Like most things in life, some people may have greater aptitude for certain pursuits — physical or intellectual. However, as long as there are no physiological impairments, I believe that, with practice and persistence, most people are capable of achieving some level of proficiency in just about anything.

That’s why I don’t subscribe to the notion that some people are creative and others are not — even though there are those in our industry that would have you believe otherwise. With a bit of determination, anyone can be creative. You just need to get creatively “fit”. It takes the same commitment to become creatively fit as it does to be physically fit. Basically, your creative muscles can atrophy in the same way your physical muscles do — if you don’t properly flex or nourish them.

We are a creative agency. But we are not more creative than the clients we serve simply because we have more talented and creative people (of course, we do). We are good at what we do because we are skilled at running a creative organization and we specialize in identifying and nurturing people who are committed to being creative. We work at staying creatively fit.

For example, every week, our people meet for the Weekly Pitch. This is not a typical brainstorming session. Everyone (not just the “creative” staff) must arrive at the meeting with an idea. No exception. Each week we brief everyone with an assignment – for one of our clients or for a prospective client. One by one we each pitch an idea to the group. We then briefly workshop the idea together to see if we can make that person’s idea better. Bad ideas get dissected, mediocre ideas are improved, good ideas become great and great ideas are applauded. All ideas are recorded. The hope is that we end up with a viable idea we can actually bring to a client. And many each year get produced. [This initiative for Samsung came out of one of our Weekly Pitches.] But that’s not the goal. The goal is to creatively train ourselves so that everyone gets better and better at originating ideas when we need them — which, in our business, is every day. Yes…the newbies may find their ideas crushed before they make the transition from “beginners brain” to fit creative thinker. But they eventually build their creative strength and keep up with the rest of the group. There may be a little bit of friendly competition (and a little bit of adrenaline) in the process, which keeps everyone on their toes.  But the real secret to the Weekly Pitch is that, without the pressure of meeting a client’s deadline or budget or other subjective criteria, our people can let lose unconventional thinking.  

Basically, anyone can become creatively fit…even buff, if they put in the time.  Practice makes creative.