Creative Streak

Using creativity for more than brainstorming

Outside of generating ideas - in and of itself, an important task - a surprising number of people have admitted to me that they don't know why they need to be creative at work. And, a good number of these people admitted further that they didn't have any interest or need for creativity.

It’s not surprising. After all, being creative has historically described someone who’s subversive and rebellious, or a person who falls outside of the traditional, normal or accepted path. For many cultures and societies, creativity (also known as ‘being different’) is an unwelcome attribute for a variety of reasons. I’ve even encountered people who believe being creative is somehow incompatible with being professional.

Regardless, creativity is as paramount to work as any other skill. Outside of brainstorming, here are the four tasks where people absolutely need creative skills in a business environment.

1. Strategic Planning

One element of strategic planning involves investigating all of the ways an organisation might grow in a particular industry or category, or transcend into new areas. Researching and developing any possible plans of action demands creativity, particularly in ways which are new, different or unusual. The phrase “You can’t expect new solutions from doing the same thing and over” demonstrates this point perfectly.

One of my favourite books on this subject is The Mind of the Strategist: The Art of Japanese Businessby Kenichi Ohmae.

2. Message Development

Every good corporate spokesperson knows this mantra, if not be heart, then by intuition: Know what you say, not say what you know. Determining what you're going to say requires the speaker to develop, re-write and edit a variety of statements into the perfect one. Similarly, branding or re-branding an organization or product means investigating all of its potential positions when compared with its existing or potential competition, with message development to follow. Positioning a company or service also means creating ideal messages which resonate with its target audiences, their influencers and the media.

3. Negotiation Skills

One of the basic elements of effective negotiation is to know all of your options before you get to the table. Knowing the range of options between what you need versus what you want is often the difference between successful and poor negotiations. It’s difficult to negotiate and be creative at the same time. Creativity allows the negotiator to develop all of options well in advance of the meeting with the other side.

One of the most accessible books on this subject is Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury and Bruce Patton.

4. Risk and Crisis Management

An important principle of risk management and crisis communications is considering all worst case scenarios. A common phrase in planning workshops is “What if?” - not unlike the question used in most brainstorms. The creation of potential hypotheses is particularly vital to do in advance of the crisis because – like negotiating – one’s creativity disintegrates in tense situations.

In their Harvard Business Review article ”Preparing for Evil” (April 2003), Ian Mitroff and Murat Alpaslan outline how the best companies prevent and contain crisis and issues, often with creativity.

Creativity, every day

Lots of people think the only time they use creativity at work is during a brainstorm, but it’s actually a skill people use frequently throughout the day, often without realising it.

Anytime you’re trying to solve a problem – any problem – you’re using your creative thinking skills. You’re using those skills again whenever you improve someone else’s ideas. Or, when you want or need something, the right side of your head runs its own brainstorm to figure out ways to achieve it.

Probably the most common way that people use their creative skills at work is when they write. How you select your words, in what order, in what tone: that's all creativity.

Think about the last time you were writing something on the computer, and then it suddenly crashed, taking with it that important document you were typing. After you stopped cursing and began to re-write, didn't it improve the second time? Most likely you didn’t recreate it exactly: you used different words, phrasing or order. You essentially brainstormed another option, improving it the second time.

I'm not suggesting In the future to crash your computer to deliberately force yourself to be creative. But, you could try to write something once, set it aside for awhile, then re-write it a second or third time. Each version generally gets better.

Here’s another suggestion to improve your business writing. How many times – while typing – did you correct and edit yourself while you were also trying to write your document for the first time?

Writing is creative thinking. Editing is strategic thinking. It’s not efficient to try to apply both types of thinking at the same time because one skill slows down the other.

Any creative writing teacher will tell you it’s most effective to simply write – that is, to first create. Get all of your thoughts down on paper or via your keyboard so that you’ve completed a first draft. Then, once it’s written, then go back and edit. Now, you’re using both types of thinking, alone, at the proper time.

Left side or right side?

 

This test explains and demonstrates how you use your left and right brains, and more important, how you might improve your creative thinking.

Step 1: Read the words above. It's easy, isn't it? (Well, easy if you know how to read English.) Reading is primarily a left-brain activity.

Step 2: Read the colour of the word instead of the word itself. For many people, it’s not so easy. Recognising colours is primarily a right-brain activity.

If you can read either the word or the colour of the word, you are adept at using both left brain and right brain thinking.

If you find reading the colour of the word difficult, don’t worry. Try doing it again, or reading it from bottom to top. It gets easier each time you try, doesn’t it? Like every other skill you’ve been interested in learning in your life, creative thinking can be improved with repeated practice.

This exericse is officially known as "The Stroop Effect," named after J. Ridley Stroop's ground-breaking research in experimental psychology ("Studies of Interference in Serial Verbal Reactions") at George Peabody College in 1935. After research instant scientific prominence, he abandoned any further research in 1938 to pursue a life devoted to teaching, preaching and writing about the bible.

Creativity at work

 

To put the hour-glass figure of Strategic and Creative Thinking into daily context (original note: 5 Jan 09), think about the last time you were trying to be creative at work.  You probably performed the steps outlined below, either consciously or intuitively.  It’s what most of us have learned to do, either in school or through trial-and-error.

1. You started with an objective or goal so you understood your exact purpose.  (The green line along the top.)

2. You conducted research, gathering information.  You read, talked to people, surfed the Internet.  By absorbing your research, you learned new information; some of which you knew, most of which you didn't.  Your information became knowledge.  (The green dots, underneath the top line.)

3. As you researched, you also began to make decisions about the quality of the information you gathered.  You found some information very important.  Other information wasn't what you needed, but it helped to point you in another - perhaps more accurate - direction.  Some information ultimately wasn't very helpful at all.  In the end, you decided some information was right and other information was wrong.  (At each step, you had less green dots, but more 'better' dots.)

4. Then, a momentous thing happened.  After thoughtful consideration, you uncovered a vital piece of information which completely changed how you understood your knowledge.  Or, several pieces of information coalesced into a critical understanding of the assignment or topic.  Perhaps you even cried out “AHA!” (The red dot in the center.)

5. This moment was the impetus to begin brainstorming in earnest.  With this piece of information, you thought, "I could do this - or this - or this - or this or this or this."  In all likelihood, you gathered colleagues together to get more ideas to create even more ideas.  (The blue lines radiating down from the red dot.)

6. Eventually, among all options, you selected one or two of the good ideas to hone into the best option.  You might also have conducted additional research to help make sure you were perfecting your idea in the right way.  (The blue arrows at the bottom.)

7. Your final step: implementing your refined idea to help you achieve the original goal of the assignment, which in turn, linked you back to your first step.  (You selected one 'arrow' - the best idea - to implement.)

There, you have the basic principles of both Strategic Thinking and Creative Thinking.

Helpful definitions: creative thinking and strategic thinking

Strategic Thinking is the ability to judge whether a specific situation or piece of information is right or wrong, based on its ability to help achieve a positive business outcome, or solve a business problem or issue. Strategic Thinking reduces information down to its unique insight, the essential and core understanding of any topic. How accurately and quickly a person can reduce information to an insight is a useful definition of how 'strategic' someone is.

Creative Thinking is the ability to create as many potential ideas as possible, to achieve a positive business outcome, solve a problem or issue, or fulfil a wish or need. Creative thinking expands upon the insight by creating many alternative plans, solutions or options. How many different ideas a person can quickly create is a useful definition of how 'creative' someone is.

Strategic Thinking is Left Brain Activity. It likes analyses, comparisons, categories, objectivity – anything that creates order.

Creative Thinking is Right Brain Activity. This part of your brain likes space, rhythm, colour, pictures. It likes daydreaming, visualising, generating ideas, stimulating your imagination.

Strategic Thinking asks: How can we organise?

Creative Thinking asks: What else can we do?

Strategic Thinking is convergent: it brings information together.

Creative Thinking is divergent: it shows differing or deviating sides to information.

Strategic Thinking: This sides sees trees.

Creative Thinking: This side sees forests.

A caveat: While Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981 for the concept of split-brain lateralisation, I use the Left Brain / Right Brain theory noted above with some trepidation. Science has shown that people are not simply ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained.’ While certain functions are primarily controlled by one side – visual or grammatical abilities, for example – left or right brain thinking does not apply to every person in every case, just as people are not singularly strategic or creative.

(Editor's Note: Sorry about all the typos!  I'm trying to write and learn code at the same time!  I promise to proof my text better in the future!)

What creative and strategic thinking looks like: the hour-glass figure

This hour-glass figure represents the differences between strategic and creative thinking.

 

The green line at the top of the drawing represents your goal. It's the important first step because it gives you direction and guidance to tackle your business assignment with creativity.

Moving down, each green dot represents a piece of information you gather, based on the goal. As you collect, learn and consider the subject, you also begin to select, edit and reduce the information in front of you. As you process this information at each subsequent step, you simply have less of it - but more concentrated, sort of like consomme.

The red circle in the centre represents the total concentration of information and knowledge, forming the key element of creativity called insight - the core or essential understanding of a particular topic, and which strongly suggests a course of action.

The insight is the catalyst for brainstorming.  It inspires an idea - and another, and another, and so on. The blue lines radiating down represent all of the potential ideas. The more ideas you generate, you improve your change of creating a few very specific good ideas.

At the bottom, the small arrows represent those ideas which you refine, hone and adapt into workable solutions. This last step of refining an idea to take to market is commonly known as innovation.

This drawing demonstrates that these two types of thinking - strategic and creative thinking - are essentially opposite. Neither way is the right way to think. They're simply different ways to think.

Strategic thinking is the ability to judge whether a specific situation or piece of information is right or wrong, based on its ability to help achieve a positive business outcome, or solve a business problem or issue. Strategic thinking reduces information down to its unique insight, the essential and core understanding of any topic. How accurately and quickly a person can reduce information to an insight is a useful definition of how 'strategic' someone is.

Creative thinking is the ability to create as many potential ideas as possible, to achieve a positive business outcome, solve a problem or issue, or fulfil a wish or need. Creative thinking expands upon the insight by creating many alternative plans, solutions or options. How many different ideas a person can quickly create is a useful definition of how 'creative' someone is.

The difference is important because your brain needs to switch from one to the other to be effective at doing both. It's also important to know when you may be applying strategic thinking when you should be being creative, and vice versa.

Remember when someone was playing 'devil's advocate' in a brainstorm? Censuring and judging ideas is another way of editing. They were using strategic thinking in a creative solution.

Remember when someone kept coming up with ideas when you needed to finalize the right idea for the project? They were using creative thinking in a strategic situation.

Creative definitions

Depending upon which source you select, there are nearly 500 definitions of the word creativity, with most relating to artistic ability or accomplishment, and few describing its impact and influence on business.

 

Here's some of the most common definitions:

 

"The birth of imaginative new ideas"

I understand - and moderately agree - with its underlying point, but I don't like the the concept of "new" in a definition of creativity.  There's heaps of brilliant ideas created everyday that aren't new.  Case in point:  the iPod.

 

"Looking at the same thing as everyone else, but seeing it differently"

Being able to see and recognize difference perspective is absolutely vital.

 

"Bringing something new into the world"

Another reason why I dislike the word 'new' - I find it paralyzes brainstorm participantss.  It's as if you're saying:  "Come on everyone, think of something NEW that someone hasn't thought of in all of human civilizsation."

 

"Creativity comes from a world we don't know we don't know"

A classic, from a colleague at Burson-Marseller I never got a chance to meet:  I love it because it's 99% oblique and 100% correct.

 

"The ability to discover new relationships and combinations"

This is a better use of the word 'new' - again, being creative, particularly in business, means seeing relationships between two items that others haven't (yet) seen.

 

"The imaginatively gifted recombination of known elements into something new"

I like this definition because of the word "recombination" - which is almost exactly what creative thought is - combining and merging together different elements into a new idea.

 

"Effective surprise"

Hardly an articulate definition of anything, except a surprise party.

 

"When a person has many new "big ideas" to bring into the world"

I see this definition frequently, but frankly, it's a better description of a creative person than a definition of creativity.

Which of these two 'coat hangers' is more creative?

Here's a trick question for you.  Which of these two 'coat hangers' is more creative?

Exhibit A:  The superb Sydney Harbour Bridge, designed by John Bradfield in 1916, completed in 1932.

Exhibit B:  The marvel of simplicity known as the wire coat hanger, designed by Albert J. Parkhouse in 1903.

 

Seeing these two icons together help people understand why Australians affectionately call the Harbour Bridge a 'coat hanger,' and its nickname is a perfect example of a metaphor, one of the most important elements of creative thinking.

As the urban myth goes, Parkhouse worked in a lamp shade factory in Michigan, USA.  He came to work late one morning and found there were no more pegs by the door to hang his overcoat. He alledgedly picked up a piece of stray wire and bent it into a shape to resemble the human shoulders.  (Another metaphor!)  The curl on the top was a graceful and practical finish.  We might argue the historical accuracy of the details, but neither of us can deny that it's actually rather beautiful, isn't it?

Bradfield - also one of the primary architects of the City of Sydney - was obsessed with finding a way to cross Port Jackson, more commonly known as Sydney Harbour.  He not only designed a practical solution to enable people to cross the harbour, it was also the perfect complement to its breathtaking setting.

So, which is more creative?  Not to worry, it's a trick question.  Choosing one design over the other is impossible - and more so - unnecessary because they're creative for different reasons.  This question demonstrates one of the first principles about creativity.  Ideas are generated because people want or need something, or have a problem to overcome or eliminate.  Or more often, it's a combination of both need and problem.

"Necessary is the mother of invention," says it perfectly.