Creativity is neither a gift that acquired by birth or a legacy that can be inherited. Creativity is not a super-specialty like Rocket Design or Neurosurgery. We have heard people say, “Born with a silver spoon in the mouth” but have we ever heard anyone say, “Born with a streak of creativity in the brain.”?
Many people believe that powerpoint presentations can only be developed by creative people with lots of design and multimedia skills. They also pre-conclude that they are not blessed with creativity.
But what is creativity? It is all about questioning the basics and breaking the traditional rules of thinking. It is about finding a new angle or bringing a fresh perspective.
Creativity is neither a gift that acquired by birth or a legacy that can be inherited. Creativity is not a super-specialty like Rocket Design or Neurosurgery. We have heard people say, “Born with a silver spoon in the mouth” but have we ever heard anyone say, “Born with a streak of creativity in the brain.”?
It is a skill that you can develop and nurture any time, irrespective of your age, gender or class. By doing some simple mental conditioning, we can become creative enough to design a high quality presentation. You need to surf your inner-net to find if you do have a flair for creating presentations. How do you discovery our hidden potential?
Let’s assume that you are constructing a home in an open land. One of the first things that you need to do is to dig a bore well,to ensure that you have an adequate supply of water for construction and also for future use. But you cannot find the hidden water sources on your own. You have to call a groundwater expert and let him run few tests to explore the potential sources of water. You will then get the borewell dug in the prescribed spot – with chances of maximum success. You will then refine or purify the water and make it potable.
Talent mining is no different from water mining. You need to get the expert (in this case, the talent diviner) to explore your hidden potential. You need to take the effort to dig deeper to develop the skill. You need to practice and refine it further until it becomes an established talent.
The question is: Who will do the talent mining? The answer is psychometric tools.
It is a good idea to take personality evaluation tools like enneagram, MBTI and strength finder.
While we nurture our creative skills, it is also important to spot a person on our team who shows an ability to create presentations. Let’s take an example
here. One of the easiest ways to identify the person is to let the entire team take the strengthfinder.com test. It is online, accurate and the report comes to you instantly. There are certain signature themes that offer pointers to our search and you can start from there.
Assuming that you are able to find one or two members in your team who have the highest potential for creativity, you can ‘in-source’ this activity to them by freeing them up, changing their roles or by motivating them suitably. You will then accomplish two things. Get up to the speed with the market demands and piggyback on them to learn the techniques they master from time to time.
On the other hand, there are some inherent personality indicators that show the ability for such flair. I list them below:
I organize my desk at the workplace
I understand the importance of dressing up suitably for every occasion
I don’t like to read unformatted text, poorly framed sentences
I am a stickler for perfection
People usually find bullet points and numbered lists in anything that I write
Postmortem: Look at your old presentations and see how many slides comply with our checklist.
Pick a subject of your choice or interest and create a presentation that explains the concepts to a layman. If you are a financial advisor, try and explain the concept of investments via a presentation. If you are a physics teacher, explain the law of gravity. If you like cars, explain what Torque and Power are.