Views from the Hills by R. E. Stevens, GENESIS II (The Second Beginning) E-Mail views@aol.com

A Few Thoughts on Innovation and Creativity

During the past couple of weeks, questions have come up about innovation and the creative process.  One of the questions dealt with the process of innovation, that is, how do you go about creating an atmosphere conducive to creativity?  That's a series of volumes or at least a large book, so we won't address it here.  But rather, I will cover a couple of approaches that I have found to be effective.  first for an individual atmosphere, I like to crawl outside of the box and view the problem with different pairs of eyes.  Such as, state your problem and ask yourself how would Einstein pursue the solution, how would Walt Disney have Mickey Mouse approach the solution, or how would Curley from Larry, Curley and Moe approach the problem?  Defer judgment on the solutions until after you have enlarged, shrunk, stretched and turned each solution inside out.  Frequently it is those really crazy appearing ideas that turn out to being the best or leading to one of the better solutions.

An approach I like to use in understanding a problem is to look at it from different perspectives.  To visualize this idea, I use the example of three people walking up a hill using different paths.  you ask each one to describe a tree sitting on top of the hill, and you will get three different but accurate answers.  They are different because each has a different view of the tree and the answers are all accurate from their specific point of view.  This analogy can be very helpful in conflict situations.

Another approach is to use both sides of your brain, and I don't mean the usual right/left side analogy, but the divergent and convergent sides.  I like to look at these sides as the Judge and the Child sides of the mind.  The judge side is the judgmental side that asks the questions, "Is it logical?, Does it make sense?, and Is it really a good idea?"  The child side and the first step in the solution process, is the side that asks the childish questions like, "Why not?, What can I do with it?, What would happen if I . . .?  Just play with it and see what happens.

One of the playful approaches is called Analogies or Forced Relationships.  Here we look at two entirely different worlds, exploring the similarities.  In this way we can see how one world can be improved by looking at positive and negative features occurring in the other world.  It is much like looking at the worlds with different eyes except now we are not just looking at actions but also features or personalities.  For a further description of this method, see my Views of April 17, 2000, "Analogies -- A Creative Way to Understand and Learn."


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