So what is creativity? Can just anyone be creative?
The answer to the second question is easy: everyone is creative and functioning creatively on a scale of 1-10 at any given moment.
The answer to the first is more complex. It starts with an exploration of the word "thinking."
- Thinking in formal education emphasizes the skills of analysis--teaching students how to understand claims, follow or create a logical argument, figure out the answer, eliminate the incorrect paths and focus on the correct one.
- Another kind of thinking, one that focuses on exploring ideas, generating possibilities, looking for many right answers rather than just one.The beginning of this kind of learning is under debate: pre-natal, infant, precocious two's? But most assuredly creative thinking is subverted by the formality of school.
NOTE: Both of these kinds of thinking are vital to a successful working life or working environment. And it takes both kinds of thinkers to make a successful team.
but
NOTE: If your mantra, your belief system is: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" then please, don’t spend any more time reading today!
Creativity is:
An Ability. A simple definition is that creativity is the ability to imagine or invent something new by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas.
An Attitude. Creativity is also an attitude: the ability to accept change and newness, a willingness to play with ideas and possibilities, a flexibility of outlook, the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it.
A Process. Creative people work hard and continually to improve ideas and solutions, by making gradual alterations and refinements to their works.
Creative Methods:
Evolution. This is the method of incremental improvement. New ideas stem from other ideas, new solutions from previous ones, the new ones slightly improved over the old ones. Every problem that has been solved can be solved again in a better way.
Synthesis. Two or more existing ideas are combined into a third, new idea. I.E Books on tape
Revolution. Sometimes the best new idea is a completely different one, an marked change from the previous ones.
Reapplication. Look at something old in a new way. Go beyond labels. Unfixate, remove prejudices, expectations and assumptions and discover how something can be reapplied.
Changing Direction. Many creative breakthroughs occur when attention is shifted from one angle of a problem to another. This is sometimes called creative insight.
Negative Attitudes That Block Creativity
1. Oh no, a problem! The reaction to a problem is often a bigger problem than the problem itself. Many people avoid or deny problems until it's too late, largely because these people have never learned the appropriate emotional, psychological, and practical responses. A problem is an opportunity.
2. It can't be done. This attitude is, in effect, surrendering before the battle. By assuming that something cannot be done or a problem cannot be solved, a person gives the problem a power or strength it didn't have before. And giving up before starting is, of course, a self fulfilling prophesy.
3. I can't do it. Or There's nothing I can do. Some people think, well maybe the problem can be solved by some expert, but not by me because I'm not (a) smart enough, (b) an engineer, or (c) a politician, etc.
4. But I'm not creative. Everyone is creative to some extent. Most people are capable of very high levels of creativity; just look at young children when they play and imagine. The problem is that this creativity has been suppressed by education.
5. What will people think? There is strong social pressure to conform and to be ordinary and not creative. Some peoples' herd instinct is so strong that they make sheep look like radical individualists.
Solutions are often new ideas, and new ideas, being strange, are usually greeted with laughter, contempt, or in the case of Galileo the inquisition.
7. I might fail. Failures along the way should be expected and accepted; they are simply learning tools that help focus the way toward success. Not only is there nothing wrong with failing, but failing is a sign of action and struggle and attempt--much better than inaction. Going-with-the- flow has a low failure, low risk outcome (see sheep above!). Salomon don’t get to spawning grounds and successfully spawn simply by swimming. They must get by the bears first.
Myths about Creative Thinking and Problem Solving
1. Every problem has only one solution (or one right answer). The goal of problem solving is to solve the problem, and most problems can be solved in any number of ways. If you discover a solution that works, it is a good solution. There may be other solutions thought of by other people, but that doesn't make your solution wrong. As a group you decide which solution has the greater application and return on human capital and funding investment.
2. The best answer/solution/method has already been found. Look at the history of any solution set and you'll see that improvements, new solutions, new right answers, are always being found. Pythagoras (6th century bce) said that the world was a sphere, Copernicus (15th century) said the earth wasn’t the center of the universe, Galileo’s (mid-16th century) observations, based on scientific observation, supported Copernicus, and . . . . . .Stephen Hawking. . .has found that. . . . .
3. Creative answers are complex technologically. Only a few problems require complex technological solutions. Most problems you'll meet with require only a thoughtful solution requiring personal action and perhaps a few simple tools. Even many problems that seem to require a technological solution can be addressed in other ways.
4. Ideas either come or they don't. Nothing will help. There are many successful techniques for stimulating idea generation.
Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking and Problem Solving
1. Prejudice/preconcieved ideas. The older we get, the more preconceived ideas we have about things. These preconceptions often prevent us from seeing beyond what we already know or believe to be possible. They inhibit us from accepting change and progress.
2. Functional fixation. Sometimes we begin to see an object only in terms of its name rather in terms of what it can do. And there's a functional fixation of people, too. Stereotyping can even be a form of functional fixation.
3. Learned helplessness. This is the feeling that you don't have the tools, knowledge, materials, ability, to do anything, so you might as well not try. We are trained to rely on other people for almost everything. We think small and limit ourselves.
4. Psychological blocks. Some solutions are not considered or are rejected simply because our reaction to them is "Yuck." But icky solutions themselves may be useful or good if they solve a problem well or save your life. Eating grasshoppers, termites, insects doesn't sound great, but in terms of carbon foot print, caloric intake vs caloric investement these creatures, pound for pound have more energy and use significantly fewer resources than large ungulates. Psychological blocks prevent you from doing something just because it doesn't sound good or right.
Positive Attitudes for Creativity
1. Curiosity. Creative people want to know things--all kinds of things-- just to know them. Why, how, where, who?2. Challenge. Curious people like to identify and challenge the assumptions behind ideas, proposals, problems, beliefs, and statements. Many assumptions, of course, turn out to be quite necessary and solid, but many others have been assumed unnecessarily, and in breaking out of those assumptions often comes a new idea, a new path, a new solution.
3. Constructive discontent. This is not a whining, griping kind of discontent, but the ability to see a need for improvement and to propose a method of making that improvement. Constructive discontent is a positive, enthusiastic discontent.
4. A belief that most problems are opportunities and can be solved. By faith at first and by experience later on, the creative thinker believes that something can always be done to eliminate or help alleviate almost every problem.
5. The ability to suspend judgment and criticism. Many new ideas, because they are new and unfamiliar, seem strange, odd, bizarre, even repulsive (do I eat beef with its high moral, ethical, and environmental costs or do I start catching and eating grasshoppers?).
The first rule of brainstorming is to suspend judgment so that your idea-generating powers will be free to create without the restraint of fear or criticism. You can always go back later and examine--as critically as you want--what you have thought of.
6. Seeing the good in the bad. Creative thinkers, when faced with poor solutions, don't cast them away. Instead, they ask, "What's good about it?" because there may be something useful even in the worst ideas.
7. Problems lead to improvements. The attitude of constructive discontent searches for problems and possible areas of improvement, but many times problems arrive on their own. But such unexpected and perhaps unwanted problems are not necessarily bad, because they often permit solutions that leave the world better than before the problem arose.
8. A problem can also be a solution. A fact that one person describes as a problem can sometimes be a solution for someone else.
9. Problems are interesting and emotionally acceptable. Many people don't want to admit that a problem exists--with their car, their spouse, their child, their job, their house, whatever. As a result, often the problem persists and drives them crazy or it exacerbates into a crisis and then it hits the fan!
Characteristics of the Creative Person
- curious
- seeks opportunities in problems
- enjoys challenge
- optimistic
- able to suspend judgment
- comfortable with imagination
- sees problems as opportunities
- sees problems as interesting
- problems are emotionally acceptable
- challenges assumptions
- doesn't give up easily: perseveres, works hard
No comments:
Post a Comment