At the 3% Conference, Corinna Falusi, CCO & Partner, Mother spoke about how to encourage and manage the kind of environment that fosters creative thinking. Here are a few of the essential takeaways:

  • Being creative is an introverted process; it’s not really Group Think
  • Don’t hire yourself. Mix nationalities, cultures, male/female ratio, hire someone you may not even like to get a broader, more original range of ideas.
  • Let them cry: neurosis is the secret sauce of great work.
  • Say what you think: creatives need clear feedback. And really, does anyone like unclear feedback?
  • Shock and Awe: You can shock people’s creativity by surprising them with something seemingly impossible; send him/her on an adventure and he/she finds things that weren’t there before.
  • Get out of the way: When working with true creatives, it’s best to set up the right conditions then get out of the way. This is hard to do for a control freak (a quality of a lot of producers), however, it’s necessary to let creativity flourish.