The 5-Step Mechanics of Creativity

They are only five words that matter in this blog, and they are fairly common words at that. For such an inspirational subject as creativity, you might be slightly disappointed. Surely I could have come up with something a little different.

Well, my friends, the magic of these five words comes in their interpretation, as creativity is a uniquely individual pursuit.

Our brains have been wired by every single action that we have performed since our births – the vast majority of those acts could be seen as a creative choice. How do babies work out how to get Mum to pick them up? How do kids persuade their parents to buy them that ice-cream? How does the teenage girl think up excuses to sneak off and see her boyfriend? How does the self-conscious guy pick up the courage to chat up the cute girl at the bar? They learn to be creative in their thinking, they learn from experiences, and they are always open to new ways of doing things.

In all four of these examples above, you could apply the following ”loop” of five words to their thought process: Inspiration, Research, Production, Evaluation and Incubation.

See, I told you, at first sight pretty boring, right? However, this is exactly how some of the most creative minds in the world came up with some of the most revolutionary concepts. 

An apple fell in Newton’s mother’s garden (there is no evidence to suggest that it fell on his head), and he was inspired to consider the possibility of gravity. Edison famously researched 6,000 materials for the filament of his light bulb at his New Jersey facility before finally settling on carbonized bamboo. Although Ford did not invent the motor car, he did create the first mass production line that made Karl Benz’s dream a reality for the masses. Coming into the modern world, I have to mention the Dragon’s Den television series, which brings the evaluation of various “creations” into our living rooms.

As for the last word, incubation, well that word is the most important of the lot. It happens through the process and through our lives – it is that moment of calm when nothing else is happening, and everything suddenly falls into place. Take a lunchtime walk though a park in any major global city, and you will see various creative types “getting away from things” and leaving some head space for their next big idea to solidify.

Creativity is indeed a process. It doesn’t just happen in the shower – that is mainly for the incubation stage and could prove tricky for producing anything. It tends to follow the four first stages, with bouts of incubation sprinkled throughout. Research is difficult if the initial idea is not suitable inspiring and production will be stuttering at best of the proper research has not been done.

Having said this, the most creative people are so creative that this all comes as second nature. They have hundreds of creative thoughts in their heads at any one time, and each thought is at one of the five stages of development (roughly speaking). You might still just be able to discern a mechanical process, but if you were able to read every thought inside their heads, it would all blend into a blur of brilliance.

When someone is in the creative “zone”, all sort of wonderful things can happen. Creativity is a habit, the more you do it, the easier it will come. Next time inspiration hits you (usually the first step), don’t resist the urge….

You never know where it might take you.

I write a daily LinkedIn blog on everything that concerns our business lives. If my writing helps you, please feel free to follow me on LinkedIn or on twitter.