7 Tips for Getting Your Team to Think More Creatively The pros share what works for them. Read and learn.

Creative thinking is a tough act to pinpoint—it is, at the same time, highly specific and wonderfully simple. Which is to say that it can be hard to practice and engineer. All companies try, of course. Some succeed only to the extent that their culture allows; others, especially those helmed by forward-thinking entrepreneurs, manage over time to inculcate creativity into their very fabric of being.

Within the context of these divergent realities, insiders agree that creative people in business share some highly effective habits. After talking with a variety of business leaders, we boiled down these suggestions to a list of seven can't-miss tips to facilitate creativity. Somewhere, Steve Jobs is smiling.

1. Take time to ruminate.