In the 1970s, the Soviet Union and the United States competed in the race to explore the moon. The Soviet Union did not have the economic muscles, like the United States Apollo Program, to land a man on the moon, so instead they put their effort into landing an unmanned vehicle on the dark back side of the moon that could then send TV pictures back to earth.
Just before 8 o’clock in the morning of January 2007, a young man wearing jeans, sweater and a baseball cap steps into a subway station in central Washington DC. He picks up a violin from a case, puts the case on the ground in front of him with a few coins in and for the next 43 minutes he plays six classic pieces. During this time, 1 097 people pass. Twenty-seven of them put a coin in the case, usually on the go. Only seven people stay up and listen for at least one minute, including a three-year-old black boy who needs to be violently pulled from the place by his mother. The total revenue is 32 dollars and 17 cents.
This could be a regular mediocre street musician, but it was not.
What makes a workplace creative? You know the one buzzing with activities, where the co-workers are throwing ideas at each other and the rooms are full of energy. Recent years work place research might provide the answer.
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As a human species, we originate from the savanna, the forests and close to the water. It is in these environments we evolved during the millennia to the creative beings we are today, who, for good and for bad, eventually took over the planet we share here with all other biological life.
Creativity, undoubtedly, gets a lot of its impulses from the contacts with other people; the unexpected meetings, the discussions and the new impulses, but at least for me, this has to be contrasted with impressions and experiences from forest and water.
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The nine-dot problem is a classical test on how to think outside the box.. The challenge is to draw four straight lines, connecting each other and all nine dots.
Once you have found the solution, I would like you to think on how to likewise, connect them with only three lines. But this was only the warm-up. Now, I want to put you to a real creative test. How could this be done with only one line?
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If you believe that the one-in-a-million idea spontaneously appears in a vacuum, then you’re wrong. Problem-solving is a process that begins already when you are born. Getting acquainted with this process is very helpful if you want to train your creative muscles, be it in research, art or innovations.
Continue reading “Five steps for effective problem-solving (and 3 more)”
In discussions, we often end up in opposition to each other and then tend to get stuck defending our own position. In such a situation, it is often difficult to move on. A good method to get out of such locked positions when evaluating problems or ideas, is to use a technique called Six Thinking Hats, developed by Edward de Bono.
The traditional organisation is led by a traditional leader. The traditional leadership is focused on improving, streamlining, standardising and cutting costs. This requires managers who are goal-oriented, strong-willed, results-oriented, and can show the direction with the whole hand.
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The psychology professor and creativity researcher Mihály Csikszentmihályi has studied nearly a hundred highly creative individuals, who were groundbreaking in their fields, to try to understand what it is that makes them manage to come up with and implement so many new and revolutionary ideas.
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When facing a problem, don’t settle for the first and most obvious solution.
This is a short story on thinking outside the box. In a physics exam at the University of Copenhagen, the students were asked how to measure the height of a skyscraper using a barometer. One of the students suggested that you go up on the rooftop, tie a string to the barometer and lower it down to the ground and then measure the length of the string. The professor gave the student zero points on the question with reference to the fact that with his answer he did not demonstrate any knowledge of physics.The student complained with the motivation that the answer was obviously correct and, after some arguments, he was given the opportunity to provide an alternative solution to the problem.
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Creativity boost 