Many new ideas come about through the connection of existing concepts.
- The wine press and the coin punch were combined to form the printing press.
- Dyson combined the vacuum cleaner with the concept of centrifugal separation.
- And most significantly, the spoon and the fork have been combined to form the spork!
Try and look for ideas/concepts/objects that you can combine with your ideas.
Let’s try it! I have randomly picked two objects and your job is to create 3 new product ideas by combining them.
- The 1st object is a television
- The 2nd object is a ladder
Have a go before looking at my ideas below.
- Idea 1: a camera on top of a ladder so you can see if you are on the right part of the roof before climbing all the way up there.
- Idea 2: a fold-up television. You can decide on the size of the screen to suit the occasion and it can be stored in small spaces e.g. it could fold neatly away into a cabinet so your living room needn’t always be dominated by a large screen.
- Idea 3: a television that is has a non-continuous but strongly connected casing so it is much lighter, thereby making large tvs portable.
When we evaluate ideas we most often begin with our own thoughts and feelings. This is the 1st person perspective. By sticking to this viewpoint it may be difficult to overcome our inbuilt beliefs and prejudices.
Actively exploring other perspectives is a simple tool to help free your mind to appreciate other possibilities. So when you’re evaluating an idea or considering a challenge try looking at these wider perspective positions:
- 2nd person: How the person/people you are directly involved with would view the same situation.
- 3rd person: The ‘fly on the wall’. Views of others that are observing but disconnected from the situation.
- 4th person: How the situation fits into the grand scheme of things and the overall environment or system.
Example:
The construction of a dam that is necessary for energy demands but will disrupt local lives:
- 1st person: I’m just doing what I’m paid to do and it’s not my job to worry about the consequences.
- 2nd person: Locals will be outraged unless fairly recompensed or able to reap the benefits. I can see their reasons and could do without added complications.
- 3rd person: If I don’t take appropriate measures to secure the futures of locals I may be portrayed as greedy and uncaring by the media and all manner of influencers. This will reflect badly on my company and industry.
- 4th person: If all projects had methods to safeguard development, social and environmental aspects we may be able to achieve well balanced sustainable development. I could start this process and leave a legacy.
Appreciating the bigger picture can often be made easier by adopting the mentality of a small child and repeatedly asking ‘why’ until you have a satisfactory answer that leads you closer towards a more appropriate solution.
Asking why focuses us to really think about the reason behind our challenges.
Example:
Q- Why should I go to the gym?
A- To get a healthier body.
Q- Why do I want a healthier body?
A- To feel better about myself.
Q- Why do I want to feel better about myself?
A- There are a few aspects of life that need improving.
Q- Why are there aspects of life that need improving?
A- I don’t spend enough time having fun with friends.
Q- Why do I not spend enough time with friends?
So from a simple statement about the gym, this problem has been progressed to a more underlying issue that will need resolving.
The next step is to re-express this question as a challenge statement- ‘How can I spend more time with friends’. And away we go with tackling a more pertinent issue.
The connection between our hands and brain activity is well documented. The use of hands has been critical to human development through enabling activities such as hunting, building, crafting and many other things we take for granted these days. In fact, much of the brain’s development has occurred because of the way we have evolved to use our hands as advanced tools to bring our imagination to life.
You can actually stimulate more of your brain by using your hands whilst you think. Next time you’re working on a challenge, try physically building a representation of the solution. Use whatever materials come to hand- lego, modelling clay, bread dough, lollipop sticks, whatever. Even if you’re not solving a problem, just playing with objects and building interesting shapes can provide a great warm up for the brain for everyday occasions.
So engage your hands when thinking and you may find your mind jumps into a new life and new ideas come out. It might even be a good idea to start introducing modelling clay to your meetings!
New ideas and principles don’t usually have an existing frame of reference for us to ‘get’ immediately. But if we can explore the links between our novel idea and an appropriate metaphor, we can bring a whole new dimension of familiarity and understanding.
Example:
I have developed an innovation programme that emulates the stages of natural selection in the evolution process. Here’s how it goes:
Stage 1= Extinction. Just as animals need to remain competitive and adapt, so do we. This stage is about realising our real challenges to remove the threat of extinction.
Stage 2= Mutation. Random changes take place in animal’s genes which may or may not offer a competitive advantage. This stage is about generating alternatives and new ideas as a platform for generating new ways of competing.
Stage 3= Selection. In nature we have survival of the fittest. With ideas, we need to correctly develop and evaluate them in order to ensure we’re extracting the maximum potential.
Stage 4= Reproduction. In the animal world, new adaptations have to be sought after in order to propagate. In organisations, positive change is required to ensure the new ideas are adopted and the effort has not been wasted.
This familiar and well defined aspect of biology has enabled me to crystalise and more succinctly communicate the innovation concept. Click here to see the resulting ‘Innovation Evolved’ slide show!
We sometimes get stuck in routine ways of thinking and as insignificant as it seems, the language we use can hinder our escape to fresh thinking. The words and phrases we use often give us an easy ride down our default lines of thinking. The labels of language can even conjure up preconceptions prejudices, which are then difficult to evade.
I believe one of the biggest concerns is jargon phrases, which are really throw away statements that do nothing to progress new thinking. Come on we all do it, but the trick is just to be aware of it and make conscious choices to avoid the ‘reinventing the wheels’ and the ‘singing from the same hymn sheets’. So today’s tip is not to hide behind masks of familiarity in your language patterns.
To help break free, I’ve put together an ‘Office Jargon Buster’ to make fun of some of the nonsense we utter at work. Plus there are a few tips on how to make your own original and fun metaphorical jargon!
Dreams provide the opportunity for your subconscious to hog the stage and unleash its inner thoughts. It’s like leaving a naughty child alone for a while. They are bound to seize the chance for a bit of mischief.
Dreams often result when your subconscious is trying to make sense of your experiences during the day. If you’re working hard on a problem, you may find this thought process is continued in your dreams. Therefore, dreams often provide insights into solutions to your problems. Of course dreams are just an interpretation but they can act as a clue to a real world response.
I recently had a dream where an old colleague and I went for swimming lessons together. After we were both dropped off at the pool by my mum (!), I found my ex-colleague standing on the poolside in a red and white striped Victorian bathing costume.
And here’s my interpretation: I swim often so this is a familiar context for me. Swimming is also something I do well. The ex-colleague is a good salesman. To me this suggests I could use his advice with some sales tips that work to my strengths and allow me to deliver in a setting where I can feel comfortable and confident. My mum dropping me off signifies leaving the shelter of a big company and now needing to make my own way in growing a business.
Most of the time, meetings are monopolised by traditional thinking. Suggestions must be workable, sensible and logical otherwise they will be shunned and you may end up feeling foolish.
However, this approach can often mean endless cycles of tussling over right and wrong, leading to a crippling breakdown in momentum. But if everyone is prepared to spend even a small proportion of the meeting time using creative thinking techniques, you may be surprised at the results the group can collaborate upon. At the very least, people will be more energised and willing to explore other possibilities for the sake of seeing where they might lead.
So speak to meeting leaders or senior management and convince them that creative thinking should be adopted and facilitated correctly. Creative thinking must be performed where there is no judgment and new ideas have a chance to grow and flourish. That means experts can take a break from being superior and the negative people must turn their attitudes to positive or simply keep quiet.
Making time for creativity will allow default thinking patterns to be broken and can drastically increase the chances of making more rapid progress in achieving and exceeding goals.
Are you a procrastinator? Do you often need a kick up the bum to get you going?
I admit my own motto can often be ‘don’t put off ’til tomorrow that what you can do next week’!
But when pressed to do something in a seemingly impossible time-span, you can surprise yourself by your achievements. Think of your student days when you had a month to complete your coursework but ended up pulling it out the bag the night before (come on, it’s not just me who’s done it!).
It’s a phenomenon that’s likely to be because of Parkinson’s Principle, which simply put is ”work expands to fill the time available”. But more importantly, the brain can be highly creative in panic mode, as opposed to happily meandering along.
So see what you can achieve when you give yourself a race against time.
I didn’t get round to putting a tip here yesterday as I got distracted by the pub!
But as it happens, the pub is a good tactic for creativity. By going to the pub or taking a bath, mowing the lawn- anything that distracts you from your problem- you put your conscious mind in a relaxed state and allow your subconscious mind to kick in. If you’ve put in the thinking effort, your subconscious will reward you by bubbling new thoughts, ideas and solutions up to the surface.
One of the the classic examples of this effect at work is when King Heiro II asked Archimedes to determine whether his crown was made from pure gold or if the goldsmith had deceived him by mixing in lesser value metals. Archimedes knew that if he could test the density of the crown, he could determine whether it contained metals of a lesser density than gold. However, he struggled to find a way of determining the density of such an irregular shape as a crown. Eventually he let it lie and took a bath to relax. Archimedes noticed the bath water rise as he got into the tub and that’s when it happened… he suddenly realised the volume of water displaced matches the density of an object. He could now test the crown. In his delight, Archimedes ran naked through the streets shouting Eureka.
By relaxing and letting our subconscious explore new connections, you can also generate those Eureka moments. Please just remember to keep your clothes on.
We all know this classic optimist/pessimist analogy. But once you find a way of looking at something it can be incredibly difficult to dislodge from your mindset. Creativity is about holding more than just one answer in your mind and keeping open to other possibilities.
But what would you say if you were given a pint milk bottle with a half pint of milk in it? Half full or half empty? Most would say it is half empty as they see milk as having value and it has been depleted. And what about if you had a half pint of water in a milk bottle? Would you see this as half full as the bottle has been refilled from empty? Your attitude to something quite often depends on your inbuilt perceptions and the context in which you place things.
Here are some other ways people might see half a pint of milk in a pint bottle differently:
- A pedantic will see it half full of air
- A chemist will argue it is completely full- half with milk and the other half with air
- A value engineer may see the bottle as too big
- A milkman may see a new order coming
- An opportunist would drink it quickly whilst the others argue over the question
- A schizophrenic would see both then quickly pour it down the sink to end the turmoil
- A student wonders if it is still fit for his cereal
- Lois Pasteur would have seen a preservation nightmare!
See if you can come up with any of your own
Today your challenge is think like someone else. The way you see the world is coloured by your experiences and perceptions. But if you experience this world through someone else’s eyes you may get a whole new set of insights.
Example: My challenge is ‘how to cope with stressful situations’.
I randomly picked a cartoon character, a historical figure and a famous person. The following are the insights gained when tackling my challenge through their eyes:
Super Mario. He experiences lots of stress (constantly dodging rockets, angry toads and so on) but copes because he is on a heartfelt mission to rescue Daisy. Is your task actually worth the emotional effort- is there a clear end point and reward? If not, can you put a reward in place as something to look forward to? This could be as simple as a trip to the pub after a job interview or a skiing holiday upon completion of the huge project you’re working on.
Mario also eats a lot of mushrooms and stomps on a lot of bugs. If indulging in hallucinogenics and wanton animal cruelty does it for you then fine, but perhaps you can simply go for a walk in the woods instead and enjoy the wildlife.
Henry VIII. Henry’s source of stress was his wives. He cunningly invented his own religion then went on a beheading spree to achieve his piece of mind. Is there someone or something that is causing you stress? Short of beheading them, can distance yourself from them? Can you invent your own ‘religion’- a set of ground rules that will resolve conflict and make working together a more cooperative experience?
I imagine Henry also did a fair bit of comfort eating- worth a go but watch out for gout!
John Travolta. Stick the Beegees on and go all out singing and disco dancing. You’re bound to feel better immediately. Maybe have a little boogie at your desk and get others to join in. Everyone’s stress will melt away and the environment will be much happier.
Also, John often plays roles where he is either a dancer or mobster. Are you on the attack when you could quite happily dance around the issue instead? If you consciously choose your attitude you may find you were getting worked up by something that was really no big deal.
Try it yourself. Think of something that’s challenging you at the moment and then see it through someone else’s eyes. Just be bold, have fun and see if any of your new insights might lead to a workable solution.
Generate new ways of achieving your solution by removing a key function and finding inventive ways of replacing it.
I experienced this recently when playing a board game in a pub but didn’t have any dice. I needed to think of another way to simulate a roll of the dice.
First have a think about how you would solve this problem before reading my solutions beneath?
Here are my options:
- Arrange 6 objects on the table in a circle and spin a bottle, knife or glass.
- Write numbers 1-6 on a bits of torn napkin, place in a glass and pick without looking.
- Read through the menu line by line and the next vowel you come to corresponds to the order in the alphabet a=1 e=2 i=3 o=4 u=5. There is no reason I need 6 numbers.
- Flip a coin 6 times with heads= 0 tails= 1
- Pick out 6 people in the pub and number them. The number you pick will be the first person to take a mouthful of food or drink during your go.
I was able to invent new solutions by reframing the function of dice as a means of picking a number between 1 and 6. This allowed my thinking to move away from the rigid function of dice.
Most people aren’t as creative as they could be as feel they always have to be logical and correct to find answers. But creativity is about exploring multiple alternatives and seeing where they might lead. In fact, purposely being wrong on can lead to exciting new avenues.
Example: I’m going to come up with a new design for a chair with no seat.
At first, this may seem like ‘wrong’ logic. However, if I see the concept as having the body supported in a resting position instead of sitting, my design can break free from preconceptions. Here are some of my resulting ideas:
- A sloped device that allows us to rest when leaning backwards. This takes much of the weight of your feet.
- A front seat where weight is supported on your knees and the front of your shoulders instead of the back.
- A device that attaches round the waste and suspends you so your body weight is supported without actually sitting.
- Astronauts could have an anti-gravity seat where they rest on their shoulders instead of being strapped to a seat.
- You could use a ball as a non-fixed chair. Many people already do this. But taking this concept further could lead to thinking about other non fixed sitting surfaces. Perhaps a chair with a surface that can be rotated and has multiple sides each with a different texture for your different moods e.g. a soft and squishy side when relaxing, a firm side for working and a side for the cat that has a replaceable surface ready for scratching
- Maybe do away with the seat and the entire chair. You would need to sit on the floor and perhaps make it more comfortable with cushions. These could even be ergonomic cushions that mold to your bum. The cushions might even have a detachable back rest to transform it into a chair with full back support then be folded up to take with you.
- An exercise chair for toning your legs and bum in a seated position. You can choose to have no seat for a full body weight workout or a seat that provides some resistance but still requires you to work your muscles.
- A metal suit that suspends you within a magnetic field (absurd ideas are very welcome too!).
By being wrong on purpose I was stretched to question the core functionality and get inventive with new trains of thought.
So prepare to be wrong when generating ideas and have fun in the process.
Placing your information/ideas/problems in a different context can introduce a new viewpoint and open up other possibilities. You may want to place something complex into a more familiar and easier to comprehend situation (explaining the workings of the human body by using the analogy of a car engine). Or perhaps you want to present something more engaging by generating humour through juxtaposition (turning your meeting agenda into a theatre programme with the scenes and leading roles).
Example: I wanted to present a large array of information on how to be more creative at work. I thought an article wouldn’t be engaging enough and i wanted something that people could act on. Therefore, I changed the context and the result is Creative Pursuit the board game.
See failure as feedback and you’ll access a continual source of inspiration.
A fear of failure will only hold you back from trying anything new. That’s why you won’t find many risk averse companies in creative industries. Failure also gives some people license to make convenient excuses to give in, or worse, not bother.
Instead, continually reaffirm a positive mindset where there is no failure, only feedback. Fear of failure will no longer be an obstacle and any undesirable results can be embraced as a springboard for smarter progression.
Now you just have to convince your colleagues to adopt the same mindset… gulp!
Assumptions are behind everything we do. They are based on what we know or believe to be true from and our past experiences. Most of the time, we don’t consciously realise how they impact our decisions.
The question is how valid are these assumptions and can you be more creative if they are removed? List the assumptions behind your project or challenge then see what happens when you change or remove them.
Example: I’m having a dinner party. My assumptions to challenge are:
- I have to cook something that will please everybody (and people will bring a bottle). But what if everyone brought their favourite foods and I just supplied the booze? It would be fun to collaborate on a menu.
- It will consist of a sit down meal at a table. Could it be a more interesting occasion if it was a stand up buffet or seated on cushions Japanese style?
- I will need to tidy the house and be a good host. Maybe I could cook at someone else’s house instead? I could do all the preparation beforehand and not worry about creating a mess.
- Does it have to centre around dinner? Can I invite a group of friends round with a focus on other activities that we haven’t done together before. I could then not worry about dinner and just provide nibbles.
- People will expect me to make elaborate dishes. Maybe there could be an incentive to make an effort? Perhaps I could set up a dinner party competition circuit, where friends take it in turns to wow each other with their cooking and a prize is at stake. Conversely, maybe I could make food centred around simple produce I have grown, caught or foraged myself.
Creativity isn’t just about problem solving. Creativity is about continually exploring alternatives and making progression.
Too often innovation is stifled because people get trapped by complacency. Even successful innovators can become a victim of their own success if they hold fast to their winning idea and don’t adapt to changing conditions. If you only react to problems, competitors that are ardently generating new solutions may become a greater threat.
Make sure you continually task yourself to look at innovation in your products and services by asking, ‘what else’ and ‘how else’.
Creativity requires both techniques for generating ideas and a mindset that is conducive for a positive thinking environment.
Creative thinking techniques alone will be ineffectual if you or your group isn’t mentally prepared to be different. For more on creative attitudes, read my article ‘Don’t be a Creature of Habit’
More on creative thinking techniques will feature in future tips so stay tuned.
Ideas come in all forms from the inspired to the down right useless. The best way to ensure you produce good ideas is to produce many ideas. That way the odds of finding the gem you’re after will increase.
If you’re looking to get more creativity from your team make sure you put as much, if not more emphasis on rewarding their creative attempts.
Just recognising and rewarding creative results acts to raise the stakes and may put people off trying in the first instance. Rewarding creative efforts will produce a more motivated and confident group and also a more energetic and enjoyable working environment.
As we grow older and gain more of life’s responsibilities, we often lose parts of ourselves that allowed us to imagine, express and dream. We often dumb down our creativity as we fall deeper and deeper into the world of work and ‘serious’ adulthood.
One way to recapture some of that lost creative energy is to rediscover an old activity or ambition. Whether it’s drawing, playing the guitar, writing poetry and so on. Allow yourself freedom to just get on and explore your ability. You don’t have to be any good at it, as long as you put in a bit of effort and enjoy the experience.
Regular diversions such as this will stimulate your brain in different ways and help reignite a passion for creativity in your everyday life.
Come up with silly ideas. They are a great starting point for new solutions. All you need to do is extract the concepts and themes and bring them back to a greater degree of reality.
Example: How to make your journey to work more enjoyable.
My silly idea is to commute by rollercoaster. Personally I’d love to commute across London by rollercoaster, but there may be some practical issues. But picking out the concepts of this idea can lead to new solutions. Here they are:
- Concept=speed. Can i find a quicker way to get to work? Can i find work that is closer to home? Can i work from home?
- Concept=fear. Maybe i could break that unwritten rule of talking to others on the tube? it may be scary but it could lead to interesting conversations and new friends.
- Concept=excitement. Could i travel to work on rollerskates? Can the train company provide on board entertainment systems?
- Concept=queuing anticipation. Could public transport services run a lottery to offer seat upgrades or free tickets for regular customers? Maybe there could be rewards system based on the distances you accumulate e.g. 1st class upgrades, a new bike, walking shoes?
We’re usually so quick to jump in with reasons why ideas won’t work. But next time, resist this urge and task yourself with first exhausting all the positives you can think of. You may even generate some new, better solutions.
Example: What are all the positives of a house with no roof?
We’d usually immediately jump to the negatives- we’d get cold and wet etc. etc. Some may even not bother to find any criticisms other than simply state that’s not how houses are meant to be. But your task is to find at least 5 positives. Give it a go before you read mine.
- The house will let heat out in summer so no need for cooling. Maybe the house could have a moveable roof to adjust to conditions?
- Indoor plants would be watered when it rains. You may even have an indoor garden. Could urban houses be built with a patch for growing your own food?
- You’d need to concentrate on conserving heat efficiently in small spaces. You’d save money on bills and minimise your impact on climate change.
- You wouldn’t need as much artificial light as more daylight would penetrate. People would suffer less from Rickets and other diseases as they would get more vitamin D from the sun.
- Buildings would be much easier and cheaper to construct.
- There would be no problems with tv reception and you wouldn’t lose any wayward Frisbees.
Just because you have a solution, it doesn’t mean you have the best one. Try to at least find one other approach before being satisfied.
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