By Mark Woodcock
Businesses need to be innovative in order to succeed in times of economic distress, when consumers are more particular about what they buy, and high quality is no longer separate from value for money. Company leaders are looking for ways in which their organisations can be innovative to beat their competition, maintain a healthy income and make their staff feel as valued as possible. This is why business speakers are so high in demand, because they have the skills, knowledge and experience to influence employees at every level. The benefits of business innovation in periods of economic struggle last into times of recovery and so their long term impact should be considered as well. If innovative strategies can save you money in the short term but allow your company to grow later, you have a win-win situation.
There are several ways in which businesses can develop their practices. From changing your manufacturing, distribution, service or strategy you may find ways to do these things at a lower cost, which will be transferable when your business starts to grow again. Innovation has several knock on effects, from increasing your productivity and profitability, to forming new business relationships and reaching new consumers. All of these factors will outlast periods of economic hardship.
Business speakers can help your company in so many ways, all of which impact on each other. From team building to leadership exercises, customer services help and communication, business speakers make the employees of you organisation more open about new ideas and help them to take notice of customer suggestions. If your employees know how to listen to the market, you will end up delivering services or products that people will want to buy because they have a use for them. The perfect example is the mobile device industry. Smaller and smaller gadgets are able to do the function that four or five separate appliances had to do five years ago.
The format that you introduce your team to a business speaker is important to what you want to get out of the occasion. Brainstorming days and events help with team work and communication skills as employees are encouraged to be open with their suggestions for innovation. In-house workshops and lectures really cement company loyalty and make employees feel as though they are part of the business instead of just working for a bunch of managers. These can drive towards working processes such as suggestion boxes around the workplace, regular sessions where departments come together to listen to innovative ideas and incentives for when these implemented ideas are successful.
Success stories always affect us because of their inspirational content. Business speakers who have proved their worth in a similar industry or situation will more likely than not inspire employees from management to labour level that they are all part of your organisation’s family, and you will get more productivity and business innovation as a result.
Just as learning your ABC’s are fundamental to a basic education, learning the Four C’s of Creativity are essential to life as a powerful and deliberate creator of your art and your life experience. If you are not living a life abundant with new inspiration and enthusiasm for your creative challenges then it is likely you are missing one of the C’s, a key ingredient to the recipe for boosting your creative flow.
When Edward DeBono conceived his “Six Thinking Hats,” he envisioned a framework that functions well for individuals, for teams, for groups, for communities, and for organizations. However, people, even today, have little experience with thinking. They have even less training. They can memorize. They can understand what they are told. They can disassemble what others have created. They can apply the thinking of others. They can evaluate the work of others. What they cannot do, with any kind of frequency, is think into the future. Therefore, you must prepare them.
“This above all; to thine own self be true.” – William Shakespeare
“Book-Ends” thinking is not for everyone. Think about what book-ends do. They support the books but they are not books. They keep books on the shelf but they are not the shelf. They bracket the books without becoming a book. The books, without losing their individual identity, can be rearranged between the book-ends. 
Inside each of us lies a sleeping giant, the part of us that is wild and crazy. We need only to re-position the giant’s energy toward thinking, especially playful thinking, silly thinking. Many of us keep the giant hidden from view because of the unpredictability. With “new-ideas” thinking, the unpredictability is exactly what is needed. You do not want to present the tried and true. Rather, you want to open your brain to exploring alternatives and possibilities. Each new-idea represents a break with your traditional thinking. Each idea, wild and crazy as it might be, reveals a window of opportunity for the future.
Life is a game. Whether you enjoy life or not depends upon the rules – your own personal rules of life.