!
An ambassador of playing with ideas and having fun, Tim Brown CEO of the IDEO consultancy firm, had the first-hand experience of making sure that his corporate culture was truly welcoming and comforting. In his TED Talk below, he shares how his offices were fuelled with creative risks, and driven by non-judgment.
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_kelley_how_to_build_your_creative_confidence?language=en
How to employ the principle at work/school:
Not sure where to start? Let’s start with now, rather than later!
● Try spontaneous free-flow writing about something you’re interested in. Whatever topic you choose, writing about anything will strengthen your writing skills in PR!
● Partake in activities/hobbies that are fun (to release dopamine) as this chemical is related to creativity in the brain. Having fun can help you multitask the various demands from your current PR project.
● Dance by yourself like nobody’s watching! This one’s for you. You deserve it and if you feel good about yourself, you will perform your best in your work.
● Explore your area with a bike – there’s always a bike app for that. Learning how to navigate is a great asset as you might travel often in your PR career.
● Embrace a new culture while having fun – set out time for a culture day where you visit museums, eat food, and listen to music that pertains to your chosen culture for the day. Becoming familiar with different cultures will help your ability to relate and communicate with them in the future.
“An hour of play is worth a lifetime of conversation.” – Plato
Principle: Innovations make valuable differences
With a creative mind, you can curate ideas to implement innovations that make a valuable difference. With the implementation of innovations in the workplace, you find new ways to enhance ideas, processes, or products. Whether it starts by motivating employees to utilize their skills more efficiently or increasing business functionality, innovations are sure to make positive outcomes.
Zia Khan Vice President, a leader in initiatives and strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation,
shares why innovation is so important and how solutions of today address the problems of tomorrow.
https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/why-innovation-so-important/
The correlation between this principle and PR
In PR, innovations are always changing how practitioners tell a story, contact the media, and create mutually beneficial relationships. While PR has always been about telling a great story, our digital world creates the need for shareable experiences, so practitioners can utilize innovative thinking skills to bring new value to projects.
Paul Holmes, editor-in-chief and CEO of the Holmes Report, talks about innovative content creation and experiential social media and how the landscape of PR is changing due to innovation in the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zA3SgW0W0o
How to employ the principle at work/school:
Not sure where to start? Let’s start with now, rather than later!
● Source out appropriate resources to implement creative innovations. Join a professional PR group/organization – such as CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society) for resources and other support systems.
● Accept that while your innovation might fail, try again, it’s never a waste! You will face this when you strategize and implement creative campaigns to raise awareness or increase company productivity.
● Reduce stress and practice self-care, you’ll always be on your A game to brainstorm. More comfortable in your health will increase the likeliness of your courage in whatever you do – including your career in PR.
● Take risks! You might not be sure, but you gotta risk it for the biscuit!
● Always be curious – never stop wondering why things work and how it can be improved.
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” – Steve Jobs
Principle: Communities best nurture creativity
Community support is the pillar that helps to drive an innovation’s success. With a community of people working to innovate something, each person offers a unique set of values, ideas, backgrounds, and experiences that add fresh perspectives. The result of diverse perspectives bring evolving, changing, varying solutions, and ways of relating to possible outcomes.
Weber Shandwick, global communications, and engagement firm discuss the value in team collaboration and how the landscape of diverse opportunities can be attained stronger through collaboration. The article below shares his top five learning lessons from teamwork:http://www.webershandwicksouthwest.com/more-heads-are-better-than-one-five-things-creative-teams-do-to-collaborate
The correlation between this principle and PR
In PR/communications, community fosters innovative thinking. Can you remember a time when you asked someone a question and were pleasantly surprised with a much different perspective? With community support, PR bridges gaps connect audiences and achieve organizational objectives. Community support nurtures the creative process.
Belinda Lawson, chair of the The International Debate Education Association, speaks to how collaboration takes someone’s good idea and fulfills its potential by bringing it to life in the YouTube video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrLikh2gcwc
How to employ the principle at work/school:
Not sure where to start? Let’s start with now, rather than later!
● Attend free networking events at school. A successful PR career includes a variety of connections.
● Make a group on Twitter or Facebook and invite your colleagues/classmates to the page to seek insight, collaborate ideas, and to brainstorm. If you create an easily accessible platform to communicate, the collaboration will be attained.
● If there’s a specific community you want to collaborate with then you should conduct research, find a value proposition, and create a pitch to encourage more community collaboration.
● If your project is newsworthy, strive to build a relationship with the media. Do research to understand what topics they cover, the appropriate media contact, and how to appeal to the media. This type of community will create exposure for your cause.
● Watch TED Talks that discuss collaboration and community to learn more about its importance. To learn is to grow in PR.
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie
Principle: Leverage strengths and opportunities
Identifying your personal strengths and weaknesses is the key to bolstering opportunities and mitigating threats. Truth is, we all have weaknesses, but it’s our ability to apply our strengths to our weaknesses to turn them into strengths! For example, if you haven’t made enough industry connections but you are a great conversationalist, then you can use that strength to work on your weakness.
James Carolin, a people and culture specialist, recites his top five ways to leverage your personal strengths in the LinkedIn article below:
The correlation between this principle and PR
In PR/communications, it’s crucial that you’re able to adapt to the constantly changing workplace culture and industry trends. Not only externally in the field, but internally with your creative competencies. Employers seek practitioners that have an array of strengths and can adapt to cultivate new strengths.
The University of Alabama says that to be a leader in PR, practitioners must have self-insight, which is to understand their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, to be effective – they must leverage their capabilities to reach opportunities that suit their objectives.
https://www.instituteforpr.org/wp-content/uploads/MeasureExcellentLeadershipPR.pdf
How to employ the principle at work/school:
Not sure where to start? Let’s start with now, rather than later!
● Conduct a personal SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. This type of analysis helps to dig deeper with the understanding of how to tackle your problem.
● Research successful PR leaders who expose their strengths, study their trends of how they conduct themselves, and this will enhance your personal PR brand image.
● Mindmap your weaknesses and build on it with the integration of your strengths. This will help you to visually see what essential PR skills you have to leverage and which ones you need to work on.
● Stuck on your strengths or weaknesses? Ask a trusted friend or family member to help you brainstorm. This will enhance your ability to adapt to different perspectives and collaborate in your career.
● Find opportunities that exist! Your ability to connect with other practitioners in PR will broaden your scope of opportunities to capitalize on, which enhances your growth as a professional.
“The fear of losing something makes you weak, lose it and gain your strength” – Farid F. Ibrahim
Principle: Imagination powers creativity
The creative process starts with your imagination. If you’re serious about creativity and innovation, make a dedicated effort to develop, strengthen, and broaden your imagination. However, this is only the beginning of the creative process – it’s also necessary to use your imagination to help you select your best ideas, learn how to adapt to unexpected changes, and evaluate of your efforts.
Tom Bates, a peak performance coach and author, elaborates on how imagination is the golden ticket to unlock your creative magic, check out the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP24xpWcXyI
The correlation between this principle and PR
In PR/communications, you’ll be required to use your imagination to spark your creativity with project concerns such as how to inform internal employees, lead a non-profit with limited resources, or how to create a clever media stunt to capture attention.
Sir Ken Robinson, a leader in the development of creativity, highlights the relationship between imagination, creativity, and innovation in the article below:
http://www.conversationagent.com/2015/08/imagination-creativity-innovation.html
How to employ the principle at work/school:
Not sure where to start? Let’s start with now, rather than later!
● Expand your repertoire of interests by trying something new, which will broaden your imagination. In PR, you never know what project expectations might arise and the more insights you have – the more you’ll have to contribute.
● Attempt a short meditation daily. With the fight or flight mindset, most of us are adept at, the ability to quiet the mind and expand your imagination will determine your “A game” at work.
● Surround yourself with new people – attend a workshop or event that doesn’t pertain to your interests. You’ll be surprised with how it elevates your imagination! Connections in PR help you to achieve your objectives! For example, knowing people in law, design, marketing, media, etc will help you accomplish things you can’t do on your own.
● Read more! This will encourage your mind to wander into new zones, and this will broaden your imagination. As a PR practitioner, you read LOTS so get adjusted now!
● Solve puzzles as this will challenge your brain to think differently. Problem-solving in PR is a daily task and the more you train the imagination muscle in your brain, the more naturally the creative juices will flow to help tackle problems.
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Albert Einstein
Principle: Capture and manage all ideas
Imagination flows and creative ideas can transpire in the strangest of times! Whether you’re in the shower, the car, or about to fall asleep – new ideas will always emerge. Ever think of ideas and say, “I will write that down later!” and never do..? Chances are high, as most of us know this struggle. Yet if you take the time to capture these ideas, you will manage your brilliant ideas and be able to use them later! The YouTube video below shares how Evernote, an idea management software, can help you capture your ideas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QycPRuArkqc
The correlation between this principle and PR
Regardless of the type of PR industry you work in (agency/government/non-profit, etc), the RACE (research, analyze, communication and evaluation) cycle is a great tool to help you organize your project/deliverables. With the use of this principle, your captured ideas will help you visualize your progress and bolster previous ideas into current projects.
Tanner Christensen, a creativity blogger, suggests why organizing your thoughts are productive and shares how exploring your ideas, writing, and applying this to projects are valuable. This creative process deeply aligns with PR methods! Read more in the article below:
https://creativesomething.net/
How to employ the principle at work/school:
Not sure where to start? Let’s start with now, rather than later!
● Play around with different platforms to capture ideas: Evernote, Google Keep, or a journal. This will make the information easy to access so that you can apply your ideas into real life solutions later on.
● Start a shared document in Google Keep with other colleagues/classmates in regards to their creative ideas that relate to the PR RACE cycle process – tips and tricks from others will help you bolster your own success and learning!
● Conduct experiments – how can I accomplish this next task in half of the time? PR is a demanding and busy industry, learning how to be more efficient is good for maximizing your time!
● Once you’ve captured many ideas, work on prioritizing them. This will help you stay organized and more efficient with your PR deliverables at work.
● Think of the workplace questions that have arose for you previously – capture them and address them with colleagues at an appropriate time.
“It’s the ideas – the ability to put them down on paper, and turn them into stories – that makes me a writer.” – Neil Gaiman
Principle: Develop your creative competencies
It takes practice and effort to develop your creative competencies, but with dedication, you’ll apply your new knowledge to strengthen a skill or to master something you’re already good at.
Robert Epstein shares how capturing ideas, challenging yourself to take difficult tasks while managing fear, broadening your knowledge, and changing your surroundings are four competencies to focus on to enhance creativity. View the article below!
http://drrobertepstein.com/downloads/Epstein_Schmidt_Warfel_2008.pdf?lbisphpreq=1
The correlation between this principle and PR
In PR/communications, the more creative competencies you have to offer, the more value you add to a team. In a highly competitive industry like PR, creative competencies leverage your competitive advantage. You can dream about that dream job, but it’s up to you to develop the required skills to be more diverse and qualified.
Creative and Cultural Skills, an online platform that provides creative career advice, recites how creative skills in PR are becoming more and more crucial. The article below describes how creative competencies (such as infographic creations) are highly sought-after:
https://ccskills.org.uk/careers/advice/article/creative-skills-for-pr-careers
How to employ the principle at work/school:
Not sure where to start? Let’s start with now, rather than later!
● Rather than watching your favourite TV show, check out a documentary! PR is all about application of knowledge and experience to form into tangible ideas. Having knowledge about world events and cultures, you’ll be better suited with your knowledge base.
● Take breaks! While it seems like a good idea to push yourself to finish before a break, a break will re-energize your body and freshen your mind to think creatively.
● Help a colleague work on a task out of your element and you’ll be sure to gain a new skill or strategy. A PR practitioner that is well versed and able to deal with the unexpected is positioned as a leader and innovator.
● Don’t give up when frustrated! Take a moment to pause and reset. PR is a demanding industry that requires resilience to achieve objectives.
● Take risks! If you avoid risks because you’re worried you might fail, you will never know the value you could have brought to the project. In PR, a practitioner creates strategies to gauge acceptance from its audience! So be bold, strategic, and see results!
“Dance above the surface of the world. Let your thoughts lift you into creativity that is not hampered by opinion.” – Red Haircrow
Principle: Challenges are valuable opportunities
Challenges can be difficult to endure but the rewards are boundless. If you want to attain true success, be an entrepreneur, and innovate then you must prevail against the discomfort in challenges. Yes, it can be scary or you could fail. Yet, the opportunity to do new things, reach new heights, and be innovative is attained through previous challenges that show us where we need to go.
Tim Harford, a speaker on TED Talk, explains that while frustration and blockages are uncomfortable and messy, they enhance our performance. If you’re learning you’re growing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7wF2AdVy2Q
The correlation between this principle and PR
If you’re in media relations you might have a client who misses an important date, you’ve let the media down, and that challenge requires the need to quickly restore reputation. PR is about relationship building, and things won’t always occur the way we plan! Maybe you’re working for a non-profit organization that has little financial resources and you must multitask ten responsibilities a day. We tend to see challenges as a hindrance, but subconsciously, your creative juices are rolling.
Kent Sanders, writer, and professor, shares four reasons why people should embrace new challenges at work in the article below and how it has personally impacted him:
http://www.kentsanders.net/embrace-new-challenges/
How to employ the principle at work/school:
Not sure where to start? Let’s start with now, rather than later!
● Capture the times you faced a challenge or failure – and use it as a timeline to track your progress. If you want to be a successful PR practitioner that runs his/her own firm, agency or consulting business, don’t give up as the tides get rough!
● Find a time once a week to review what you’ve written over the past week, do this while you take a bath, transit, or a break at work, etc. PR practitioners must have the ability to time manage and evaluate their efforts to capitalize on new opportunities and refrain from what doesn’t work.
● Consider buying a journal that has an attached agenda – less cluttered and more organized! As a PR practitioner, a schedule is already a part of your day-to-day.
● Incorporate different types of music genres or podcasts into your scheduled journaling time as this will spark new ideas. PR practitioners currently work alongside the digital world and podcasts are increasingly popularized!
● Ask your professor/work colleagues how they capture and manage their ideas. Collaboration is key in PR!
“Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.” – Christina Baldwin
Principle: Broaden yourself
Broadening yourself is critical to stimulating your creative growth. As you work to broaden yourself through things like listening to stories, trying new games, attending free learning opportunities, or observing others – it will build into your repertoire of knowledge and experiences. With knowledge being your foundation, you can reach to this to source ideas and strategize implementation ideas.
