Xeyalê şiyar bikin: meriv çawa bi ramanek berbiçav tê

Let’s immediately check how creative you think. To do this, you need to name, without hesitation, a poet, a body part and a fruit.

Most Russians will remember Pushkin or Yesenin, a nose or lips, an apple or an orange. This is due to a common cultural code. If you haven’t mentioned any of these options, congratulations: you’re a creative person. If the answers matched, you should not despair — creativity can be developed.

Pitfalls of creativity

To make a discovery, you need to study a lot: understand the subject and not reinvent the wheel. The paradox is that it is knowledge that prevents discoveries.

Education is based on clichés «as it should be» and on a list of «as it should be» prohibitions. These fetters hinder creativity. To invent something new means to look at a known object from an unusual angle, without prohibitions and restrictions.

Once a student at the University of California, George Danzig, was late for a lecture. There was an equation on the board. George thought it was homework. He puzzled over it for several days and was very worried that he had submitted the decision late.

A couple of days later, an excited university professor knocked on George’s door. It turned out that George accidentally proved theorems that dozens of mathematicians, starting with Einstein, struggled to solve. The teacher wrote the theorems on the blackboard as an example of unsolvable problems. Other students were sure that there was no answer, and did not even try to find it.

Einstein himself said: “Everyone knows that this is impossible. But here comes an ignoramus who does not know this — it is he who makes the discovery.

We tend to distrust ourselves. Even if the employee is sure that the idea will bring money to the company, under pressure from colleagues, he gives up.

In 1951, psychologist Solomon Asch asked Harvard students to «test their eyesight.» To a group of seven people, he showed the cards, and then asked questions about them. The correct answers were obvious.

Of the seven people, only one was a participant in the experiment. Six others worked as decoys. They deliberately chose the wrong answers. The real member always answered last. He was sure the others were wrong. But when it was his turn, he obeyed the opinion of the majority and answered incorrectly.

The brain spends a lot of energy on solving a problem, and all the reflexes of the body are aimed at preserving it. Ready-made answers save our resources: we automatically drive a car, pour coffee, close the apartment, choose the same brands. If we thought about every action, we would get tired faster.

But to get out of a non-standard situation, you will have to fight with a lazy brain, because standard answers will not move us forward. The world is constantly evolving, and we are waiting for new products. Mark Zuckerberg would not have created Facebook (an extremist organization banned in Russia) if he was sure that forums were enough for people to communicate.

Cooking chocolate in the shape of an egg or pouring milk into a bag instead of a bottle means breaking the stereotypes in your head. It is this ability to combine the incompatible that helps to come up with new, more convenient and useful things.

Collective creative

In the past, the authors of brilliant masterpieces and inventions were loners: da Vinci, Einstein, Tesla. Today, there are more and more works created by teams of authors: for example, according to research by Northwestern University in the United States, over the past 50 years, the level of discoveries made by teams of scientists has increased by 95%.

The reason is the complication of processes and the increase in the amount of information. If the inventors of the first airplane, the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, assembled a flying machine together, today a Boeing engine alone requires hundreds of workers.

brainstorming method

To solve complex problems, specialists from different fields are needed. Sometimes questions appear at the intersection of advertising and logistics, planning and budgeting. A simple look from the outside helps to get out of unsolvable situations. This is what the techniques of collective search for ideas are for.

In Guided Imagination, Alex Osborne described the brainstorming method. During World War II, he served as an officer on a ship carrying military supplies to Europe. The ships were defenseless against enemy torpedo attacks. On one of the voyages, Alex invited the sailors to come up with the craziest ideas on how to protect the ship from torpedoes.

One of the sailors joked that all sailors should stand on board and blow on a torpedo to knock it off course. Thanks to this fantastic idea, underwater fans were installed on the sides of the vessel. When a torpedo approached, they created a powerful jet that «blowed» the danger to the side.

You have probably heard about brainstorming, perhaps even used it. But they definitely forgot about the main rule of brainstorming: when people express ideas, you can’t criticize, ridicule and intimidate with power. If the sailors were afraid of the officer, no one would joke — they would never have found a solution. Fear stops creativity.

Proper brainstorming is carried out in three stages.

1. Amadekarî: identify the problem.
2. Avahî: prohibit criticism, collect as many ideas as possible.
3. Kom: analyze the results, choose 2-3 ideas and apply them.

Brainstorming works when employees of different levels participate in the discussion. Not one leader and subordinates, but several department heads and subordinates. Fear of looking stupid in the face of superiors and being judged by a superior makes it difficult to come up with fresh ideas.

You can’t say it’s a bad idea. You can’t reject an idea because “it’s funny”, “nobody does it like that” and “how are you going to implement it”.

In 2003, Harlan Nemeth, a professor of psychology at the University of California, conducted an experiment. 265 students were divided into three groups and offered to solve the problem of traffic jams in San Francisco. The first group worked on a brainstorming system — no criticism at the creative stage. The second group was allowed to argue. The third group received no conditions.

After finishing, each member was asked if they would like to add a couple more ideas. Members of the first and third proposed 2-3 ideas each. The girls from the group of debaters named seven ideas each.

Criticism-dispute helps to see the shortcomings of the idea and find clues for the implementation of new options. Brainstorming doesn’t work if the discussion is subjective: you don’t like the idea, but you like the person who said it. And vice versa. Evaluate each other’s ideas should not be colleagues, but a third, disinterested person. The problem is to find it.

Three chair technique

The solution to this problem was found by Walt Disney — he developed the «three chairs» technique, which requires only 15 minutes of working time. How to apply it?

You have a non-standard task. Imagine three chairs. One participant mentally takes the first chair and becomes a «dreamer». He comes up with the most fantastic methods for solving problems.

The second one sits down in the «realist’s» chair and describes how he would bring the ideas of the «dreamer» to life. The participant tries on this role regardless of how he himself relates to the idea. His task is to assess the difficulties and opportunities.

The last chair is occupied by the «critic». He evaluates the proposals of the «realist». Decides which resources can be used in a manifestation. Weeds out ideas that do not fit the conditions, and chooses the best one.

The Recipe of a Genius

Creativity is a skill, not a talent. Not the ability to see a table of chemical elements in a dream, but specific techniques that help stir up consciousness.

If you feel like you can’t think creatively, then your imagination is sleeping. It can be awakened — fortunately, there are a lot of methods, schemes and theories for creative development.

There are general rules that will help in any creative search:

• Clearly articulate. A properly asked question contains most of the answer. Do not ask yourself: «What to do?» Imagine the result you want to get and think about how you can achieve it. Knowing what you need to get in the final, it is much easier to look for the answer.
• Fight prohibitions. Don’t take my word for it. The problem is not solvable if you tried and failed. Do not use ready-made answers: they are like semi-finished products — they will solve the problem of hunger, but they will do it with less health benefits.
• Combine the incompatible. Come up with something new every day: change the route to work, find common ground between a raven and a desk, count the number of red coats on the way to the subway. These strange tasks train the brain to quickly go beyond the usual and look for suitable solutions.
• Respect colleagues. Listen to the opinions of those who are working on a task near you. Even if their ideas seem absurd. They can be the impetus for your discoveries and help you move in the right direction.
• Realize the idea. Unrealized ideas are worth nothing. Coming up with an interesting move is not as difficult as putting it into practice. If the move is unique, there are no tools or research for it. It is possible to realize it only at your own peril and risk. Creative solutions require courage, but bring the most desired results.