Every month on the Rethink Sales Newsletter, I share creative problem-solving principles that you can use in your life and in your business. One of those principles is understanding how to apply creativity to business. A lot of people talk about creativity in kind of a general sense. And when it comes to business, people usually say, “Well, we don't need creativity... that's for artists, right? Just give me the solution.” Well, the essence of developing the most effective solutions is to apply creativity in an intentional way to solving the problem. This is especially important in today’s changing environment where the old practices may not work.

The general thinking is that creativity is expressing yourself and doing things that are open, artistic, flowing, and unstructured, and as business people, a lack of structure can be frightening. But the reality is that there are a couple different of types of creativity. First, there's artistic creativity. Artistic creativity is all about expression. These are the kind of things that you're used to seeing when you think of art, right? Paintings in museums, intricate drawings, poems, etc. It’s what we traditionally think of as creativity, and it can be hard to reconcile how that fits with business. 

Artistic creativity is about expression. You may not have constraints. The artist may be trying to communicate some message or communicate some ideal or aesthetic. What they’re doing is trying to get something across to the viewer about something that's important to them. Artistic creativity can also be viewed subjectively, in the eye of the beholder as they say, which means that it’s up to each individual to interpret it. 

But then think about creativity in business. We're talking about developing solutions and getting results, not about artistic creativity. Although, I’m sure you’d probably agree that a lot of things that are done in business and in sales, in the end, are artistically creative in order to appeal to the customer or create a better user experience.

So there is a second type of creativity that applies more directly to business problem-solving. I call it functional creativity. Functional creativity is marked by two factors. First, it’s used in a situation where we have an objective. This means that we are using creativity to solve a problem or get something done. We've got to hit a specific goal or a quota, and we've got to hit a deadline. So, in the end, this result of this type of creativity is going to be objective, not subjective like artistic creativity, because there is a way to measure its success.

The second factor of functional creativity is that it’s used in situations that have constraints. There are things in life and business that will hold us back, and that will make it difficult to achieve our objectives. For example, you may have constraints around budget, resources, timing, price, or user expectations that make the problem harder to solve and make your objective (the first characteristic) harder to achieve. You’re prompted to start using this skill, your functional creativity, to work through those constraints. And that's why creative problem solving in business is so much fun - because it's not just about loose expression, it's about actually solving a problem. 

Then then I get this question, “Can you be functionally creative and artistically creative at the same time?” My answer is yes, you absolutely can.

And we see it all around us, right? Everyone thinks about Apple. They're a great example. They solved a lot of functional creative problems in terms of thinking about their computers, the iPad, and the iPhone. In reality, there were a lot of constraints in terms of capabilities, in terms of cost, in terms of timing, supply chain, what have you. But the iPhone, for example, didn't have to look like it does, did it? They came out with a functionally creative answer. And at the same time, they created something aesthetically pleasing. The iPhone is a beautiful product. It's an aesthetic achievement. It meets both a functionally creative and an artistically creative need.

Think about people who we regard as great artists. Andy Warhol was an example. Andy Warhol, if you remember, did all sorts of ground-breaking pop art. We all remember his interpretation of Marilyn Monroe and the iconic Campbell's Soup cans. Well, if you didn’t know, Andy Warhol was a tremendous problem solver, but he was also a great marketer.

In fact, he built himself up to a net worth of about a half a billion dollars in today's dollars. He overcame a lot of constraints to creatively build his brand across a range of platforms and audiences. He is a great example of someone who achieved an objective that's a functional and also creative. When you're thinking about problem solving think in both terms. Think about the constraints you're trying to solve for and the objective you're trying to reach.

And then think creatively: how are you going work through it? Apply your artistic and functional creativity in your life and business this month.