Creative Thinking

Creative Thinking

Strive for perfection in everything you do.

Take the best that exists and make it better.

When it does not exist, design it.

Sir Henry Royce

This striving for continuous improvement, making things better and creating something that does not exist is where Creative Thinking comes into its own.

Creativity is generally understood to be the creation of something that did not exist before.  Creative Thinking is often thought about as the process used to come up with something new although as discussed below Creative Thinking can in fact be defined from several different aspects. 

Sometimes a creative spark occurs completely randomly out of the blue or sometimes the ‘creativity’ comes from a slow burn of Critical Thinking following very logical paths of thinking.  These sources of creativity exist but one is pure chance and the other is time consuming and may or may not lead to a creative breakthrough.  This leads us to the need for focused and purposeful planned approaches to bringing forth creativity rather than leaving it to chance.

Throughout the improvement and problem solving process there is a need to use our own creativity and the creativity of team members to help 'breakthrough' to new levels of understanding and generate ideas.  These can be new ways of thinking, new strategies, new goals and vision, new procedures, processes and way of working or new products and services.

There are several techniques which can help bring new and innovative ideas, approaches and information to the table and help build consensus.

We are generally trained to pursue an analytical logical argument to support our ideas.  However, this logical linear pathway is just one way of thinking about issues.  Another way of thinking is to generate possibilities and variants, seeking many options and ideas rather than just one and exploring the way forward down many avenues some of which appear ‘left-field’, random or at first obscure or unrelated.

Sometimes the logical more linear approach is called Critical Thinking and the more creative random process Creative Thinking.  In general both are needed to address the considerable amount of challenges we face in today’s business world.

The characteristics of Critical and Creative Thinking are:

In the Problem Solving process both types of thinking are required.  Initially we define the problem or opportunity and we gather and analyse data.  This forms the basis of understanding what the problem is and the measurements that demonstrate the magnitude of the issue.  However, having ascertained the problem or opportunity and quantified it ,we must generate ideas of what should be done. This need for both creative and critical thinking manifests itself throughout the Problem Solving process as each stage of the process has different needs some logical, some calling for creative random ideas and innovative thought.

A lot of attention within the schooling years is focused on Critical Thinking but not so much on Creative Thinking.

Creativity can be defined from several perspectives:

1.     The ability to create, imagine, invent something which does not exist

2.     Craft something new from existing products, processes and services

3.     Take existing ideas and products, processes and services and apply them to something new

4.     Combine new and existing ideas into new concepts

5.     A flexible perspective

6.     An attitude prepared to experiment and test

7.     An approach and process that continuous improves and seeks improvement

8.     Persistent refinement and recreation

9.     An attitude that will accept playing with new ideas and the prospect of failure

10.  An attitude which accepts something maybe good but still believe improvements are possible

We can all be creative in our own way.  At work the challenge is to harness this creativity and build synergy through people being creative together.

Creative Thinking has been recognised as emanating from five classical approaches:

1. Evolution – incremental improvement with ideas building in one another over time.
2. Synthesis – the combining of good ideas into a third new idea that produces synergy: more benefit than the individual ideas on their own when just added together
3. Revolution – Ideas radically different or completely new when compared to today
4. Reapplication – examining something old or existing and applying it in a new way
5. Insight – making breakthroughs when examining the current situation from a completely new angle or perspective or from a different experience of knowledge base

The use of Creative Thinking suffers from several hindrances:

• People are not educated in Creative Thinking techniques in formative years with the focus being on logical or critical thinking
• People enter their working years with no experience in Creative Thinking techniques and sometimes no role models around them to learn from
• Little training and education is given in the workplace on Creative Thinking
• Problems are seen as negative issues rather than opportunities to release creativity
• Problems are no welcomed and the pressure is to logically remove them as fast as possible
• The overt stance by key influencers than something ‘Cannot be done’ inhibiting and failing to release and energise others and their creativity
• The stepping aside from accountability and responsibility to address and issue typified by statements like ‘There is nothing I can do’
• A belief that other people or you are ‘not creative’ and thereby imposing a negative perception on the capabilities and opportunities even before anyone has a chance to prove otherwise
•  The ridiculing or belittling of ideas or radical ideas and fun and play in the workplace sometimes crushing others creativity in the process
• Imposing a leaders own perceived creative ability or like or dislike of creative methods on others satisfying the individuals’ needs but not those of other people
• A reluctance to pursue creative approaches for fear of what others will say or think
• Fear of failure

Creative Thinking is a critical part of making changes and delivering new performance.  It enables:

• Multiple solutions to be considered
• Existing solutions to be challenged
• New and often simpler solutions to be found
• The active pursuit of ideas and different avenues to solve problems rather than a passive ‘wait and see’ approach

If Creative Thinking is so important within the mix of issues we have to face why is it not used as much as it could be?  Some potential reasons in addition to the above are:

• Our preconceptions not allowing us to think ‘outside the box’
• The inability to see something we have used in another way or being the foundation for something completely new
• No knowledge of how to use Creative Thinking
• Negative reaction to the wilder ideas
• The belief that there is one ‘right answer’
• Logical Critical Thinking is seen as the only way to resolve an issue
• Rules that confine our thinking
• The focus on practicality rather than ‘freedom’ of thought
• The refusal to see ‘play’ as productive in the work environment
• The inability to help each other as ‘that is someone else’s job’
• Crushing ambiguity in the search for the ‘correct answer’
• Seeing something as black and white, OK or Not OK or Wrong versus right
• Seeing oneself as not creative

On the contrary there are certain human traits which when tapped into can help us use Creative Thinking to best effect:

• Our desire for knowledge and wanting to know why
• Our need to question
• Our need to challenge assumptions and test out ideas
• Our keenness to understand new ideas
• Our likes for the new and new labour saving inventions and innovations
• The desire to secure base needs and move towards self-actualisation
• Our beliefs and faith that things will improve can be beaten, can lead to success
• Our capability to hold judgement at times to see if things can improve
• Our desire to see what we see as poor or bad improved and made easier
• Emotional satisfaction from resolving problems and issues
• Our capability to persevere even when things are stacked against us
• Our imaginations
• Our knowledge that we all make mistakes and can learn from them
• Our enjoyment that comes from tackling difficult situations

Here are some tools and techniques that will assist you with Creative Thinking for you and your team:

• Affinity Diagrams
• Analogy
• Anti-Solution
• Assumption Busting
• Billboarding
• Brainstorming
• Chain Lettering
• Channeling
• Nominal Group Technique
• SCAMPER
• Testing Solutions - The Practicality Scale

Check your creative processes and see how these techniques can add value to the approaches you already use. 

Use the techniques to refresh your knowledge of the key steps each requires to making each technique a success and deliver value.