Good Morning/Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen In today's workplace our greatest under used resource is the united and integrated creative thinking abilities of ALL of the people in our organizations. For nearly 30 years I have been talking and consulting with groups and organizations trying to help them begin to develop C.r.e.8.n.g. Workplace Communities throughout their entire organizations from the front door or factory floor to the executive suite. Today most organizations work like this title: "We're Chargin' Up What Hill? To Do What? They have no unified plan or effort involving all their people from the secretaries or warehouse people to the CEO or Director. Yes some of them are creative and some of their ideas lead to successful solutions. Yet if we all were involved using our own creative thinking each day our organizations would be far more successful. My Background... From 1960 to today I have had 47 separate jobs in 44 years, lasting for as little as one day to my most recent that has last for over 20 years. Among those 44 jobs I have worked in 8 professions. All which required the use of my creativity, whether my employers asked for it or whether they expected it. It has been through the use of my growing and expanding creative thinking skills that I have solved problems, generated solutions and have helped my clients or employees reach higher levels of success. First we need to begin with the point that all people are born with vast capacities for being creative. Yet in all cultures I have experienced so far 60+ most people lose or put away their creative thinking abilities by the age of nine years old. Researchers have studied this apparent loss of creative ability in children and have labeled it the "4th grade slump", representing the apparent loss of creative thinking skills and abilities by the 4th year in school. Many factors appear to cause this. Those represent another talk for another time. So first let us begin by agreeing that all of us are born with natural abilities to thinking creatively. Second as we live our lives through our education, life and work experiences we tend to develop our own specific Cre8ng or Creative Thinking Styles of which there are at least 4 basic ones and the varied combinations of those 4, at least 24.
They consist of the Rational, the Exploratory, the Concensual or Team style, and the Systematic. During the time we have together today we will examine samples of each four that can be used in any work situation. Pause The quickest, fastest, easiest way for any one of us to become creative at any given time is to "Break Our Crayons". When I was a young boy in elementary school my greatest teacher was my elementary school art teacher, Mrs Johnson. One of the first things she taught me was what I call the "Law of Breaking Crayons". She taught us to pick up our crayons, peel or take off the paper wrappers and then abruptly break them. Then she began to teach us many to infinite ways we could use the broken pieces of colored wax to create art projects and drawings that could not have been accomplished using our crayons the way they were originally in the package. I was 37 years old before I truly learned what she had tried to truly teach us that day, whether she knew she was or not. At that time I was working on my doctorate in creativity at the University of Georgia under the direction of the greatest researcher of creative thinking and creativity, the late E. Paul Torrance, Ph.D., The Law of Breaking Crayons reminds me that once we take our problems, challenges, resources to their most basic form and see them as pure resources and not what we are pre-determined to think they are we can produce far greater numbers of ideas and potential solutions. It is not a "crayon" it is a piece of colored wax. It is not a brick it is a solid object made from dried clay or concrete. It is not...it is...! When we only see things as we accept them to be and not what they might be or actually are we limit our thinking and the potential solutions we can generate. Here are two examples of limited, "expert" thinking. "Everything that can be invented has been invented." "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." The histories of every nation are filled with such limited thinking that is based only on what is known and accepted. Here is an example of a "Crayon Breaker", only one of the most famous in the world. "Walt Disney"
"It's always fun to do the impossible. Because that's where there's less competition." Here is my second Law, "Law of Cre8ng Communities". "Great ideas grow in organizations with a vision, a mind-set devoted to innovation, creativity & improvement every day." Since 1977 I have devoted much of my life to helping people and organizations accept that we are all creative and that to become truly successful as organizations and individuals we need to accept, reawaken, enrich and expand our creative thinking abilities and skills. In school we are taught to stay within the lines. Yet no one, No one, No one who has truly become successful has done so by just staying within the lines, the accepted ways of doing things during their life times. Since 1977 I have been collecting stories of companies that have tried to expand and capitalize on creativity and creative thinking. No matter what they have done, no matter how much they have spent their programs have rarely lasted 12 to 18 months in most cases no matter how large and successful the company unless being creative was a way of life in the organization. During the past 10 years I have been developing an overall plan that I share with clients and audiences that I believe will help any organization truly become a Cre8ng Community or an organization of Cre8ng Communities. Using S.P.R.E.A.D., an English word, as an acronym I represent the 6 general areas of focus for the plan. Many of the companies I have studied or simply examined have done things in 1 or 2 and possibly 3 of the areas but none have ever worked with a total plan. The six areas of focus are SUPPORTING PROMOTING RECOGNIZING ENCOURAGING APPLYING DEVELOPING
We are leaders and members of organizations need to be doing these things consciously or unconsciously. In the beginning until they become a natural way of being they need to be done consciously and deliberately. We need to truly SUPPORT the creativity and creative thinking of all our people. We need to truly PROMOTE the significance, importance and value of creativity and creative thinking throughout our organizations. We need through many ways RECOGNIZE and REWARD creativity and creative thinking if we expect it to happen. We need to ENCOURAGE ALL of our people individually, in teams and as a total organization to use their creativity and creative thinking. We need to APPLY creativity and creative thinking throughout all aspects of our companies at least to test whether a current process or idea is still the best available at that time. And finally We need to deliberately, consciously DEVELOP the creativity and creative thinking skills and abilities of ALL our employees as a general way of working. The third Law of Creativity is that we need to WARM UP our creative thinking muscles to be successfully creative, as much as, we warm up our physical muscles when we play sports as athletes. So now we will warm up some of our creative thinking muscles. Look at this series of 6 numbers. What do they have in common? Now ask yourself What might they have in common? What might the next number in the series be? Point to be made... We need to think outside of the limits, our assumptions, what we think things are and look to discover what they MIGHT be. A Law of Creative Thinking and Creativity that is useful for helping people think more creatively is that we need to separate how we think into at least 2 categories: divergent and convergent: The Law of Divergence and Convergence done separately. When we are seeking more ideas we need to divergent, we need to strive to generate many, many, many potential, possible and hopefully probable ideas that may become very beneficial solutions before we CONVERGE or narrow down our efforts, our thinking and the number of ideas. A second warm-up. In small groups of 4 or 5 sitting near each other generate a list of 12 to 24 POSSIBLE things this drawing might represent?
Think like an average person, an engineer, an athlete, a mechanic... To truly open our creative thinking we need to OPEN our thinking to possibilities and probabilities and not let ourselves be limited by what things are accepted as being. Here are some examples of more open thinking. Now another visual challenge. A team challenge. It small groups or teams of 4 or 5 people sitting around you, answer the question... How many triangles do you see in this drawing. No matter how many or how few, no matter whether each team has a different number to tell me I can easily and logically say you are all correct. Examine the question I asked. "How many did YOU see?" I did not say how many are there. That answer will vary because of many variables. Another seemingly simple challenge. Cut this pie into 8 pieces making only 3 cuts. (I will then share a few examples on a flip chart or overhead projector or on a chalk board in front of the group) What stops us is a NEGATIVE LAW of Creativity. "Whenever we assume to know what something is, we limit our thinking." Yet another Law of Creativity is the Importance of the Environment upon our creativity. If our environment is negative, if the people we work with are negative of our creative thinking we will stop being creative. One example of factors of negative environments I call TOMBSTONES of creativity. They are short negative responses that people give us when we share an idea that they have never heard of before. Some examples are "That will not work!" "That will not fit in our budget." "The supervisor, director, boss will never allow that."
Instead of these, we need to be sharing TROPHIES of Creativity, positive supportive, encouraging statements that will lead the person to keep thinking. Now look at this drawing and ask yourself what might it be. The key is what I call the "Law of What Might It Be?" To expand and enrich our thinking into being more creative we need only begin to ask ourselves more often... What might it be? Instead of only What is it? Back to the 4 basic Cre8ng Styles I mentioned earlier. If you tend to prefer a rational style you may have accepted some of what I have said so far. If you prefer a systematic, traditional, already accepted and proven style you probably have been questioning or doubting most to everything I have said. If you have an exploratory or consensual style you probably have generated several possible solutions or ideas for each of the challenges I have already given you. Now look at this English word. What is it or might it be? "Reality" What about this second word? "Fantasy" No rotate or turn your head and look at the image on the screen upside down. You will notice that both words are both, depending on whether you look at them right-side up or upside down. This is another Law of Creativity: What is reality to one may be a fantasy to another and what is a fantasy to another may be reality to still another. It depends upon how you look at it and how open and creative minded you are. Let us try a simple mathematical problem. What is one half of 12? Here are a few different possible responses. Here are a few more. Now let us try a classic Gestalt puzzle.
Draw these 9 dots on a piece of paper. Then try to connect them with 4 straight lines without picking up your pen or pencil or backing up once you begin. See if you can connect them with 4 or less lines. Here is the classic psychological, possibly rational answer. Yet in business and industry today we need to do more with less. We need to discover ways to connect our nine dot problems with 3, 2, 1 or even no straight lines. (here I may show some examples on a flip chart, overhead projector or chalk board) How to be creative? We can practice the Laws I have shared so far... I. Law of Breaking Crayons II. Law of Cre8ng Communities III. Law of Warming Up to be Creative IV. Law of Divergence and Convergence V. Law of Negative Creativity VI. Law of Creative Environment VII. Law of What Might It Be? VIII. Law of Reality or Fantasy! These will work in the long run but what about when you need to be more creative immediately, on demand. That is when knowing some creative thinking tools or techniques is helpful. Another Law of Creative Thinking, the Law of Creative Thinking Tools & Techniques is that Creativity and Creative Thinking are the result of using Tools and Techniques, whether consciously or unconsciously. For hundreds of years, very highly creative people from the arts, sciences, industry, invention, business, even politics have been crafting tools and techniques that help them be more creative on demand. Usually these Tools and Techniques have been produced almost intuitively yet some rationally through extensive experimentation, trial and error attempts. These tools were produced to help the highly creative people deal with or get past "creative block", whether it was called writer's block, inventor's block or thinker's block. We all experience times of creative block no matter how creative we think we are or how creative we know we are. Here are 6 samples of such tools. Three of them are useful for generating vast numbers of ideas. Three of them are useful for narrowing down vast numbers of
ideas in order to produce the most valuable solution or combination of solutions. (then depending upon time left I will briefly explain them and have them experiment with them) DIVERGENT THINKING TOOLS SCAMPERING FORCED RELATIONSHIPS IDEA GRID CONVERGENT THINKING TOOLS PLUSES CONCERNS POTENTIALS HITS AND MISSES OR DOTING, RANKING VALUE GRID Now rethink the 8 Laws of Creativity and Creative Thinking I have shared and stressed today... I. Law of Breaking Crayons II. Law of Cre8ng Communities III. Law of Warming Up to be Creative IV. Law of Divergence and Convergence V. Law of Negative Creativity VI. Law of Creative Environment VII. Law of What Might It Be? VIII. Law of Reality or Fantasy! IX. Law of Creative Thinking Tools & Techniques Please know from today forward that you are creative. You can become more creative. You can become more creative on demand when you need to. And together through applying the 8 Laws of Creativity I have shared today we can help all of our organizations become the Cre8ng Communities they have the potential of becoming. Where can we be creative or need to be? Everywhere! At least part of the time! Every aspect & part of your Organization can be made more creative. As you develop, expand and enrich its creativeness EVERYONE will generate more ideas & solutions. CHOOSE TO BE CREATIVE!