Event Management — Why Being Childish Fuels Creativity
As adults, we’re often told to “grow up,” “act our age,” or “be more serious.” But what if the secret to creativity isn’t in being more mature — but in embracing our inner child?
From Albert Einstein to Steve Jobs, some of history’s most innovative minds have shared a common trait: a childlike sense of wonder.
Being “childish” isn’t about being irresponsible (Although for me that line has been blurry on occasion, being honest here); it’s about maintaining curiosity, playfulness, and an openness to the impossible. Imagining scenarios that the normal framework deem silly.
Curiosity Over Convention
Children are naturally curious, constantly, refusing to accept things as they are. This is the foundation of innovation.
When we stop asking questions, we stop growing.
The best creative breakthroughs often come from challenging assumptions and exploring possibilities that others dismiss.
At my agency TTM-Pegasus, we always first tend to ask,” What could possibly go wrong?” and “What If?”.
To give you an example, We mainly work on doing extremely high designate conferences and summits. Where decorum and protocol and formality are the norm.
Usually, it is a presumed fact that senior management will not engage in any fun activities, but that is exactly what has been the game changer for us on so many occasions.
When done tastefully, company chairpersons and seniors are the first to take the reins when breaking the ice with their audiences and engaging them, of course with a little thought.
By the end of our thought process, we research enough to come up with a detailed plan, subject to approval of course :D
Playfulness Unlocks Problem-Solving
Children turn everything into a game.
A stick becomes a sword, a box transforms into a spaceship, and an ordinary day is filled with adventure. This ability to play is crucial for creativity.
There was a time I walked in to the office after a day of meetings to see 8 of our guys hooked on to their PC’s and yelling things at each other from their seats.
We had an event coming up and a bit of a crisis situation at hand about how a crowd activity at the event was to be managed.
Guess what they were upto? Playing Counter-Strike lol, our tech guy had connected all office PC’s through Lan.
Initially of course, I reacted as any ( Anxiety ridden ) person would, but eventually I ended up joining them.
We were at it honestly for a good 1.5 hours and by the end of it, we realized the answer to our crisis was right in front of us and went home that night with 2 options ready to be pitched to the client.
Fearless Experimentation
Children don’t fear failure. They build a tower, knock it over, and build it again. They colour outside the lines without shame. As adults, we become self-conscious, afraid of looking foolish or making mistakes. But creativity thrives on experimentation and failure.
Since this is an honest blog, fearless experimentation is of course a must, but to an extent that it does not create another crisis for yourself.
That is the difference between responsible childishness and being immature.
We almost lost everything ( Or we did ) when we organised a massive music festival, asking what if and risking what we had going for us.
Eventually though, luckily, we are still here and looking at it positively, that was one of the best events we ever did, but we needed to be a little more financially mature.
We have at TTM-Pegasus made it our mission to somehow stay kiddish just to keep us creative, we always try to look at things upside down.
When we look at things that way, it becomes even more fun to come up with stuff.
We have gone to clients with some absurd ideas which have surprisingly worked wonders and sometimes clients did ask stuff like,” what are you smoking?” before throwing it out the window.
These clients have stuck with us however, because they know they have an unabashed event partner who will find a better way to do things.