I’ve been reading two books recently and picked up a theme from both that’s worth mentioning.

In Chip and Dan Heath’s book “Made to Stick” they talk about the Curse of Knowledge. In short this is the assumption that other people know what you know, or the inability to see things as other people might.

In Edward De Bono’s “Thinking Course” he talks about the Intelligence Trap and two ways that it manifests it’s self. The first is that intelligent people take a position and use their intelligence to defend that point of view. Equally, the speed in which an intelligent person can dispose of another’s argument simply reinforces the original position. And there’s the trap!

Does this imply that creativity and innovations come from those who are less intelligent? Not really. What it does say is that you need to look out for embedded attitudes that might be inhibiting your creativity.

Have you ever listened to or read an interview of a successful person where they’ve said “If I’d known then what I know now I probably wouldn’t have done it.” What got them through the hard time and past the failures? Was it simply naivety, was it just guts and determination, or was it a grand vision. It was probably all of those things and more. They certainly broke out of the Intelligence Trap and shattered the Curse of Knowledge.

How did they break the trap and shatter the curse? I think it was Openness. They were able to look for and consider alternate view points. They did it by challenging assumptions about the current state. They did it with passion, not for their current position but for finding something new, something not yet discovered.

Tags: creativity, Thinking