Sometimes you have to let it be the clients who tell you what you have to do with your business: “David, ideas. That’s. What interests us from you and your team are your ideas.”

We live convinced that the great revolution of our time is digital. Mistake. It is the creative. The true transformation happens when ideas that generate a real impact are launched. And that is the only skill that matters: The ability to create what does not yet exist and activate it. That what has not happened yet. And generate a benefit.

The organizations that will survive this stampede of buffalo of technological innovation and the AI ​​will not be only those that adopt the most advanced tools, but those that build cultures where creativity is breathed as oxygen. That is your oxygen. Because, listen to me, we are entering the era of ideas, A scenario where your greatest asset is your ability to anticipate, adapt and redefine yourself.

Yes. That the world every day dawns unrecognizable. Fragile, full of anxiety, complex, discontinuous, almost always incomprehensible. That is why strategic creativity is the real superpower. As David Eagleman says in The Runaway Species (2023): “Creativity is the way in which the brain adapts to constant change. It is the engine that drives innovation.“Boom. It is neither Midjourney, nor make, nor co -pilot, nor perplexity. It is your brain working to the rhythm of the heart of those around us. And of your own.

But, How are these creative ecosystems built? How to generate disruptive and strategic cultures at the same time? Companies that achieve it are not limited to following pre -established methods or seek canned solutions. Let’s see. The magic key does not exist. And if you automatically stop working. It cannot be applied more. But what we can do is work on three levels that allow enormous adaptability to constant change from the coherence of your foundational values ​​and visions. Three fundamental layers that act as tectonic plates and that are a constant part of any organization, project or equipment: Empathy, ideation and action. The real flow is to assume that there is no flow. That we live in constant friction between them.
Come on.

1. Empathy: The essential connection with the real world

Empathy is a term spent so surface use. Forget about limiting it to “Understand the user”It is much more: it is about absorbing and processing reality from multiple angles, connecting objective data with subjective experiences. It is to turn the alien into their own until what was once unknown becomes an sharp insight. It is to get so much in the role of your client and the client of your client that you will blur. Like the actor who drives crazy for a paper. Crazy to understand, for being our clients.

This idea, although I have learned it in my day to day, I understood it better reading David Kelley, founder of Ideo, in his book Creative Confidenze (written with his brother Tim). It is the empathy for the consumer that leads to innovation. If you cannot understand what people want, it is impossible to design something relevant to them. But beware, empathizing is not another step in the process, it is the process itself. And you can’t stay locked only in a focus group or a beautiful report. It must be a transverse layer, active, capable of evolving with the context.

In the Big Data era, the numbers cannot be the only compass. Although, let’s not fool ourselves, the data is key as an insight generator at this level of empathy. Because empathy is also perceiving what cold metrics do not reach: latent desires, hidden emotions, human contradictions. All that emerges from open interviews, qualitative explorations and constant observation. And if you ignore it, you stay out. And, no, it is not an initial phase or to top it to the first months of a new account. It is to introduce spaces and times that allow us to mimic ourselves more and more with whom we have in front. It is not a research. It is a living room.

2. Ideation: Imagination as an active muscle

Conceptual ideation is a permanent process, not a meeting in the Brainstorming room with color post-pits to make sense of the work of a strategy team. Creativity does not respond to corporate agendas or rigid deadlines. It is not something that goes out and turns on will. It is a muscle that is strengthened with constant use. Literally, we cannot stop creating, fantasizing. We have thousands of ideas constantly incubating that they need to go out for the pores of our daily projects. Why do we say “It is not the moment of creativity”He points, he shares, do it at the least timely moment, even if it is late, even if everything indicates that the correct address is another. That you do not care that someone gets angry. Do it precisely if someone gets angry. Because that idea is not yours. You have not invented it, it has not been discovered and put before you so that you use it at the service of your client. If you allow your team to always express them Training an invincible army capable of reacting brave to the hundreds of challenges that arise every day.

Evidence? McKinsey & Company makes it clear in his report The Business Value of Design (2024): “Companies with a strong focus on creativity and design exceed 200% to those that do not have it, in terms of financial performance.“Because creativity that is not limited to aesthetic, but applies to business processes, strategies and models, is the one that generates real value.

The best ideas are not born in rooms, but in chaos. In times of crisis or in contexts that seem to have nothing to do with your industry. The real challenge is to be open to receive them, analyze and enhance them. All the time. Without excuses.

3. Action: The innovation catalyst

Without execution, ideas are beautiful dreams that are worthless. The true power of creativity is in action. In bringing those bright concepts to the field of reality and turning them into something tangible, measurable and scalable. This is where creativity becomes innovation. I love that Innn, in addition to strategic-creative consultant, we are above all an agency. The mud, the pot, starting with the roof, making sense of something that does not have it. From a micro action without feet or head generate a powerful message, an inexplicable format or a Loqueseaquéséyo that suddenly nests in the heart of your audience and connects it to your brand. This does not always come thinking, observing or analyzing. It almost always comes doing. With meaning and talent. And, in addition, connecting with the first layer, empathy, there is no better way to feel how your client or your community feels than working hand in hand in times of stress, complex deadlines, scarce resources and chaotic information.

Sir John Hegarty is a legend of advertising and repeats it in different interviews. “Creativity is not a talent, it is a habit. It is a way of seeing the world. And it’s about action. Without execution, creativity is nothing“.

Applying agile methodologies and rapid iteration cycles allows you to learn, correct and improve in real time. Delivery. Take out. Do it. Creativity Lean It allows us to capture the essence of what works and eliminate all residue that is not contributing anything. Sorry, of those 120 slides that you are preparing to leave your client with his mouth open, which really fits in a folio. Or less. Let’s get it out and see what happens. It is the only way to validate whether what you imagined makes sense or if it should be refined. Because every interaction with reality is an opportunity to evolve the idea.

The definitive formula?

Empathize to understand. Devise to create. Act to transform. The cycle is repeated, without truce. And when you synchronize these three layers and you understand that they are always in friction, contradiction and dance, something more powerful is generated than the sum of their parts: a culture of strategic creativity.