Keys to help with Creativity (PART 1 of 2)

Ok... everyone who knows me knows I love being creative.  But it's not always the easiest thing to-do.  Where I work they alway refer to this guy, lets say is name is Mr Creative, Mr Creative could take a dump and it told some kind of a story in a creative way.  Weird.  He could come up with these great ideas but when it come time to implement them the piece would fall apart.  

The first thing that I think is the key to creativity is EXCELLENCE.

EXCELLENCE

The church where I work is currently going through a re-structuring (very fun).  A few weeks back we payed for a church consultant to come in and help us.  While he was here he gather all of us staff together to talk over our leadership assessment tests we all had to take.  During that session he asked us what our key motivating factors are.  This is the thing that makes you tick.  This is what gets you up in the morning to jump into your day.   Here are some examples public praise, private praise, significance, influence, input, responsibility, and for some it is money.  Mine is excellence.  What motivates me the most is the fact that I can make it excellent.  When every we have an idea in creative for our service we always ask 2 things.  Will this complement the message or compete with it.  The next question is can we pull this off correctly with excellence.  There is nothing worse that a great idea that is poorly implemented.  

I used to never say no to things, but now I will sometime turn an idea down just for the fact that I know we can't pull it off with excellence (now hang with me here).  I know for some people thats a big no-no "you can't ever say no!".  But, in all honesty that's what is the difference between a good church and a GREAT church.  It's the whole "a jack of all trades is a master of none".  

OK I AM STARTING TO GET OFF SUBJECT, remember this is called "very random thoughts".  

Don't take saying no as an excuse for laziness.  The whole idea of saying no all goes back to planning.  If you are planning ahead that leaves you more time for excellence.  Good luck on that one.

Let me leave you with this small nugget to think on.  When working on a project you have 3 options, CHEAP, FAST,  & EXCELLENT.  But you can only pick 2.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.