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As an office leader, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll have to deal with conflicts and problems within the workplace.  Problem-solving training will help you to do so decisively, and with the minimum of long-term damage.  That’s why you should follow these five steps: Identify the main issues.  As a first step, it’s important [...]

Innovation is a hard to define quality that can lead to revolutionary breakthroughs that help individuals and organisations to make changes for the better.  For that reason, it is a much sought after skill, and all businesses make efforts to encourage it.  There are hundreds of great examples of innovation in workplaces of all shapes [...]

Is your brain right, or left brain hemisphere dominated?  The answer to this simple question is believed to have some influence over whether an individual has a logical or creative way of thinking, and why that is.  The idea of two hemispheres that function somewhat independently to each other was brought to popular attention by [...]

In some ways, the brain is an organ much like any other and given the correct stimulus, it reacts in a predictable, physical way.  Just as aerobic exercise will cause the body to create additional red blood cells, mental stimulation will trigger the brain to make new neurons, or brain cells.  This process is known [...]

As an employer, it is essential to understand how the minds of employees work.  Getting to know individuals, and how they approach problems, is the best way to ensure they can be encouraged to reach their full potential and deliver their best work. All workplaces need a balance between creativity and logic.  Creativity is required [...]

For many businesses, there often comes a point when growth starts to plateau. Staff may be working effectively and diligently, and there may be good harmony within the employee group, but results simply do not seem to improve. Short-term boosts in growth are possible through investment, but they rarely sustain over time. One way to [...]

Most business leaders say that they would like to foster more creativity in their staff members. Innovation in the workplace can be a catalyst for growth and help to ensure that a company stays ahead of its competitors. Creating an environment where employees feel comfortable using their creative sides is easy enough to do, but [...]

If you are in a senior management position and are looking to change the environment of your company, to make it more creative, you should probably start with yourself. Acknowledge that you have played an important role in the creation of the current system and that its strength and weaknesses are, to a certain extent, [...]

In some industries an environment encouraging creative and innovative thinking is more important than in others. If you are a manager in an interior decorating and design business idea generation and lateral thinking is probably more important than if you are a history professor. The truth is, however, that virtually any work environment will benefit [...]

The development of personal potential can take many forms.  For some people, it refers to nurturing native talents including such things as the capacity to enjoy and even create art, music, and literature.  Other people feel that developing personal potential consists of activities that allow one to achieve lifelong dreams.  One view of personal potential [...]

Every business is unique, but those that are highly successful and excel at bringing products or services to market are, time and again, described as being highly innovative.  Successful organisations, however, do not usually become innovative by accident.  Instead, leaders in the company take deliberate steps that will help to create and nurture a corporate [...]

Some of the most successful products of the past 20 years have been the results of rapid innovation, with developers exercising creative intuitive leaps when considering what the public would find intriguing or useful.  Who would have predicted, after all, that a majority of mobile phone owners would want a phone that could change its [...]

  The growth of personal skills development as a business and as a branch of academia, both with the potential to effect change and growth in business, brings with it pressure to consider the range and depth of a company’s training programmes and processes. In this case we are considering whether there is value in [...]

  It is generally thought, right across the world of business, and indeed life, that incentives and rewards are important motivators in the generation of success. Entire management styles and systems have been built on this premise. Indeed, entire societies and civilisations have been built on this basic human assumption and in the short term [...]

WARNING: This article contains the top 3 ways to avoid creative thinking! Clive Lewis, Founder and Managing Director of Illumine Training looks into this very important, but widely ignored subject from the perspective of a senior manager and business leader. I looked at the first question above and was reminded of the single question, two [...]

Stop for a moment and consider the most successful companies of the last 50 years. Do you know what made them successful? Their employees and the fact that the company heads tapped into the creative thinking of those working for them. The more you use the talent at your disposal, the better your company will [...]

Need to bolster your creativity? It’s easy if, first, you remember that creative thinking and creativity isn’t the preserve of the marketing team or the R&D department and, second, you learn, develop and practice the appropriate thinking techniques. And here are some of the key techniques on offer: 1.Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats® approach [...]

Creative thinking in business is one way to turn problems and challenges into opportunities and better ways to work. In this article, Richard Evans, Marketing Manager of Illumine Training provides an insight into how he harnesses and stimulates business creativity…

Creativity at work is not about getting in touch with your muse – rather it is all about developing new perspectives and solving practical problems - which is why it is particularly relevant to managers and their teams.

In this provocative article, Clive Lewis discusses the challenge facing leaders everywhere as they grapple with how to do more with less and be seen to be adding value to the organisations they lead.