The period we are living in is frightening, dangerous for the most vulnerable among us, and remarkable in the original sense of the word: unprecedented. And as in any new situation, we find ourselves facing the unknown, outside our “comfort zone”. Out of our routines, out of our habits, out of our “usual box of thought”. We have to modify and adapt our behaviors. First, to lose our basic reflexes of mobility, contact or socialization, imposed by the preventive situation. And then because constraint - the mother of all ideas - forces us to think differently, to review our lifestyle and the way we work for an uncertain period of time.
In this unprecedented situation, we are forced to adapt. This necessary adaptation is the breeding ground for creativity: just look at the Skype aperitifs that can be improvised, the videos that compete in inventiveness on the web and on social networks, the offers born from the constraints offered by certain companies, conferences that had to be postponed and that are held through Skype accounts, home sports sessions thanks to the cameras on our laptops, these industries that adapt their production equipment to provide masks and respirators. They are manifestations of resilience, and they are a testament to our great ability to adapt.
In this unprecedented situation, we are forced to adapt. This necessary adaptation is the breeding ground for creativity.
Reviewing our mode of operation requires vigilance with regard to what we usually consider to be obvious: going down the street to do some shopping, kissing a loved one we meet, etc. Breaking these evidences, deleting part of our software to write a new score is typically what we call doing an act of creative mindfulness: we identify a routine, we unravel it and we open a blank page on which to write a new sheet. operating mechanism.
It is typically this mechanism that feeds the first phase of an innovation process. And everyone knows that we will have to be innovative to bounce back, that businesses will need creativity to adapt and relaunch themselves once we are out of the crisis. Because everyone says it: there will be a before, and an after. New configuration, new way of looking at things. It is typically a designer's approach who asks why things are the way they are and who sees them in a different light. With the difference that it is the constraint of the current epidemic and the legitimate anxieties it generates that forces us to question our “evidence”.
This crisis is hard and unprecedented for all of us. When we are out of it, and we have healed our wounds, it will be up to us to see the new situation as an opportunity to look at the future in a more creative, new way. To get out of our supposed “evidence”, and innovate. Beyond the drama that the entire planet is going through, we will have to rebuild, in a world with certainly more limited resources. And who says limited resources says inventiveness is necessary. As an entrepreneur, I am convinced that it is thanks to this inventiveness, creativity and ability to adapt quickly that we will overcome this crisis. Time is a key success factor for this. So let's start working now on these qualities that will allow all organizations, regardless of their size, to get by.
Alexis Botaya
