Food for Thought Creativity is an acquired taste, so start your company off with small bites.

You decided to build a creatively agile company based on a firmbelief that creativity will help you and your company thrive...oryou're a skeptic who, nonetheless, is willing to give it a try.In either case, experience is the best teacher. Begin byexperimenting.

Learning how to be more creative is like learning any skill: Yougain expertise over time. Starting small can help deal withskepticism among the staff and your own uncertainty. Begin bytrying some techniques by yourself or with a few colleagues. Bypracticing creative techniques and attitudes, you'll gain theconfidence and skill to build a company that includes everyone inits creative practice. Remember the goal is always to find a way totap the creativity of everyone in your company.

I've used the following exercise many times because it'ssimple yet evocative. Making a collage from magazine images is agreat prompt for new ideas. It's nonthreatening becauseeveryone can tear pictures out of magazines and arrange them-andit's fun because you get to make a mess.

Decide on the issue or problem that needs some fresh thinking ornew solutions. It should be clearly defined before beginning to letthe collage spark ideas and associations. If you identify the mostfundamental issue before you begin, the ideas that emerge will bemore useful. You can pose the question or problem before or afteryou have collected the images. Experiment with what works best foryou.

Give yourself or your group five minutes to look through themagazines and tear out images that speak to you. They don'thave to be related to the problem you're trying to solve.Arrange your images by pasting them on a background or just on thesurface in front of you. If you're doing this with others,share your thoughts and associations. Have a discussion about themeaning of the collage as a whole and also the relationship of theindividual images within the collage. Why, for example, is oneimage in the center and another on the edge? Are the images activeor reflective? Are they of nature or of cityscapes? The choice ofimages will help you identify what has meaning for you as well asspark new thinking about the issue under consideration. This simpleexercise will surprise you with the depth and amount of ideas itcan generate.

Juanita Weaveris a creativity consultant and coach.