Report 103

Your newsletter on applied creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business – delivered to your e-mail box on the first and third Tuesday of every month.

Tuesday, 2 May 2006
Issue 81

Hello and welcome to another issue of Report 103, your fortnightly newsletter on creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business.

As always, if you have news about creativity, imagination, ideas, or innovation please feel free to forward it to me for potential inclusion in Report103. Your comments and feedback are also always welcome.

Information on unsubscribing, archives, reprinting articles, etc can be found at the end of this newsletter.

10 CREATIVE MYTHS

Over the years, I have heard a lot of people say a lot of daft things about creativity. Some of those things, I hear again and again. What's worse, a lot these daft notions – or myths – about creativity are detrimental to the creative process. So, let's end this once and for all. Below are 10 creative myths. If you share these with everyone in the world, these myths will go away.

1. “I am not creative”
I have heard a lot of people say precisely that: “I am not creative”. The truth, of course, is that we are all creative. That's what differentiates us from Parrots who can say clever things put couldn't have a creative idea if their lives depended upon it. The truth is we are all creative. And while some people are naturally more creative than others, we can all have very creative ideas. The problem is, as we grow older, most of us learn to inhibit our creativity for reasons relating to work, acceptable behaviour and just the notion of being a grown-up.

2. “That's a stupid [or daft, or silly, or ridiculous] idea”
People say this kind of thing to colleagues, family and even to themselves. Indeed, this is one reason why people believe they are not creative: they have got into such a habit of censoring their creative ideas, by telling themselves that their ideas are stupid, that they no longer feel creative. Next time you have an idea you think is stupid, don't censor it. Rather, ask yourself how you could improve the idea.

3. “Creative people always have great ideas”
Rubbish! Creative people always have ideas. Whether they like it or not, they are having ideas and sharing those ideas (often with people who tell them their ideas are stupid, no less!) every waking hour of the day. Of those ideas, a precious few are great. Many are good, Many are mediocre and a precious few really are stupid ideas. Over time, we tend to forget creative people's weak ideas and remember their great ideas.

4. “Constructive criticism will help my colleague improve her idea.”
Yeah, and tripping a child when she is learning to walk will help her improve her walking skills. Nonsense! Criticism, whether constructive or destructive (as most criticism truly is) squelches creative thinking and teaches your colleague to keep her ideas to herself. Likewise, other colleagues will see what happens when ideas are shared and will also learn to keep their ideas to themselves. Fresh ideas are fragile. They need nurturing, not kicking. Instead of criticising a colleague's new idea, challenge her to improve the idea by asking her how she could get over the idea's weakness.

5. “We need some new marketing ideas for the upcoming product launch. Let's get the marketing people together and brainstorm ideas.”
This is a sure recipe for coming up with the same kind of marketing ideas you have had in the past: ie. uncreative. Brainstorming, as well as ideas campaigns and other group ideation events get the most creative results with the widest variety of participants. Want marketing ideas? Then bring in sales, accounting, human resources, financial, administrative, production, design, research, legal and other people into the brainstorming event. Such a wide range of knowledge, experience and backgrounds will encourage a wide range of ideas. And that results in more creative ideas.

6. “In order for our innovation strategy to be a success, we need a system of review processes for screening ideas and determining which ideas to implement.”
In fact, the review process is very often about eroding creativity by removing risk from ideas. The most important component for corporate innovation is a method of soliciting and capturing focused business ideas. The ideas campaign approach – where you challenge employees to submit ideas on specific business issues, such as “in what ways might we improve product X?” is the best way to focus innovation. A transparent tool that allows employees to submit, read and collaborate on ideas is the best way to focus creative thinking. And, framing your challenges effectively is arguably one of the most important aspects of successful corporate innovation. (see http://www.jpb.com/ideamanagement/ for more information on the ideas campaign approach to innovation). Yes, reviewing ideas is important. But first you need to be generating the creative ideas so that they may be reviewed.

7. “That's a good idea. Let's run with it”
When we are looking for ideas, we have a tendency to stop looking and start implementing with the first good idea that comes to mind. Unfortunately, that means that any great ideas you might have had, had you spent more time thinking, are lost. Moreover, good ideas can often be developed into significantly better ideas with a little creative thought. So, don't think of a good idea as an end – rather think of it as a beginning of the second stage of creative thought.

8. “Drugs will help me be more creative”
The 1960s drug culture and glamour of musicians and artists getting high and being creative led to this myth. And, possibly a little bit of drugs or alcohol will loosen your inhibitions to the extent that you do not criticise your ideas as much as you might had your inhibitions not been loosened. A lot of drugs or alcohol, however, will alter your mind and may very likely make you believe you are being more creative. But to people watching you, you will just seem like someone who is very high.

9. “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”
Just the other day I was at a workshop where some people were complaining about a colleague who always had ideas. Worse, he wanted to use those ideas to change processes that were working perfectly well. Sadly, too many of us (but not you, of course) are like the complainers. If something works well as it is, whether it is a machine or a process, we often feel there is no need to change the way it works. Fortunately, Dr. Hans von Ohain and Sir Frank Whittle didn't think like that – or we'd still be flying in propeller aeroplanes. Bear in mind that propeller aeroplanes were working perfectly fine when the two gentlemen in question individually invented the jet engine.

10. “I don't need a notebook. I always remember my ideas”
Maybe. But I doubt it. When we are inspired by an idea, that idea is very often out of context with what we are doing. Perhaps a dream we had upon waking inspires us with the solution to a problem. But, then we wake up, get the children up, have breakfast, run through in our minds an important presentation we'll be giving in the morning, panic that the kids will miss their bus, run for the train, flirt with an attractive young thing on the train, etc - until late afternoon when you finally have time to think about the problem. How likely are you really to remember the idea you had upon wakening?

TEACHING CHILDREN TO RESPECT CREATIVE CHILDREN

We often look at children and see a kind of creative purity. Young children, we like to think, have not yet learned to think in specific ways or curb their imaginations. Their imaginations are pure and can glide to great heights. This is true. Where you or I would see an old washing machine box, a five year old child might see a house, a spaceship or a castle.

At the same time, children are also extreme conformists. They want to be like the other kids. They wear the same clothes their classmates wear, watch the same TV shows, listen to the same music, visit the same web sites and very much follow the leads of their peers. And this makes sense. Children learn by mimicking people around them. That's how they learn to walk, talk, behave and so on.

The downside to this is that the rare child who sticks out because she does not conform is often seen as an oddball, a weirdo or worse. Worse still, she is likely to be the victim of bullies, the ultimate conformists who terrorise those who do not conform to their narrow views of appropriate behaviour.

Eccentric children do not conform for a variety of reasons: they may come from different backgrounds, they may have mental or physical problems which make their differences stand out, they may have been brought up by parents who teach them different values than those taught by other parents in the area. They are also likely to be very creative children. By being different from the norm, they probably think differently to their peers, approach problems differently and try out ideas other kids would reject out of hand.

However, unless nonconforming children are very strong mentally, they are likely to be worn down by bullies who attack their uniqueness, by other children who laugh at their differences and the stigma of not fitting in.

Some of these weirdo children will learn to conform. Others will suffer miserable childhoods, learning that being different and being creative are bad. A precious few will not be able to cope and will be driven to mental illness and suicide.

We as parents and our society is largely to blame. Although we want to raise children to be more creative and become innovative workers, we do not teach children to respect individuals who dare to be different – and think differently. We do not teach children to respect and admire creative thinkers. If anything, we encourage children to conform to the local norms and ostracise the oddballs who stand out because they dare to be themselves.

So, while governments agonise over how they can produce creative thinkers, they – and you – should think about how to produce children who respect and admire creative thinkers. Once weirdos are respected by children, it will be easy to encourage children to aspire to be weirdos – ie. creative thinkers - themselves.

PROTOTYPING IN THE WORLD OF COMPUTER GAMES

Following the last issue of Report 103 (Selling Ideas Up the Corporate Ladder – http://www.jpb.com/report103/archive.php?issue_no=20060418), Robert van Lieshout of Simbon Innovation Management Solutions in the Netherlands e-mailed me a link to a fascinating article on prototyping in the games world. Prototyping, as I wrote in the Report 103 article is a very effective method for selling ideas to managers, clients and others. The article in GameSpy goes into much more detail on how effective prototyping works in complex projects such as computer games. Even if you are not a computer specialist or a gamer, I think you will find the article interesting. Read it at http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/spore/698263p1.html.

REBEL AT FORD MOTOR COMPANY

The Truth About Cars newsletter recently ran an interesting article on what happens when you hire an innovative rebel to take charge of a project in a large bureaucratic organisation – and the unfortunate consequences that befall the rebel daring enough to push his ideas in a place where following rules is more highly valued that innovation. Read more at http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/content/11454903471660478567/ .

I do not know the Truth About Cars newsletter well enough to verify the accuracy of this story. But, I have seen similar things happen often enough in the corporate world to believe it is very likely a true story.

Happy thinking!

Jeffrey Baumgartner

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Report 103 is a complimentary weekly electronic newsletter from Bwiti bvba of Belgium (a jpb.com company: http://www.jpb.com). Archives and subscription information can be found at http://www.jpb.com/report103/

Report 103 is edited by Jeffrey Baumgartner and is published on the first and third Tuesday of every month.

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