The 9-Second Version.
The World Economic Forum found that Creative Thinking is one of the top five most important skills employers seek, even in an AI-driven future.
While automation handles routine tasks, your competitive edge will come from fostering curiosity, ingenuity, creative problem-solving, and inventive thinking.
Start building that edge today by helping your team identify and amplify the “human spark” AI can’t replicate.
Discover.
Check out the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2025 Report
Among tech and AI skills, Creative Thinking is one of the most crucial and in-demand skills required to meet this moment of change.
Check out this article about the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2025 Report.
And if you’re feeling adventurous, read through the full WEF report here.
Think.
The WEF data is a clear signal:
Technical literacy is table stakes, but human creativity is the differentiator. As a leader, consider:
- As you integrate AI and automation into your operations, how are you simultaneously investing in and championing the creative thinking capabilities of your people?
- Does your current company culture actively reward and make space for experimentation, curiosity, and even the “non-linear” thinking that fuels creativity, or does it inadvertently prioritize only what’s easily measurable and automatable?
- Since creative thinking is a critical, trainable skill for the future, what’s one concrete way your organization could start developing it more systematically across teams?
Do.
Run a 10-minute "Different Lens" jam session with your team.
- Pose a real-world challenge or opportunity. You can choose a real problem your team needs to solve, or you can choose an external problem, like “how to get people to remember to take their meds consistently,” or “how to prevent package theft.”
- Have each person in the room choose a “lens.” A “lens” is simply the perspective of another person. It could be the lens of a sculptor, a pro athlete, a hedge-fund manager, a biologist, anyone.
- Come up with ideas to solve the challenge. Each person contributes ideas using only the “lens” they chose.
When I do this exercise with teams, people are always surprised at how much easier it is to come up with a ton of ideas when you take on a different perspective.
To your creative success…
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About Josh
Josh Linkner is a New York Times bestselling author, serial entrepreneur, venture capital investor, professional jazz guitarist, and a globally recognized innovation expert. To learn more or to explore a collaboration, visit JoshLinkner.com
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