It’s enough that I have been asking the same question: Why do we continue to treat creativity as an ornament? And we do it despite the fact that reality is shouting at us very strong Ideas are the only language capable of anticipating, connecting, transforming and reacting to uncertainty.
We live in a world obsessed with innovation. I first. Reformulate codes and rethink the established is the best asset to lead when the only certainty is change. But do you know what happens? That we need ideas that sell, make us better, that compete and efficient, but we do not want them to bother too much. Something like a disruption without risk. Innovation without discomfort. Correct explosions. Strawberry Revelation. But in the meantime, everything (market, technology, culture, geopolitics …), moves at a speed that only creativity can accompany. And in addition, people, people, need more than ever to connect authentically with something, find stability in our values, emotions, people, customs and brands. However, we continue to treat ideas as an accessory, something that is added at the end to beautify what has already been decided, which is comfortable and illusively predictable.
“Creativity is the last border of the competitive advantage”, I read Tim Brown, former CEO of Ideo, in an event on corporate innovation. And he is right. There is nothing easier to replicate than a process, but nothing more difficult to imitate than a genuine creative culture.
The mistake of thinking about creativity as a luxury
For too long, creativity has lived locked in seasonal campaigns or PowerPoint presentations that barely scratch the surface of the true innovative potential. It has been treated as a lipstick for already defined ideas, instead of how the engine that generates them.
Harvard Business School professor, Teresa Amabilehe has not been warning that “Creativity does not bloom in environments where the error is penalized”. And it is precisely where many organizations are wrong. They become obsessed with efficiency and measurement, ignoring that the most disruptive processes are usually born from uncertainty. And that is where agencies must nest our mission. The agency of the future, the one that comes, is not a delivery of occurrences or a club of data scientists, but a transforming force of our own clients to turn them into spaces of possibility, inspire them, form them, shake them and, of course, leading with them actions that make it a reality of memorable, differentiating, radical brand value proposals. In this sense, the agency of the future is a lot in the past, in that complicit camaraderie between agency and client, that almost refunding emotion in each campaign, action, idea.
In my own projects I have seen how Public companies that sought to attract young talent ended up reformulating their purpose. Great brands that entered the agency asking for “a campaign” and ended up finding a new angle to understand their product category. The common pattern? Dare to think differently before deciding.
Creativity is not a luxury. It is a competitive advantage. And every time we relegate it to a decorative part of the process, we are renouncing its true power.
Heterogeneous equipment, exceptional results
If we want creativity to become a capacity of our teams, it cannot be alone in the head of a lonely or illuminated double genius. Ideas grow in cultures that allow lateral thinking, useful error and well -focused dissent. The best results arise from mestizo teams that combine radically different experiences, perspectives and ways.
I remember a session with a client of the health sector. We facilitate a workshop with a Process Engineer, an actress and an interaction designer. The challenge was to transform the waiting experience into a medical clinic. The solution did not apply a benchmark or repeat UX standard recipes. It arose from an apparently absurd question: “What if the waiting room function as a festival?”
This simple provocation created a frame of reference, a common language, triggering a creative process that led to a complete redesign of the patient’s space and experience. They incorporated interactive elements, personalized music and a notification system that significantly improved the perception of waiting time. The result: an increase of 30% in customer satisfaction and significantly higher loyalty.
As he says Kees DorsDesign researcher at the Sydney University, “Effective creative thinking is a process of creating new frames of reference.” And that is just what companies need today: frames that challenge conventions, that dare to explore the absurd and make those apparently crazy ideas into concrete results.
Lead from disruption, not from control
Valuable ideas almost never are born comfortable. At first, they seem fragile. Sometimes ridiculous. But that is where true leadership enters. Not the one who seeks to give all the answers, but the one that protects the questions we still do not understand.
I have seen many ideas die because someone did not know how to look beyond Excel. And others, just as fragile, become change engines because someone decided to trust before validating.
“Innovating is an act of faith”Steve Jobs said. And he was right. But it is not just about believing in the idea, but about creating an environment that supports it. They need leaders who not only ask for innovation, but support it. The future agency must recover that genuine connection between people who want to do something special. That, in addition to ensuring and measuring results, they understand risk times.
Leading creatively is not sending more. It is listening better. It is to create a safe space where ideas may arise, be questioned and, eventually, perfected.
Method, no magic
There is a persistent myth about creativity as a miraculous flash, an epiphany that arises without prior notice. But the reality is that productive creativity is built on a deliberate and structured process.
My approach starts from a clear sequence:
- Radical Empathy: Understand the real problem, not only what briefing says. What is behind the explicit application? Use data, research, intuition and understand empathy not as a design phase but as a constant in a relationship.
- Exploration without trial: Open before closing. Allow absurd questions, unconventional approaches. Create at any time, from action or strategy. Do not put doors to the field of ideas. Let’s not ask for permission to create.
- Focus landing: Prototipar, measure, adjust. Slear quickly. Execute. Measure and observe reactions and turn ideas into tangible results. The strategy are meaningful actions.
This method has been key to transforming scattered ideas into concrete, consistent and meaningful proposals. Because creativity is not magic. It is method, persistence and risk.
The brands that aspire to go ahead, not only to survive, will be those that know how to integrate the creative in their nucleus, who dare to challenge the present and find meaning in the discomfort of the uncertainty. Those that understand that disruption is not an option, but a requirement and that the ideas that move the world do not expect the perfect moment. They cause it.
