What is Creativity?

When we talk about creativity, we are most often talking about artistic creativity which might not be seen in most individuals. What we ignore to notice is technical creativity which is present in almost every person to some extent. Technical creativity often comes from programmed thinking that we achieve with practice. However, some problems demand more thoughts than just the use of experiential knowledge. For this, we require what Edward De Bono calls, Lateral Thinking. For a layperson, we call it out-of-box thinking.

Lateral thinking is one's ability to recognize patterns that are not so easily visible to conventional thinkers. Ray Dalio could see patterns in numbers that propelled him toward the stock market and he became the backbone of the largest hedge fund in the world.

Issac Newton, one of the earliest examples of lateral thinkers explored the simple act of motion and created laws out of his observations. These laws changed the way science was seen. So was also the curious case of Albert Einstein, a boy who could hardly socialize or find a job in academia and was able to publish a life-changing paper about his life and the world while he was working at a patent office. To the list of famous lateral thinkers, you can add many more names like Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, and Mark Twain in no particular order or from no specific domain.

But why do we need the creativity of any kind at work? Creativity is most often required for solving novel problems that have no visible solution until a creative mind begins to expand its horizons and see the problem from different perspectives. The difference a creative mind creates is mostly because of the difference in perception. But how do we get into a creative frame of mind? Are there any methods to help us think creatively?

Albert Einstein used something called provocation to trigger creativity which lead to the formation of the theory of relativity. Provocation is like a forward movement towards a new place where solutions can be discovered. It is a creative technique that takes you off the road you are walking on and creates a diversion to trigger creative sparks in your mind. De Bono calls this 'Po' technique.

An example of Po: A mobile works when it has a charged battery.

Po, Invent a mobile that works on the heat generated by a human body

Lateral thinking is often random and relies on intuition.

Unlike lateral thinkers, programmed thinkers rely on logic, data, and research for creative problem-solving. The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) gives some principles that make the creative process predictable. TRIZ is most often used in design engineering and process improvements. It begins with a generalization of a problem in consideration that is based on identified repeatable patterns. Another TRIZ way of solving problems that are often used in design engineering is the elimination of contradictions that result from trade-offs that create roadblocks for improvements. If these contradictions are removed, the engineering process is reshaped to achieve what could not be achieved earlier.

Creativity comes in various shapes and a number of different tools are now available to develop it in people. But the question is - For what kind of problems do you need to develop your creativity? Knowing this will help you also identify which form of creativity - artistic, programmed, or lateral - would you need to work on.