CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

Creative Leadership is defined as leadership which encourages, captures and cultivates atypical imaginative solutions and strategies which produce uncommon results that often ignite and refine an organisation.

Deloitte Economics found that these soft skills of critical thinking, creativity and communication are 21st century skills that will give you a huge advantage. They predict that these ‘soft skill intensive jobs’ will grow 2.5 times faster than other jobs. There are predictions that 40% of jobs in Australia have the potential of being superseded in the next 15 years whilst the demand for soft skills exceeds supply by 40%.

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 WHY CREATIVE LEADERSHIP IS VITAL

  1. THE ADVANCE DIGITAL ECONOMY IS DISRUPTING US ALL

Change is occurring across all industries as consumers demand engagement and services whenever they want, wherever they want and increasingly on whatever device they want. In this environment whether working in the social, physical or virtual world, the ability to listen to needs, connect with customers, colleagues and suppliers and collaborate across increasingly complex organisations will need top notch use of soft skills.  As we all work in more matrix environments, navigating those successfully needs different approaches.

  1. EXPERIENCE IS EVERYTHING

No longer is it just about selling products and services.  The emerging consumers are driven by the complete experience they receive with a brand, from initial awareness through discovery, purchase and long term enjoyment.  For example, a weekend away is no longer a few days’ break from work, it is 48 hours to experience the best set of activities a location can offer, from shopping through to food and fun with friends, all researched, evaluated, shared socially and reviewed for others to sample. All this focus on experience-building needs constant people-centric design and thinking which again is driven by creative skills and leadership by those wanting to constantly adapt their offering to the ever demanding and fickle consumer.

  1. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WILL MEAN CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING IS AT A PREMIUM

Predictions on how many jobs will change or disappear through machine learning and artificial intelligence vary enormously. Some experts predict doom and gloom for many jobs we have today whilst others see optimism through newly-created creatively driven jobs we can’t imagine. Whatever emerges, we will increasingly rely on technology to not only do physical tasks but to do many thinking tasks too. Critical and creative thinking will be abilities needed to drive how we use AI to deliver the experiences consumers desire and the organisations equipped to compete.  The combination of smart thinking and people focussed empathy is what will stand out.

  1. BIG DATA NEEDS BIG THINKERS

With access to more and more data across every aspect of the supply chain and consumer experience creation chain there is the ability to be overwhelmed with all the knowledge and options. What will increasingly become a premium is thinking differently about how to interpret and react to insights to create a competitive edge. In a global market, picking up on small sentiment change and then adapting and marketing that effectively could make very rapid improvements across multiple markets. The creative thinker will have a strong edge in this environment.

  1. BEING MESSY GIVES SPARK AND RESILIENCE IN A NEAT WORLD

In the world in which I grew up, the neat well-organised corporate environment was the supreme goal, to have well-structured organisations with defined lines of command and processes that were driven by constant efficiency improvements. In the disrupted digital era we are now in, that thinking is simply not enabling the messy innovation or creativity that the start-up tech businesses are able to.  As incumbents adapt rapidly to compete they are likely to find that they need the messy imperfect thinking to make the disrupting moves to help them thrive.  As mentioned in Tim Harford’s book, Messy, those that can collaborate effectively with those outside their normal circle will be terrific at both bridging and bonding people and ideas to create and implement plans that are very different and ground breaking.

Whether you see yourself as a natural creative thinker or not, creative leadership skills are ones that we will all want to spend time gaining expertise in.  They are no longer a nice to have, but increasingly will become essential in the tool kit of everyone in order to master the market disruptions heading our way.

EXPERIENCE CENTRED THINKING

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Download your free copy of our 32 page booklet introducing Experience Centred Thinking and the solutions for getting nimble for the Advanced Digital Economy