Throw Away the Box: Inspire Genius and Innovation with Creative Thinking Techniques”
That is the title of a talk that I am giving next week at the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce. This is a sneak peak of what will be covered. Here is my top 10 list on how to be more creative.
1. Let your freak flag fly. Get a little crazy. Do something weird. Shake all over. Yell at the top of your lungs. Talk in a strange voice.
2. Know that everyone is creative. Creativity is like a muscle. It can be developed. School did its best to beat the creativity out of us. But we are all children at heart and want to play and be creative.
3. More heads are better than one. Bounce things off others. Brainstorm in diverse groups without any censorship. All of those different perspectives make for amazing creativity.
4. The more ideas the better. Start writing things down. Make lists of things. When you get an idea, capture it. Keep writing, even after you have exhausted all possibilities.
5. Reframe the problem. Create a ridiculous solution and then ask yourself, “Why is this a great solution?”
6. Use a ridiculous correlation. Randomly put your finger in a book, look for the nearest noun and ask yourself, “How is this problem like a ………….?” Brainstorm all of those ways. It will help to give you some perspective on the problem.
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7. Say YES AND. Don’t say, “No”, or “Yes, but . . . “. Don’t say, “We tried that before and it didn’t work.” Say, Yes, and . . .” and build on the ideas generated. It will help generate more and more ideas.
8. Don’t limit yourself. We often are our biggest limitation. We are not smart enough or creative enough. We don’t have enough experience. Blow away all of those false ideas. You are truly unique. Your brain is the only brain that thinks like you do. Celebrate that and promote that and know that you can break through anything.
9. Get physical. While you are thinking, do a physical activity. Walk, stomp, shake, dance, or run. It will help your brain work better.
10. Ask the right questions. Paper or plastic? How about, “How would you like to carry your groceries home?” I would like to use this canvas bag, thanks. In a famous creativity experiment, you are asked to connect nine dots using four straight lines without lifting your pencil from the paper. Try it and see what you come up with. You can see the answer at the end of the blog.
That’s where the saying, thinking outside the box comes from. If I were looking at this problem, I would ask the following question: How many different ways can you connect these nine dots in as few lines as possible? When you ask that question, you get all kinds of creative solutions such as:
One line (A big fat line).
Three lines. The dots are fat and the lines form a “Z”.
One line that circles the earth three times and connects each row of dots.
One line (the paper is folded and the dots are all stacked on top of each other.
You can see that by expanding those limits, the ideas expand as well. So go ahead, push your own limits and expand your creative thinking!
Brent Darnell is President of Brent Darnell International, bestselling author and in-demand speaker. He attended Georgia Tech for Mechanical Engineering and has extensive experience in the construction industry. Recognizing problems in technical careers arise from low emotional intelligence and poor leadership, Brent has created fundamental behavioral shifts in thousands of employees worldwide!
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