Nir Bashan – Harnessing the Power of Creativity to Improve Profitability, Increase Sales and Give Meaning to Your Work

Air Date: 5-29-2020|Episode 587

This week we welcome author, speaker and creativity expert Nir Bashan to guide listeners on using your own creativity to improve profitability, increase sales and give meaning to your work.

Nir Bashan is a world-renowned creativity expert. He has taught thousands of leaders and individuals around the globe how to harness the power of creativity to improve profitability, increase sales, and ultimately create more meaning in their work. Nir has spent the last two decades working on a formula to codify creativity.


That formula is found in The Creator Mindset, which has been translated into two languages. He was one of the youngest professors ever selected to teach graduate courses at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and also taught undergraduate courses at the University of California at Los Angeles.

He has worked on numerous albums, movies, and advertisements with famous actors and musicians ranging from Rod Stewart to Woody Harrelson. His work on creativity has won a Clio Award and was nominated for an Emmy.

Nir is the founder and CEO of The Creator Mindset LLC, a company that conducts workshops, consulting, coaching, and keynote speeches at conferences and corporate events. His clients include AT&T, Microsoft, Ace Hardware, NFL Network, EA Sports, Suzuki, Activision and jetBlue. Nir lives in Orlando, Florida, with his wife, young son, and two Bernedoodles named P-Paws and Waylon Jennings.

Z-Man’s Blog:

Harnessing the power of creativity to improve profitability,

increase sales and give meaning to your work.

Nir Bashan is a world-renowned creativity expert. He has taught thousands of leaders and individuals around the globe how to harness the power of creativity to improve profitability, increase sales, and ultimately create more meaning in their work. Over the course of his work history, he observed a commonality among successful people, who excel at problem solving with fresh ideas.

After searching for a handbook or manual on creativity and coming up empty, finding the creative people he approached reluctant to share; Nir Bashan embarked on a seven-year journey to codify creativity.

Nuggets mined from today’s show:

Nir defines creativity as the missing spark of innovation.

Academic studies on creativity measure the effect of lighting or colors on productivity. There is a gap between academic studies and what does a businessmen person facing a problem do now?

Business suffers when management can’t look at things differently and come up with big new ideas.

Covid19 has changed the business dynamic. 

A sense of what the world is and what are we trying to accomplish. Some are waiting shuttered at home waiting for the government to fix the problem. While others are developing and marketing solutions such as making masks and shields. How brick and mortar businesses can be more creative: restaurants are providing produce along with take-out food orders, clothiers are giving customers multiple different items to try on at home, etc. When you ask the question how to be different, options open up.

Tell us about your Clio award and Emmy nomination?

Honda automobiles are known for durability. He made a comedic commercial in which an actor is driving a Honda with 200K miles on it and a clip on a sun visor breaks. The ad was also nominated for an Emmy. (The Clio Awards is an annual award program that recognizes innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication, as judged by an international panel of advertising professionals. Time magazine described the event as the world’s most recognizable international advertising awards. Wikipedia)

Why are many business advisory books really not useful for people in business? Historically, the majority of business books were written by academics. From business school through the big leagues, the business world often places value on logic and analysis. As an author privy to what other authors are writing, a new renaissance of business books written by people in business.

Isn’t creativity natural and something we are born with?

Yes it is, you can see it in children at play. Unfortunately, creativity is stifled by our educational system in which children begin to be taught to look for the single precise answer. We are taught to set creativity aside.

Fear of failure is the tipping point.

Kids are not afraid to fail. People are fearful of taking risks. As we age; we are encouraged not to take risks. Without asking why, we continue to do things the same way they have always been done.

Water damage restoration firms are in a race to the bottom.

There is parity: they use the same equipment, provide the same service at the same price. There is no differentiation. Churn and burn through jobs. Finding comfort in the rhythm of the analytical.

People in the restoration business just didn’t just drift into it; they are naturally helpful and empathetic. Change it up. Ask yourself, what is the meaning of what we do? Uncover client needs. Ask the customer what they think and what they want? Businesses that building relationships of trust and respect with customers tend to grow. Proactively make follow-up calls to customers.

How does the creative mindset handle crisis?

The granddaddy example of great crisis communication is the Tylenol crisis of 1982, an incident of product tampering in which poison laced Tylenol caused 6 deaths in Chicago. The CEO of Johnson & Johnson was publicly honest and transparent. The incident birthed anti-tampering packaging.

Listening is important.

We have a biological emphasis on talking too much and not listening. Stop talking. Ask questions such as, what do you think? And you’ll receive valuable information.

See the world that can be, not what is!

Creativity isn’t a coincidence, there is always a clear path to it.

3 framework types of creativity:  rush to execution, why are we doing it, and how are we going to do it?

Invention of the toll house cookie.

The chocolate chip cookie was created by accident. In the 1930s, Ruth Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, added broken chocolate bar pieces into her cookie batter thinking that they would melt. Instead, the classic dessert was born.

Nir believes that creativity is the solution for all of mankind’s problems.

To learn more about Nir Bashan and his book visit, www.nirbashan.com

Z-Man signing off