I recently took part in a discussion which asked the question “are there any differences between Ideas and Suggestions?” My contribution was to propose this metaphor:
…that suggestions are seeds, ideas are seeds that have sprouted, and innovations are plants in full bloom.
Here is a short parable based on that metaphor. It has the current financial crisis in mind and I hope it prompts us to think about how we might respond.
The shory is in a pdf file. Click the link above and it will open in a browser window. Right click the link and “save target as” if you’d like a copy or wish to share it with others.
I’d like to acknowledge contribution from the following people who each provided elements for this story in the original discussion: Prakasan Kappoth, Senior Manager KM, Systematic Innovation Facilitator & Innovation Consultant at MindTree; Kevin Paylow, Innovation, Knowledge Management & Strategy Activist; Nigel Collin, Business Creativity Speaker & Consultant; Grant Bosnick, Chief Executive Thinker at YES (Your Empowering Solution); and Marian Thier, Owner, Expanding Thought, and Professional Training & Coaching Consultant.
I’d love your feedback. Please leave a comment or contact me directly through the “Contact Me” button under my photo.
While reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” recently one passage struck me and I thought how could it be applied to creative thinking. That passage was:
“How good people’s decisions are under fast moving, high stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of training, rules and rehearsal.”
I replaced “decisions” with “creative thinking” in the original statement and I get this:
“How good people’s creative thinking is under fast moving, challenging conditions is a function of training, rules and rehearsal.”
So could this revised statement be true? Can we be more creative and generate better ideas faster if have some rules, train our minds and practice (rehearse). Let’s take a look and see.
Rules: Your first thought might be that there should be no rules to creativity and idea generation. But, if the rules are kept simple and everyone knows and agrees with them they can really help. Here are some examples.
1. Anything goes. 2. Record all ideas. 3. Generate as many ideas as possible. 4. Evaluate later.
Understanding and applying these rules gives us permission to think freely. When everyone in a group complies with the rules the barriers come down and the ideas flow.
Training: Can we train ourselves to be better thinkers? Perhaps it’s actually training us to not be bad thinkers. To do that we need to learn to challenge assumptions. Learn to recognise associations that are limiting our thinking and step around them. We need to train ourselves that it’s ok to have grand visions and then design the way there.
We can use observation, discussion and critiques to understand how other people innovate and teach ourselves in the process.
Practice: If we understand the rules and can apply what we learn then we have a suite of creative thinking tools we can apply every day in our work, and in other personal and community projects.
If we accept that rules, training and practice can increase our ability to generate ideas, think creatively, and innovate at speed; is there anything that could slow our thinking down?
One of the points that Gladwell makes in Blink is that people often wait for more information, analysis, or the opinions of others to support their own decisions. With each additional piece of data comes assumptions and associations and thinking becomes more conscious and linear. He argues that when you move away from trusting your instinctive responses the quality of your decisions fall. His argument is that those with a trained mind focused on the right elements can make instant and accurate decisions.
Transferring that thought to creative thinking we could say that by applying the rules, our training and practice, the quality, quantity and spontaneity of our ideas will improve.
Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO, talks about some of these themes in this recently released TED video “forgetting the adult behaviors that are getting in the way our ideas.”
The comments and opinions expressed on this blog are Steve Swann's alone. They do not necessarily represent the views of his past, current or future Employers or Clients.
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A Parable for Modern Times: 
