Thinking About Creativity and You

95 percent of what we know about the brain, we have learned in the last 20 years. So, your beliefs about creativity were probably shaped by faulty information.

For instance, many believe that only special, talented people are creative – and you have to be born that way. Wrong.

The notion that geniuses such as Shakespeare, Picasso and Mozart were `gifted' is a myth, according to a recent study at Exeter University. Researchers examined outstanding performances in the arts, mathematics and sports, to find out if “the widespread belief that to reach high levels of ability a person must possess an innate potential called talent.”

This particular study concludes that excellence is determined by five key elements:

* opportunities
* encouragement
* training
* motivation
* practice (this one, most of all)

The research also indicates that few showed early signs of promise prior to parental encouragement, and no one reached high levels of achievement in their field without devoting thousands of hours of serious training. Consider Mozart who trained for 16 years before he produced an acknowledged masterwork.

Let me tell you a few more interesting facts about creativity:

* Research shows that everyone has creative abilities. The more training you have and the more diverse the training, the greater is your potential for creative output.

* Additionally, it has been shown that in creativity quantity equals quality. In fact, the longer the list of ideas, the higher the quality of the final solution. Typically, the highest quality ideas appear at the end of the list.

* The average adult thinks of three to six alternatives for any given situation. The average child thinks of 60.

* Creativity is an individual process. Traditional brainstorming has been proven ineffective because of fear of social disapproval.

* Groups are best for idea selection rather than idea generation.

All of this is interesting and enlightening but doesn’t necessarily get to the root of the issue of creativity. I think there is one element even more important than the five mentioned above. Let me tell you a true story to illustrate what I think the prime factor in creativity is.

A New York publisher was concerned about the lack of creativity among his editorial and marketing staff. He hired psychologists to try to determine what differentiated the creative employees from the others. After a year of study, the psychologists discovered that there was only one difference between creative and non-creative employees: belief in their creativity. Creative employees believed they were creative, and the non-creative ones believed they were not.

What’s the bottom line? You are creative. You only have to believe to make it so.

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CREATIVITY EXERCISES
SCAMMPERR (from ThinkPak by Michael Michalko)

The above acronym stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Magnify (or Add), Modify, Put To Another Use, Eliminate, Rearrange, Reverse. Let’s look at some examples:

Substitute: One company took a flashlight and replaced its batteries with human power. Thirty seconds of cranking a small handle and you have fifteen minutes of light.

Combine: An eyeglass manufacturer combined an aspect of sunglasses with house windows. Smart windows change color with time of day and season for more efficient heating and cooling.

Adapt: A state education department took the idea of a limited warranty and applied it to public schools. It guarantees that all students graduating have certain skills. Remedial education is provided if that student does not exhibit competence in these skills to his or her employer.

Magnify (or Add): Emergency room patients with minor ailments had to wait too long for care. The solution: add a separate care system within ER to treat them.

Modify: Ford once had 60 percent of automobile market share. But the company focused too narrowly on producing every car the same way and color. GM asked, “how can we modify this?” They added models and new colors and soon took the lead in market share.

Put To Another Use: A university looking for other uses of available technology discovered a way to turn milk cartons into a form of energy that may someday power your car.

Eliminate: A publisher with rising production costs and an overstocking of books developed a program to eliminate textbooks by selling the material directly to universities. They can print as many as the need when they need them.

Rearrange: Seeking a better retail pricing system, an electronics firm developed an electronic price display. Prices for items appear on the display attached to the shelf in front of the items. Prices can be changed on the fly, allowing peak and off-hour pricing.

Reverse: A technology firm has developed a machine that generates sonic opposites to block out unwanted noise.

CREATIVITY EXERCISES
Idea Showers (From Brain Boosters by Arthur Van Gundy)

In Idea Showers, the wetter, the better. In other words:

– Quantity of ideas wins
– All ideas, especially wild ones, are great
– Take the first few ideas the group generates and try to combine them to come up with more ideas

Let It Rain:

– Select a group member to record the ideas
– In 10 minutes come up with as many different ideas as possible on the problem at hand

CREATIVITY EXERCISES
Random Words (From Thinker Toys by Michael Michalko)

When you are looking for a fresh approach to a challenge, bring in a random word. Simple, familiar words, particularly nouns and verbs, are best. You can open a dictionary and grab the first word you see, or any other method as long as it is completely random.

Let’s say the word is “bottle.” What are its characteristics? What can you do with a bottle? What does a bottle do? Then, make a forced connection between your random word and your challenge.

Example: Your challenge is how to increase sales this month. Draw connections between bottles and increasing sales. Bottles come in 6-packs. Could we increase sales by changing our packaging configurations? Bottles can bring refunds. Can we provide rebates or alternative financing for our product or service?

CREATIVITY EXERCISES
Bi-Wordal (From Brain Boosters by Arthur Van Gundy)

Write out your challenge or problem. For instance, “how can we increase the amount of money we are giving to community service organizations?”

Select two words from the statement. We’ll choose “increase” and “money”. Now let’s make two lists of synonyms for these two words.

Increase
Money
Hike
Dollars
Magnify
Cash

Now, select one word from each list. Let’s pick “hike” and “cash”. Now, think about those two words together for a moment. An idea that comes to mind is sponsoring a walk or run where participants give $5 for each mile walked.

CREATIVE RESOURCES
* How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, by Michael Gelb
* Thinkertoys, by Michael Michalko
* ThinkPak, by Michael Michalko
* A Whack On The Side Of The Head, by Roger von Oech
* Creative Whack Pack, by Roger von Oech
* Brain Boosters For Business Advantage, by Arthur VanGundy
* The Idea Fisher, By Marsh Fisher
* Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity, by Edward de Bono