What’s Acceptable and Unacceptable?

200 separate techniques have been developed to aid your creativity. It is not crucial to know each technique, but you should know the general theories behind the techniques.

We are all creatures of habit. Once some technique works for us, even if it works only marginally better than doing it wrong, we tend to make that technique a rule for the future. Some of our techniques go back to our high school days, or earlier (for example, many of us read at the same speed we did in grammar school. Since data gathering, by reading, is an important creativity tool, slow reading contributes to our suboptimal creativity).

Remember, the mind is the storehouse of all of our experiences and learning. Unfortunately, we access only the information that lies within reach of a few very rutted and overused pathways, or access techniques, we habitually use. We need to randomize our access routines. We need to shock ourselves out of the ruts we have dug into our brains, so we can access new information. The following are some useful approaches for breaking out of "rut-control."

Humor

One group of people went to a typical safety meeting (you know, boring!). The other group watched a Charlie Chaplin slapstick comedy. Afterwards, both groups solved a technical problem. The slapstick group did better, although the comedy had absolutely nothing to do with technical subjects. The simple dose of humor had a residual effect on their ability to create.

Laugh a little, even when it seems irrelevant.

Fantasy

Many techniques try to put you into a fantasy world, and then present real world problems to you within that context. For example, suppose you were one of a number of Lords in Medieval England, running your own fiefdom. Your serfs were trained only in the art of basket weaving. To keep from starving, you had to trade your baskets for the meat gathered by the Lord of the Forest. Unfortunately, your baskets were no longer as popular as they used to be, and the Lord of the Forest indicated a reluctance to trade with you any longer, for your "worthless" baskets.

What do you do?

The solution to this problem can help you rethink new approaches to current market, competition, retraining, and market survey problems. You hopefully can come up with new insights by tricking your mind into working within the Medieval storyline.

Wild Ideas

In college, my design engineering class tried to teach us engineers how to think creatively. I was supposed to design a steam car. I complained to the teacher, "Steam is a poor way to power a car!"

"How do you know that?" he responded.

"If steam were any good, Detroit would make steam cars."

"The Market chose a different route. That doesn’t mean it chose the right one."

Don’t assume all past decisions were wise ones. Remember that "lame" ideas can become super ideas, with a little time and attention. Don’t compare a "lame" fresh idea with a mature old idea (like steam power vs. internal combustion).

But, we don’t just test out wild ideas to see if they can beat out mature ideas. We test out wild ideas because they soften up our calcified brains. Even if the wild idea never amounts to anything, the experience of tinkering with it makes us more creative in other areas.

Hitch-Hiking of Ideas

In a brainstorming group, we encourage each participant to build upon each other's ideas.  In this way, everyone can feel comfortable suggesting "lousy" ideas, knowing the others won't criticize them, but instead, help them make the idea better.

However, much of our creativity is done by ourselves.  How do you "hitch-hike" when you are by yourself?

The following is an example of how some of us wrestle with writing projects, encouraging unnecessary delays and writer's block:

If we could do this all over again, we would do it this way: Next time you have a paper to create, try this simple approach, and see if you can't banish writer's block for good.