Building Creativity: Lessons from my 8 year old

My 8 year old is a budding entrepreneur. Together with six of her girlfriends she plans to operate a business called SweetGirls, it’s a hybrid between a café and a shop. They have already figured out their weekly schedule; her day off will be Wednesdays. Coupons have been passed around at recess and promotional posters created using bright heavy markers. She is also busy with another business called Clubworks a blend between a restaurant and a club. It’s not a unique model but what makes it so cool is that it’s a place for people who don’t yet belong to a club and her job is to find them one.

Without constraints, lines in the sand or boxes, her life is continually fostered by the flow of creativity. There is no one telling her it’s a bad idea, she’s not worried about how the pieces will all come together, she only cares about what she is creating in that moment in time.

At lunch they plan recess because recess is an important space where their ideas come to life. They toggle between interests; one day it’s the shop, the next day it’s a movie scene, and the next day it’s simply a time to play hopscotch.

As any 8 year old she is easily distracted but unlike myself who is also easily distracted, she’s in a constant state of observation. Her brain is a sponge, she sees things, she notices how I react to products I love and to experiences I savour. She watches how people move, how they interact, how they build and do things. Many of our conversations begin with "Mom, did you notice…"

As a Marketer I have often watched her with keen interest wondering how I can bring back this limitless creativity to my own work. Over dinner the other night I started asking her questions, using context that was relevant to her projects but was really about the business I market. Some of her responses have helped me think about things differently and other times her responses are just “I don’t know Mom, can I have a cookie?”

So I am sharing with you Five key things I think we can all learn from an 8 year old to help flex our creativity muscles.

1. Let go of any boundaries or rules

Who cares if the pieces don’t fit together, maybe your current CRM system won’t work with an idea, perhaps your Sales team may never be receptive, but if you don’t open your mind to the possibilities the ideas that could work will never be thought of in the first place.

2. Book a regular recess

My daughter and her friends used their recess time to create more ideas for their business. If your team meetings are focused on round table status updates, then book an idea generating meeting that is dedicated to new ideas and thinking about things differently. Book a recess.

3. Play with scenarios

When my daughter’s friends were over, they played out various scenarios around their SweetGirls business. They pretended it was a blistering cold day and offered their customers a free hot chocolate with every baked good.  As the scenario played out they figured out how to monetize on the free hot chocolate. They set up a marshmallow bar and for an additional $0.50 customers could add coloured or flavoured marshmallows to their free hot chocolate.

4. Stay spongy

Keep your mind open and take in the world around you. Observing just happens to be a tried and true method of market research, so as a Marketer why am I only reserving it for times labelled as actual research like focus groups or ethnographic studies? Understanding how the world around you responds to various stimuli will helps broaden your perspective on how potential customers might respond to a product or service.

5. Treat collaboration like a playdate.

Have fun and don’t take collaboration so seriously. I have been to enough leadership forums to know that breaking down silos is a huge challenge for a lot of organizations, and many try to formalize it. 8 year olds collaborate without an agenda and focus on leveraging each other’s strengths. As I write this, my daughter and her friend have taken their individual drawings and are attempting to figure out how to connect those drawings to make something bigger.

This past weekend I spent building a hotel out of cardboard with her to accommodate her Shopkins™. The hotel is called the Shoptell Hotell and the slogan “Once you stay, it’s OK” might just be the best slogan I have heard in a long time.  Let’s see what I can come up with the next time I have recess, which I plan to have very soon.