Enhance Your Creative Thinking!
Note 1: This article is a summary of Episode-1 of our Creative Coaching series. You can watch the the videos and register for future sessions on link Enhance Your CREATIVE THINKING with Ali Zafar
Note 2: This article deals with Intangibles. Keep your curiosity hat on while reading
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Success today, will be determined by your Return on Ideas!
How well you are going to CREATE value!
This initiative is not really designed for beginners. My aim is to coach high performers who are innovating in the face of challenging situations in business!
I am going to use a unique technique to make this reading most productive for you!
Imagine that you have just been given a creative challenge by someone who matters, a client, your child's school, an NGO or even Apple!
As cluttered as the marketplace for new chairs might look your challenge is to design a better one!
Now read through, keeping this challenge in mind
Here we go!
There are an infinite number of definitions of creativity and most of them are particularly good. I am NOT trying to define creativity here
The point I wish to make is that knowledge is key and this is probably the most overlooked aspect of creative solution creation from my experience.
Look at anyone who's engaged in the creative process as a professional career. It's no coincidence that they also know a lot of it by heart. They know who the greats are within their discipline!
Whether it's Einstein, a musician, a chemist or strategist, the more you know, the more your chances of being able to think creatively. It sounds like a no-brainer, almost cliche, but, it's also the most overlooked aspect in businesses
The million dollar question then is..how much to know?
I believe I can give you some interesting pro tips!
Know enough to synthesize don't try to know enough to analyze!
The mind is a wonderful thing!
Synthesis lets you create an informed point of view, not an informed opinion
There is a difference. Opinions we hold dear, we associate with! A point of view is intentional, you're choosing to look at something from a particular perspective or even perspectives!
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Allow me to elaborate!
What I mean here is that understanding the perspective of ideas is very important!
Let me share a quick research with you.
Idea Lab is a company that has founded over 100 companies. It's like a startup platform and these are some of the companies they have formed. Some really amazing big names here!
Source: Click here
They did a research where they took 100 companies that they founded and 100 companies that they did not make.
They tried to do an analysis to find that one common factor that determines the success of a company.
Lo and behold...
Source: Click here
Thinking about this, made me happy and sad.
I felt good because now I have a good excuse for the startups I failed at. But also this sort of shows that the ones where I succeeded, it wasn't primarily me, it was the timing
Understand the perspective, the backdrop you are working against! Context is foundational!
Understand timing is a nice way of saying a lot of things.
If you're designing a new chair for example, you think timing has anything to do with it?
I would suggest right now people are more cautious about the chairs they are sitting on than they have ever been before, because they are working & studying from home!
The second most important thing is team and execution and the THIRD thing is ideas!
Don't be discouraged because if you look at it again, you will see that ideas are more important than the business model and money!
An example:
There are tons of other examples also like Netflix, AB&B, Instagram etc
So it's probably not a coincidence that this thought occurred to many people much earlier
It's almost intuitive!
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I would like to borrow an example quoted by Rory Sutherland here:
The upgrade to the Eurostar services cost ￡6 billion to shave 30 minutes off the journey to Paris. But was there a better, cheaper way to solve the problem? In the TED talk below, advertising guru Rory Sutherland, suggests there was. For example, for 1% of that cost, free wifi could have been provided, so the journey became an extension of the office, reducing time pressures. Better still, by spending one billion pounds – still saving ￡5 billion – they could have employed the world’s top supermodels to walk up and down the train giving out free champagne, and (here’s the real irony) people would have asked the train to slow down.
Source: Click here
You can watch his Ted Talk above
Sadly there is no price to be paid if someone is not being creative
We're all human beings and we live a finite life. Every resource that you have is finite so scarcity of resources, I think is the biggest argument, the most profound argument to be made for why we need to be creative in every aspect of life not just work. From the time you spend with your kids to the way you think about home decor and so on
So whether you're religious minded like me or not, we can all agree that of all the traits God or nature has given us, the most profound is the ability to create, to think beyond what is obvious!
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Three pounds is the average weight of a human brain
Mindset, I believe is everything!
If there's one food you want to take away, it's this one!
So what is the right mindset to be in! There is no short answer to this question.
The opposite of a creative mindset is NOT a rational mindset
I have been challenged to do creative thinking almost every day for the last two decades
Here is what I have learnt!
The opposite of creative mindset is a fearful mindset
When I say fear I believe it can be misleading. To put in perspective, the word fear as I am using it here, I want to give you this example.
Some scientists actually put brain scanners on Jazz music players. For those of you, like me, who are not into music, Jazz is something remarkable!
Jazz musicians are not supposed to play cyclical melodies.
The way most music is made is, you make a pattern, and then repeat it!
Jazz on the other hand is improvised, but you're not supposed to repeat patterns!
When scientist put brain scanners on Jazz music players, what they found out was that these people have the ability of switching off that part of their brain which is responsible for self censoring and inhibition.
WOW!
Why does switching off that brain section help? I think one reason is that our brains are wired to keep us safe. When you're supposed to be creative, you are faced with a challenge and your brain gets into defense mode.
And the sad thing is that most education makes it worse.
For example, doctors and engineer, most respected professions, most well-trained people, are trained to JUMP to the ONLY RIGHT ANSWER!
These are two things, very counter-productive to creative thinking
If you're making a bridge or you're treating a patient who just came into the ER, this is brilliant and is exactly the mindset you want them to be in.
For creative thinking you need to be in a Fearless Mindset!
Here is a pro tip!
Imagine that you are going on a journey. A journey of discovery not invention! An endless universe with solutions that already exist and are waiting to be discovered.
There is some science behind this!
What this does is, bypass the most common biases we fall prey to most often!
To help you visualize and remember the right mindset...
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Brainstorm
The most powerful technique, since there are techniques!
But do it right!
Here is a sub-list.
7 Rules of Brainstorming
- You cannot brainstorm without a partner! Even if it is the office tea boy, bouncing off thoughts with him will most likely be more productive than doing it alone
- Build on thoughts. Do NOT use the word no, Do not challenge anyone’s ideas, do not shoot down thoughts. Keep it going and keep building
- Use your Right Brain and Left brain to think like you use your Right Foot and Left Foot to walk. Don't hop!
- Be curious at all times during the session
- Be imaginative. Very hard to decode, but very easy to deploy! Get EXCITED! I don’t know the science behind it, but I can swear by it! The more excited we are, the better our brains seem to do creative thinking
- Interplay - Connect the seemingly unconnected. Be like Henry! Search and Reapply
- Forget Execution. Assume there is someone or some tech that can do whatever you can think. If you are smart enough to think of it, someone is smart enough to get it done! Plus, you will have plenty of time after you have a great ideas, to find ways to do them!
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Most success lies in the ability to distinguish between a GOOD idea and a GREAT idea
One way that I tend to look at it is, ask yourself this:
Will it make your target audience happy?
And remember...will it make THEM happy NOT you!
Isolate yourself from the answer.
Science has shown repeatedly that our intuitions about how we will react in the future to different stimulus is horrible. We are horrible at predicting our own behavior.
So if you have been thinking about the chair challenge I gave you the beginning, this is a very simple way of evaluating your thoughts and ideas so far!
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In this process there are a few MOST COMMON pitfalls that we should be aware of.
- Not invented here! What it simply means is that we tend to view ideas or thoughts that belong to others with bias. This results in a chain reaction of negativity. This is so common that they actually have a name for it 'Not Invented Here'
- Falling in love, with one, two or three ideas. Either the first one you came up with or the last one. Don't latch on, be curious!
- Man behind the plan. The third thing we do is we tend to focus on the man behind the plan, more than the plan! What we think of the person who came up with the thought is usually more important than what the thought is or can potentially be. This goes both ways. People you deem creative, you will be more open to their thoughts and vice versa
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In the end, if you have actually come up with any sketches or ideas for the 'Design a Better Chair' challenge, you can email them to me and I would love to discuss!
You never know what treasures we might discover in our idea journey!