doesn't always pay off in the end because a watched pot never boils. Learning how to tune into the joy and creativity in your life can help you solve problems in an entirely new way.
The 21 lessons learned from Dr. Seuss
I love the 21 lessons learned from Dr. Seuss, because in many ways this helps us put things in perspective. According to Sources of insight (2010) Dr. Seuss can teach us many things including:
Dr. Seuss definitely knows how to make someone laugh and taking the time to remove yourself from the stress and strain of everyday existence can pay off in a big way. Laughing can help you heal and make your world a bigger and better place.
Those who learn how to laugh and even poke fun at themselves are often laughing all the way to the end of their long and happy life!
Chapter 2: Using Laughter to Boost Creativity: A Watched Pot Never Boils!
Everyone is familiar with the term a watched pot never boils but what does it mean exactly? Basically this phrase refers to the fact that waiting and watching for something only slows the process down; in other words things will happen faster if you stop concentrating so hard on them. This is the same premise behind something esoteric like creativity.
Many famous people have claimed that their creativity flowed through them rather than from them. Mozart and Beethoven wrote their symphonies by tapping into their creative mind and Thomas Edison worked the same way, using his creative mind to solve problems.
All of these individuals claimed to have tapped into some kind of altered state of consciousness that helped their creativity flow. Michael Faraday, the father of electromagnetic field theory got his information from a dream in which merely transposed! Now that's amazing.
Creativity is not actually limited by your IQ or your grades and it is a relatively simple concept. What if you could tap into your creativity by laughing? What if the more you laughed the more creative you were?
Using humor to boost your creativity is a fabulous concept. Using humor in the workplace could actually add to the creativity of workers and it is a very simple concept to incorporate. Finding ways to make work fun might actually help the bottom line.
Creative thinking in the workplace is a great way to boost innovative thinking. The more innovative and creative an employee is, the more likely they are to contribute to the company's bottom line. One thing that all companies have in common is that a lack of innovation means little or no growth because the one thing that is always constant is change!
Laughter encourages and motivates employees to think outside the box, which in turn helps them boost their creativity helping companies find innovative solutions to old problems. In a competitive workplace, creativity and innovation are necessary if a company is going to keep up with the times.
Looking at these three options brings us to the conclusion that the cheapest and probably the most effective solution is to find ways to boost the creativity of existing employees.
In the end true creativity is a process in which someone looks at the same thing everyone else is looking at, but sees a different result. There is a huge need for creative thinking in the workplace because competition is fierce.
A creative environment encourages spontaneity. One great example of a creative workplace is Southwest Airlines, because they are committed to making work fun by creating an atmosphere where humor, fun and playful attitudes thrive. Southwest Airlines knows that this kind of environment creates a free thinking state of mind where employees feel comfortable offering up innovative solutions. Southwest Airlines has actually tracked the monies it has saved due to employees' creative solutions and the fact of the matter is that it has saved them millions of dollars.
There is probably no better example of this than the Google headquarters office in Zurich, Switzerland because they have taken this idea of fun in the workplace to an entirely new level and no one would question their profitability!
The building was designed partly by their 300 engineers who work there and it is the epitome of the wacky office. They have meeting pods in the form of Swiss chalets and igloos, fireman poles for quick access between floors and an innovative slide so that people can get to the cafeteria as quickly as possible.
The message this sends to employees is that they are free to be creative and innovative and the environment certainly supports this. Creativity is encouraged and highly valued. The space has bright vibrant colors and a crazy feel making employees feel more comfortable.
Staff rooms are designed much like playrooms with crazy shapes and bursts of color. Whiteboards and beanbag chairs encourage creative thought and brainstorming and individual workplaces encourage the flow of creative thought. One thing is for sure, Google certainly knows that creativity is not a stagnate process and creativity cannot often be found in a boring office setup or a stagnate 5x7 cube.
When employees are allowed to relax and let their hair down, their productivity levels most likely skyrocket. In today's world with the invention of laptops and mobile devices, employees can essentially work anywhere and people are no longer tied to a desk.
Incorporating laughter into the workplace is actually a natural extension of the same concept that has made Google so successful.
The typical cubicle style office does not encourage creativity, but a crazy wacky one does. Not all companies have the luxury of creating virtual playgrounds for employees, but there are other ways to encourage creative thought.
What are some other ways in which humor can boost creativity you might ask? One thing is for sure, bringing your sense of humor to the workplace is an effective and very easy way to put more fun into work. All companies eventually get to that place where old solutions are simply not effective any longer and it is certainly true that new problems are always creeping up.
People who have a sense of humor tend to be much more creative, much less rigid in their thinking and even more willing to embrace new methods and ideas.
One way humor adds to creativity is by distraction. Going back to the theory of a watched pot never boils creative solutions are more apt to come forth when someone is distracted by something like humor. Humor helps stretch your mind and it helps you look at problems in a whole new way. Humor helps you make connections and see things that you wouldn't normally see. Sometimes solutions are often found the moment you walk away from a problem because continually staring at the same old problem for hours on end does nothing for your creative mind.
Humor helps take the pressure off much like a pressure cooker releases steam. It helps you emotionally distance yourself from the problem at hand and it helps you not take life quite so seriously.
People even learn better in a more creative atmosphere because humor helps you remember