Almost eleven years ago, I had my first real job interview. I did get the job. A few weeks in, I had a one-on-one with my boss. He told me that one of the reasons they decided to hire me was my creativity. Fast-forward to three years later - under a new boss, during a performance assessment session, I received advise from my manager that I should continue strengthening my strengths as it makes me unique. And what was that strength? Creativity.
I had no exact idea or grasp of what my bosses were referring to at that time. As a sales/account management professional, I did not see how I was able to use creativity in the work place. That is because my experience of creativity before had been very different.
On my first year in undergrad, I decided to join the University choir. It was an intense semi-professional classical chorus that not only staged local concerts and produced albums, but also toured internationally to hold concerts and join competitions. I had no idea what I had signed up for. But that started my passion for choral singing.
Classical singing is indeed very creative - there is a lot of room for personal creativity for what vocal tone to use for every type of song - whether it's a German lied, an Italian renaissance piece, or a more dramatic Brahms work. Sing light or full, straight-tone or with vibrato, bright or dark - there's a lot of vocal tones to use. It even goes beyond just the voice. Singing classical and sacred choral works also gives singers a lot of flexibility when it comes to musical interpretation. Not all songs should sound the same. Especially when singing period music (songs from past centuries), the musical feel has to be appropriate. Songs from the renaissance and baroque periods are to be sung with a lot of accuracy whereas songs form the romantic period are to be performed with a little more fluidity. As an individual singer in a choir of around thirty singers, that room for interpretation is quite large (although within the bounds of what your conductor would allow of course!).
Going back to the feedback I got at work, I still did not realize exactly what I did that was creative. To me, I did precisely what I should have been doing - growing sales at store and decision-maker levels. Definitely not a lot of classical singing for my clients (oh actually, a little. but that's a story for next time). Jonah Lehrer, writing on creativity, gives me some clarity. Creativity is not exactly what I might have thought it was - at trait or a talent. It is a skill that can help us approach tough problems in highly insightful and meaningful ways. This blog assignments has gotten me thinking about what my former bosses saw to consistently conclude that I was creative at work.
This whole exercise has made me recall one of the biggest projects I had launched. It was a shopper promotion that was to be launched during the back-to-school season back home. One of our brands, a mayonnaise product, sponsored an annual promotion with the retailer partner I was managing. My clients did mention that the shoppers were growing tired of typical promo packs. That's when we went back to meet with our teams to brainstorm. Coming off of a lot of research data available (the details of which I believe I cannot share?), we came up with a totally new idea for a shopper promotion - "Lunchbox of Hope."
Lunchbox of Hope (LOH) was a buy-get-give promo that was anchored on a seemingly tiny shopper insight that says customers are now buying products that embed the ability to give back in a product itself. With every purchase of the mayonnaise product, we gave away a free lunchbox (yay back to school!). What made it special though was when every shopper bought a pack, they automatically donated 5 pesos to a scholarship fund with World Vision.
I'm sure this idea is not new. Well for one thing, it was from nine years ago. Also, it might have long been common in developed countries, but quite unheard of in the Philippines. We were very unsure how it will be accepted. But it did work! We ran out of promo packs in less than two weeks (when we projected them to last almost two months). It grew the business by a high double-digit rate. And we sent fifteen kids to school then. Today, nine years later, my former company continues to execute Lunchbox of Hope during back-to-school season. In fact, they have expanded it to so many other brands as well. And that's probably what my bosses saw in me.
I go back to Jonah Lehrer. He quickly talked about Arthur Fry - a choir singer too! His story was about discovering the post-it/sticky notes as we know it. It's not all about Creativity as we have long perceived it. It's about having a forward-thinking approach to solving some of the most complex problems. It's about practicing to develop that skill by which we can step out of the box and do things that we thought were not possible.
I had no exact idea or grasp of what my bosses were referring to at that time. As a sales/account management professional, I did not see how I was able to use creativity in the work place. That is because my experience of creativity before had been very different.
On my first year in undergrad, I decided to join the University choir. It was an intense semi-professional classical chorus that not only staged local concerts and produced albums, but also toured internationally to hold concerts and join competitions. I had no idea what I had signed up for. But that started my passion for choral singing.
Classical singing is indeed very creative - there is a lot of room for personal creativity for what vocal tone to use for every type of song - whether it's a German lied, an Italian renaissance piece, or a more dramatic Brahms work. Sing light or full, straight-tone or with vibrato, bright or dark - there's a lot of vocal tones to use. It even goes beyond just the voice. Singing classical and sacred choral works also gives singers a lot of flexibility when it comes to musical interpretation. Not all songs should sound the same. Especially when singing period music (songs from past centuries), the musical feel has to be appropriate. Songs from the renaissance and baroque periods are to be sung with a lot of accuracy whereas songs form the romantic period are to be performed with a little more fluidity. As an individual singer in a choir of around thirty singers, that room for interpretation is quite large (although within the bounds of what your conductor would allow of course!).
Going back to the feedback I got at work, I still did not realize exactly what I did that was creative. To me, I did precisely what I should have been doing - growing sales at store and decision-maker levels. Definitely not a lot of classical singing for my clients (oh actually, a little. but that's a story for next time). Jonah Lehrer, writing on creativity, gives me some clarity. Creativity is not exactly what I might have thought it was - at trait or a talent. It is a skill that can help us approach tough problems in highly insightful and meaningful ways. This blog assignments has gotten me thinking about what my former bosses saw to consistently conclude that I was creative at work.This whole exercise has made me recall one of the biggest projects I had launched. It was a shopper promotion that was to be launched during the back-to-school season back home. One of our brands, a mayonnaise product, sponsored an annual promotion with the retailer partner I was managing. My clients did mention that the shoppers were growing tired of typical promo packs. That's when we went back to meet with our teams to brainstorm. Coming off of a lot of research data available (the details of which I believe I cannot share?), we came up with a totally new idea for a shopper promotion - "Lunchbox of Hope."
Lunchbox of Hope (LOH) was a buy-get-give promo that was anchored on a seemingly tiny shopper insight that says customers are now buying products that embed the ability to give back in a product itself. With every purchase of the mayonnaise product, we gave away a free lunchbox (yay back to school!). What made it special though was when every shopper bought a pack, they automatically donated 5 pesos to a scholarship fund with World Vision.I'm sure this idea is not new. Well for one thing, it was from nine years ago. Also, it might have long been common in developed countries, but quite unheard of in the Philippines. We were very unsure how it will be accepted. But it did work! We ran out of promo packs in less than two weeks (when we projected them to last almost two months). It grew the business by a high double-digit rate. And we sent fifteen kids to school then. Today, nine years later, my former company continues to execute Lunchbox of Hope during back-to-school season. In fact, they have expanded it to so many other brands as well. And that's probably what my bosses saw in me.I go back to Jonah Lehrer. He quickly talked about Arthur Fry - a choir singer too! His story was about discovering the post-it/sticky notes as we know it. It's not all about Creativity as we have long perceived it. It's about having a forward-thinking approach to solving some of the most complex problems. It's about practicing to develop that skill by which we can step out of the box and do things that we thought were not possible.
