Creative solutions come out through lateral thinking and many times this becomes an “out of the box” approach to solve a problem. Remember the famous “Nine Dots” puzzle used in leadership training.
I remember a movie called “The Three Ring Circus” starring Jerry Lewis, the popular Hollywood comedian of the sixties. I saw this movie when I was in the engineering college. In this movie during the climax scene, Jerry playing a clown in the circus tries various pranks which make the audience, mostly small school children, laugh but Jerry observes a small girl in the front row not falling in line with others and keeping a very serious face throughout. Jerry tries many new stunts targeting this girl specially but no success. The clown in Jerry does not want to concede defeat — he ponders for a while and stands in front of the girl and starts crying aloud. The girl immediately starts laughing. She has never seen a clown crying!!
I did not quite understand the depth of this technique then. Now after a long career in leadership roles, I understand the place of creativity in management and especially for leadership roles. Creativity and Innovation has become the “life line” for many enterprises especially in the highly competitive and digitally connected global business and Industry and many times this becomes the measure for success or failure of an enterprise.