The present-day industry is witnessing a glut of educated workforce who are trained to perform in a certain way. While, education is quintessential to development and so is the availability of jobs for the skilled, there is need for individuals to innovate in order to help communities progress. Despite world class education and degree’s earned by students and professionals, there is a rise in the unanimous thinking among teams and organizations due to lack of creativity and ability to think outside the box.

There are some industries, such as manufacturing industries, where the whole production is a tested, step by step and a defined procedure is set. At an individual level, one can’t try to experiment on his part and hinder the whole process. Such industries might be termed as mundane. In such industries, the employees may request the management for job rotation, which can prevent the job from getting monotonous. Furthermore, if the employees come up with an idea that may bring about significant progress in the productivity, they may propose it to the management and get it approved and implemented. Ideas are always welcome in the industry, given that they are benefitting the industry. It’s the execution and implementation that may vary from industry to industry. One ought to strive to constantly learn, innovate, and grow from this process to remain at the top of the industry and his/her vocation

Here are a few ways to stimulate creativity at work and spur innovation whatever be your chosen vocation.

• Interact cross-functionally:  When employees interact with peers across departments in different areas there is a likelihood of idea exchange and possibility of innovation as a result of amalgamation of skillsets . The differences between the thought process of these groups of people, incite creative thinking in an employee’s mind, who may try to create an amalgam of skills learnt from his/her counterparts.

• Connect the dots: You may be surrounded by a plethora of ideas that are not connected to each other at any point. However, some part of an idea, when connected to some other point of another idea, yields a new and marvelous outlook and abstraction. All you need to acquire such ideas is to be observant enough. Your presence of mind has a significant role to play in connecting these dots. You may be stuck midway with something and months later, you may discover the subsequent steps from an entirely different source. In such situations, your mind must be quick and responsive to join vague points of information to bring an idea to fruition.

• Surround yourself with inspiration: Often, you’ll find articles or stories in magazines, newspapers, internet etc., which may intrigue you on some level. You may be amused by the whole idea or some snippets of it. What needs to be done is preserving such gems. Make it a habit to note down such inspiring and amusing thoughts/ ideas that you come across and stick it on your work desk or on the walls of your home. Dedicate an entire specific space for this purpose. This way, these inspirations will never leave your mind temporarily and you will always find the motivation to strive past the failures that are a part of being creativity and innovation.

• Keep questioning: Whenever you feel the need to ask someone a doubt, never hold back. You might end up fostering new ideas in someone else’s mind too. At times, when someone explains a method of doing something, you often think of different and easier means to achieve the same. In fact, it is rather a progressive state of mind to consistently keep asking others why something is done in a certain way to stimulate creative thinking. At every step of your work, question yourself if what you’re doing is the only solution to the problem in question or is there something that you’re missing out in the details.

It is the extent of originality and creativity that defines a workplace to some extent. You just need to push yourself out of the comfortable zone to instigate creativity in your actions. You can become an asset to your company once your mind starts to think creatively. You need not necessarily be born an artist to be creative. Creativity can come in several forms not related to art such as new ways of doing things, redesigning processes for efficiency and finding innovative solutions to challenges. It is only a matter of taking the initiative to be more aware, observant and the willingness to put ideas together.