Creativity for good
Creative. It’s a funny old word.
In our industry, it gets used a lot.
‘We need more creativity’, a phrase that is as meaningless as it is infuriating. Or there’s the classic, ‘let’s think about this creatively’, a request which always gets me thinking as to what the reaction would be if I responded with, ‘sure thing’ and then just confidently handed out LSD to everyone in the room.
What I’d be delighted to hear more of is, ‘let’s do the right thing’.
This frames creativity in a completely different light.
You can be creative with lots of things. Navigating tax law for example.
You can be creative about burying hidden costs into proposals or creatively manipulate a garbage statistic into a sensational media story.
Creativity should be used to develop something new and something useful. But it should also be used to do the right thing.
That might be the tougher ask, but it’s the more interesting one and certainly, the more creative request.
