Читать книгу How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas: Get Curious, Get Adventurous, Get Creative - Chris Barez-Brown, Крис Барез-Браун - Страница 10

Since time began there have been those that didn’t quite fit in. Many fuelled uprisings, became hermits or joined the circus. Since 1992, ?What If! have taken such creatures off the streets and provided a home where they can be themselves, a place where they can create. These people are innovative and passionate, they are driven to make an impact in the world; creative thinkers who often felt constrained by big business and wanted to break free.

Since those humble beginnings, ?What If! have become the world’s largest and most successful independent innovation company, based in London but with offices in New York, Sydney and Manchester. Their reason for being is to inject energy and life back into businesses that need it – all in the name of creativity!

?What If! have carried out thousands of innovation projects, everything from inventing new beers, helping airlines become more efficient, helping multi-nationals become more insightful, to helping Jamie Oliver with his School Dinners project. Over the years they have inspired and energized the great and the good in hundreds of businesses around the world. ?What If! also preach what they practise and practise what they preach. They have helped creative champions pump that innovation muscle in all parts of the globe and in doing so have become world leaders in releasing creativity in others.

I lead the part of ?What If! that is responsible for taking all the stuff that we do best and sharing it with the world. Our clients then apply their new creative approach to their businesses and their lives. None of the people in my team are professional trainers. We have all had real-life innovation experience and are passionate about helping others get the kicks that we have all enjoyed ourselves, creating inspiring possibilities. When we started out, we were very much about teaching tools and techniques. But while our clients loved them, they kept coming back to us saying that their creativity had really improved but somehow they still couldn’t have ideas like us. We then modelled the best innovators inside and outside ?What If! and found that, although the tools and techniques are important, the magic comes from the people themselves. Great creatives are experts in getting into the right state to have ideas and in behaving in a way that encourages that state in others. Since then much of our focus has been on combining doing of creativity with the being – the tools and techniques with Creative State.

Over the years ?What If! have worked with many different organizations. There are few famous businesses that haven’t worked with us in some way. We have trained CEOs and we have trained receptionists. Creativity helps everyone get more from their lives. We are committed to helping people discover their own personal creative genius, everyone has got one. The key is knowing how to look for it.

Using the approach that we foster for all innovation work, at ?What If! we have applied ourselves to making our company a great place to work – let’s face it, when the world is your competition for talent, you have to be good. As an equivalent of our cycling proficiency test, we have won the Financial Times’ Best Place to Work Award for the last two years, beating many larger and grown-up companies.

The secret of our success is the way we are, not what we do. We love to try new things and experiment; we don’t take ourselves too seriously and are happy to say ‘we don’t know’. But above all we love what we do, and that just keeps us shiny!