Creativity can be worked out
Creativity is not a talent; it’s a way of operating - John Cleese
Let’s start with a simple warm-up exercise: it’s called a “thirty circles test”. The idea comes from Robert McKim and was introduced by Tim Brown (IDEO) at TED conference in 2008 (link).
To begin you need to draw a thirty circles on a sheet of paper — not to small, neither to big. Now try to adapt those circles into as many objects as you can, in less than a minute. Draw whatever comes to your mind, but keep it simple — just a few lines will do to draw a ball or a clock. Right now, it’s not about being smart or inventive. It’s a “quantity over quality” situation.
Keep spitting out the ideas even when you feel nothing is left. After a while you can see that pushing yourself to the limit gives you something more than exhaustion. Subconsciously, we always self-censure ourselves and when we feel like an idea sounds stupid or infeasible, we pull back. When you stop filtering your ideas, you have a chance to reach a part of your mind that’s usually idle.
It’s not easy to come up with a thirty ideas. Sometimes it’s not easy to come up even with ten…. Unfortunately, we have no on/off switch that lets us start being creative and generate ideas.
But still, we can help ourselves by making a creativity-friendly environment and using some brainpower.
Creativity open mode
John Cleese in his — I probably won’t be exaggerating by saying “famous” — speech on creativity points to the necessity of having limits of time and place when working on creative projects. It’s obvious that you need to book some time for yourself to be creative, but you also need to get out of your usual, cluttered-with-everyday-reality place.
“You need space, time, time, confidence… and humor”
John Cleese
Although creatives often like to work alone, it’s really helpful to have some company to bring out the creative spark — people you like to work with and who share the same sense of humor. It’s good to have a team with a diversified set of skills. They will give different points of view and create a good starting point for a brainstorm.
The above ideas are factors that can help you to put yourself into open mode: a state when your mind is ready to go with the flow. But it’s not uncommon that despite setting up a thinking space, nothing happens… And that’s because we’re not constructed to come up with ideas at will.
Systematic Inventive Thinking
It’s quite hard for our brain to come up with something completely new — it takes time and a lot of energy. But as soon as we give ourselves a foothold, it instantly lets us generate a ton of ideas. That’s why it’s easier to think of a new use for an old pen than come up with a concept for a new writing tool.
Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) is a method that helps people come up with new solutions. Although it’s based on re-inventing, it uses a set of tools that are surprisingly handy. Everything starts from a good understanding of an initial point. For example, if you’re going to reinvent a pen, first you have to take it apart (something like reverse engineering). With that knowledge, you can use SIT tools (subtraction, multiplication, division, task unification, and attribute dependency) to generate some new combinations of the basic features of the pen. Without going into too much detail, the main goal of SIT is to invent a completely new thing by combining existing parts. The trick is to try combinations that no one has thought of yet…
Ideation mash-up
Connecting two separate ideas in a way that generates new meanings — deliberately crazy connections — lets us play with some improbable concepts and puts our mind in a state of creativity. Some of the ideas we come up with will sound unlikely, some even stupid, but don’t be picky. At this point it’s about giving each concept a try. Even the most ridiculous idea is worth giving a shot: maybe because of its stupidity no one has dared to try it out — and you will be the first! And that’s a boost that you need to spark up your creativity.
The company IDEO have created formal guidelines on mash-up, covering the subject in detail, but I don’t think that it’s that complicated. The concept is simple and it’s good to keep it that way.
Exercise your creative element
Creativity is the ability to play with ideas to explore them, not for any immediate practical purpose, just for enjoyment — pure, organic, unrestrained fun.
It’s as easy as giving yourself a 25 min break once a week. You just need three things:
- A topic that could fit into the question: “What could we do to make…?” Choose a topic that is far from your daily business. Don’t be afraid of doing some crazy mash-ups.
- Time limits: when you have limited time, you know that you have to stay focused. The time you give yourself has to be long enough to make you feel at ease, but still short enough to prevent your brain from becoming bored.
- A place where you won’t be disturbed: no cells, no e-mail — just a sheet of paper and a pencil (or a whiteboard if you have one).
And one more thing that’s really, really helpful — a good team. People who won’t judge each other, won’t be afraid to throw in ideas, who can talk freely and, of course, have fun with each other. Fun is an inevitable part of creativity.
Results? Don’t expect breakthrough inventions — at least not at the beginning ;) Remember that there are no wrong answers or stupid ideas. Try to talk about each concept and bring out of it as much as you can. Write down notes from each exercise and keep them in your drawer — just in case you need to refresh your memory someday. Think of it as sport exercises — maybe you won’t become an athlete but going to the gym can still help you.
“This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If just you keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious.”
John Cleese
The creativity exercise done once a week helps our team to jump into creative open mode when needed, and keeps us in creative shape. It’s also great quality time for the team, as we can work together and have a few laughs without the constraints of formal tasks or deadlines. We’ve had a few clever ideas, some that were based on existing solutions and some quite unique. We’re still working on the “big one” ;)
____
Thanks for taking the time to read this article, if you have any comments about it I would love to hear what you think.
If you found it interesting check out my other article about creativity and creatives:
