The Art of Creative Thinking: A Practical Guide Including Exercises an

The Art of Creative Thinking

Robert W. Olson

To people willing to work toward developing their own creativity and to try to make a positive contribution to the well-being of man. And to Lawnee, Robert and Vawnee for their special contribution to the development of my creativity.

Contents

Preface

Illustrations

Introduction

Part I Background

Chapter 1 What Is Creativity?

Creative Ideas

Chapter 2 Why Do People Create?

Benefits from Creating

Chapter 3 Obstacles to Becoming More Creative

Habit

Time

Overwhelmed by Problems

No Problems

Fear of Failure

Need for One Answer Now!

Difficulty of Directed Mental Activity

Fear of Fun

Recognizing Good Solutions

Criticism by Others

Summary

Chapter 4 Creative People as Problem Solvers

Problem-Solving Characteristics

Recognizing Valuable Problems

Defining the Real Problems

Opening to Inner and Outer ideas for Solutions

Using Judgment and Intuition to identify Solutions

Transforming Solutions into Usable Results

Unconscious Thinking

The Unconscious as an Aid to Problem Solving

When Ideas Incubate

What Incubates?

Summary

Chapter 5 Deliberate Creativity

Quantity of Ideas

Brainstorming

Synectics

Goal Focusing

Checklists

Methods Used at Hot Point Company of Focusing Creativity

Procter and Gamble’s Elimination Approach

Delaying Judgment

Summary

Chapter 6 Recognizing Challenges, Opportunities and Problems

Part II A Creative Process and Creative Catalysts

The DO IT Creatively Catalysts (Table 1)

Chapter 7 Defining the Problem

Focus on the Real Problem (Mind Focus)

Ask Why

Subdivide (Divide and Conquer)

Summary of Mind Focus

Get a Firm Grip on the Problem (Mind Grip)

Think Big (Mind Stretch)

Chapter 8 Open Yourself to Many Diverse Ideas

Using Idea Prompters (Mind Prompt)

Using Wild Ideas (Mind Surprise)

Using Similarities (Mind Free)

Using Synthesis (Mind Synthesize)

Chapter 9 Identify the Best Idea

Integrating Conscious and Unconscious (Mind Integrate)

Individual Uniqueness

Gut-Level Feelings and Intuition

Criteria

Idea Selection

Strengthen Your Idea (Mind Strengthen)

Energize Yourself to Act (Mind Energize)

Chapter 10 Transform Ideas into Action

Persistence

Resistance from Others

Resistance from Self

Modification

Optimum

Follow Through

Planning for Action

Risk and Failure

Product Failure

Ways to Reduce the Risk of Failure

Business Growth

Personal Growth

Chapter 11 Summary of the DO IT Process and Catalysts

Part III Related Topics

Chapter 12 Quick Creative Thinking

Chapter 13 Group Creative Problem Solving

Group Characteristics

Characteristics of Group Members

Reasons for Group Meetings

Effective Group Meetings

Group Composition and Size

Meeting Dynamics

Group Leadership

Chapter 14 Sustaining Your Creativity

Chapter 15 Summary and Conclusion

Appendix Supplementary Problems

Bibliography

Copyright

About the Publisher

PREFACE

For the past two decades I have been intrigued by two fascinating questions of creativity. Why don’t people use more of their creativity? And, how can people become more creative?

I used to think of creativity as something rather unusual, something that should be applied to problems such as putting man on the moon or coming up with a new social program here on earth. However, the more I utilize my own creativity and study the use of the creativity of other people, the more I believe that it is one of the most powerful and ordinary tools of man.

The techniques presented in this book can be used to help you solve ordinary, everyday problems, like what should I buy someone for their birthday, as well as professional ones, such as in what ways can a cheap source of power be developed for the world.

Frequently books written in the field of creativity are written about the creativity of others and are designed for professional psychologists. They are difficult to understand and offer little help to those who wish to become more creative and to do something with their creativity. This book is designed to be of value to professionals in areas such as business, psychology, education and engineering, and to lay persons who are interested in not only understanding the creative thinking process, but also want to better utilize their present abilities and to become more creative.

This book is based on research which I have conducted during the past ten years which was focused on discovering the approaches successful people use to create, finding existing techniques and developing new ones to aid people who want to become more creative. In addition to this research, I have utilized my personal experience as a nuclear engineer, project engineer, educator, businessman and psychologist. The techniques and ideas presented in this book have been tested and refined on thousands of people in workshops, seminars and college classes.

I want to express my gratitude to the many people who have contributed to the development of this book. I want to thank my wife, Vawnee, and children, Robert and Lawnee, for their understanding support of my work and their enrichment of my creativity; the many college and university students, friends, business leaders, scientists and artists who have made valuable contributions to my work; artist Kevin Fagan for collaborating with me to develop the cartoons and illustrations; Helen Baxter for typing assistance. I especially wish to thank Doug Nash, Max Schreiber, Philip Rogers and Robert Lombardi for their encouragement and help.

This book was enjoyable to write and it helped me become more creative. I hope it provides you with as much pleasure and creative growth as it did me.

Robert W. Olson, Ph.D.

Mission Viejo, California

Postscript:

At 23, Kevin Fagan, the cartoonist-illustrator for this book, has become a creative success as America’s youngest syndicated cartoonist. His comic strip, Drabble, is read by millions of people from coast to coast in newspapers such as the Washington Post, Chicago Sun Times, Seattle Times, and Toronto Globe.

The cartoons and illustrations in this book represent his first professional work. I have observed him informally utilize many of the creative thinking techniques described in this book to help develop his own creativity. It has been a great thrill for me to watch Kevin progress from a college newspaper cartoonist to a successful syndicated cartoonist. Congratulations, Kevin!

Illustrations

1. Questionable Creativity

2. Drain Cup

3. Plant Protector

4. Unrecognized Habit

5. Uncreative Use of Time

6. No Problems

7. Emergency Organ—The Mind

8. The Contribution of Others

9. Incubation

10. Relaxing to Create

11. Quality from Quantity

12. Sherlock and Quantity

13. Death of an Idea Seed

14. Recognizing Problems

15. The Obvious Problem

16. Keys to Creative Problem Solving

17. Mind Focus

18. Overfocus

19. Lack of Focus

20. Mind Grip

21. Mind Prompting

22. An Analogy

23. Creative Combinations

24. Perception

25. Ours Is Not to Reason Why

26. Thinking vs. Feeling

27. Thinking vs. Doing

28. Trust?

29. Optimization

30. An Idea with a Plan

31. Risk Taking

32. Trying

33. The DO IT Process

34. Creative Leadership?

35. Creativity Flourishes and Grows with Exercise

36. Do As I Say!

37. Uncrate the Create!

INTRODUCTION

This book is designed to help you nurture, develop, and exercise your creativity. It offers you tools for recognizing opportunities, developing fresh insight into problems and original, innovative solutions to the challenging problems in life. It helps you do something with your creativity, instead of merely talking, reading, or thinking about it.

Our society is ever-changing and multi-dimensional. It needs the creative talents of each and every one of us. The pace of change in business, education, and life in general continues to increase. Instead of treating rapid change as a threat, we can treat it as an opportunity—an opportunity to utilize our creativity, to improve ourselves and to improve the world within which we live.

Throughout history, many problems have been solved by chance or ignored. But now, because our society is dynamic and complex, we face more problems than ever before. Therefore, we must be deliberate and creative in our approach to solving problems if we are to prosper. We need to accelerate and give direction to our natural problem-solving methods.

This book offers no answers to the problems which we face. It offers processes, techniques, and insights which are valuable in finding answers to any problem—whether it is a small or large problem, whether it is a problem we face at home or on the job, or whether it is one which is faced by mankind on earth.

The presentation of practical processes and techniques for creative problem solving rather than answers is consistent with contemporary education in colleges and universities throughout the country. For example, only half of the engineering knowledge learned in colleges today will be valid in five to ten years because of the rapid changes and discoveries occurring in our technological society. Therefore, it is as important to learn how to solve problems and how to face a new and changing world as it is to memorize an established body of knowledge.

Your life can be spent acquiring more and more facts and knowledge, yet the end product may be an aged and immature child still unable to think and act in a creative, effective, and productive manner. Or, your life can be successful, exciting, and productive when you develop your creative resources and make creative thinking an integral part of your life.

This book is designed to help you gain control of your life and your creativity, instead of allowing your life and creativity to control you. Instead of letting the pace and pressure of everyday life push you off the track causing you to lose sight of the important challenges of life, this book can help you recognize these challenges, face them and conquer them.

Probably the greatest, most powerful resource on earth today and the most tremendous source of energy is within individual people. Natural resources for energy, such as gas and oil, are being exhausted. The most important and powerful energy of all is barely being tapped. That is the creative energy of the mind. Our creative thinking energy can help people find ways to multiply the world’s physical resources and use them more effectively.

Professional people who have developed creative capacities often use them in a limited, narrow fashion. For example, frequently the engineer is creative only when he is inventing or designing but not while writing reports, interacting with other people, or at home. Artists are often only creative when they wear their berets. They don’t visualize other problems not related to art which surround them as challenges and opportunities. They don’t approach them with the same creative vigor.

Naturally we must focus our energies; we must concentrate our efforts on one area at a time, whether it be our work, church, or family. However, we don’t have to completely ignore the other important challenges and opportunities in our life and approach them in a rigid, habitual and unimaginative way.

To live is to have problems and to solve problems is to grow intellectually, stated J. P. Guilford, a psychologist. Problem solving is the central mental activity of people. It has been said that new computers can do everything but think—this makes them almost human. We don’t often think creatively. However, we can think creatively in a fashion that will make us more powerful than computers. We can creatively originate large numbers of new diverse solution ideas to problems. Computers are usually limited to producing a few solution ideas which are similar to each other.

It is commonly felt that creative opportunity and meaningful problems exist in other people’s lives, on other jobs, and in other fields, but that the opportunity for improvement in our own job or life is pretty well exhausted. We may feel that only through pure luck will we be able to make a creative contribution in our own job or life. This is not true—creative opportunities exist all around us; we need to learn to see and recognize them.

Creativity can be taught. Research at the State University of New York at Buffalo revealed that by the end of one class in creativity the students had almost doubled their creative thinking ability. Many companies, such as IBM and General Electric, have implemented programs within their companies to stimulate and develop creativity.

Learning the art of creative problem solving is similar to learning other kinds of skills such as the skill of playing tennis, a physical rather than mental skill. To learn to play tennis a person must master how to hold the racket, how to follow through with their stroke, and the ability to keep their eye on the ball. These skills are very useful to beginning as well as advanced tennis players. Even the most advanced tennis players continue to work on the fundamentals of the game. In the advanced stages of playing tennis, individuals with tremendous skill must learn to capitalize on their uniqueness as a person, their unique muscle structure, hand size, coordination, and emotional stability, to maximize their particular way of playing the game. However, in the beginning, most professional tennis players took lessons and learned how others had played before them. They learned some of the standard successful techniques of the game.

Similarly, to learn creative problem solving, you need to learn the strokes of the game, the patterns, approaches, techniques used by successfully creative people. Fundamental patterns and techniques are important for beginners to attempt and for the advanced creative thinker to continue to work on. As with tennis, when you become confident with the fundamentals, you learn to modify and to select those particular skills that are most appropriate for your particular mental abilities, for your particular memory, for your particular interests and motivations, speed of thinking, and depth of thinking.

In this book, the DO IT process and techniques for creatively solving problems are emphasized as a way to help you become more creative. As William James once noted, In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start. Every moment we expect the spell to break, but it continues pulse after pulse and we float with it. One of the purposes of the DO IT process and techniques is to help provide you with a starting point, to help you see patterns in problem solving which have been used successfully by other creative people.

The DO IT process and techniques combine the systematic approaches used by engineers and businessmen with the intuitive approaches used by artists and composers. They are based on the methods used by great creative artists, scientists, musicians and businessmen. In addition, they include essential components of established creative ideation techniques such as brainstorming and synectics. They are not the only way to become more creative; they are one way. But they can be used as a beginning to provide you with a basis for your own way.

The DO IT process is not some far out approach that can only be used by monks isolated on a mountain top devoting their full life to creative thinking. It is a process which is in close contact with reality, that can be used quickly or over a long period of time. It is sufficiently different from everyday approaches to thinking to help you originate fresh, new, and exciting insights into and solutions to problems. Yet it is similar enough to everyday approaches that you don’t need to completely abandon your usual approach to problem solving.

People who use the DO IT process and techniques tend to become more open. They tend to trust their own ideas and those of other people more. They tend to be more willing to face problems and are more self-confident. They tend to identify problems more easily and solve them better. They tend to be excited about what they are doing and produce creative results.

We are in a society where people expect instant results. An organization will say Come to my weekend seminar and you’ll be transformed into a human being with a thousand percent greater potential, and you will come in contact with your true self and you’ll be able to do anything you want to do. Miracles are not in the fabric of the DO IT process and techniques. However, they can significantly develop and help you do something with your creativity.

Mark Twain once wrote that a visitor to heaven asked Saint Peter if he might meet the greatest general who had ever lived. Saint Peter pointed to a nearby angel. The visitor protested that he had known that man, who was not a general but only a cobbler. Oh yes, replied Saint Peter, but if he had been a general he would have been the greatest of them all. The cobbler did not develop his creative potential to its fullest.

Problem solving is a central activity in life, whether it’s the problem of painting a new picture or originating a new invention. Don’t imitate the past. Create a future, a better tomorrow. Work smarter, not harder. In the process of solving problems creatively, you not only produce something but you become something as well.

Reading this book, like reading any book about a skill such as painting or tennis, will provide you with insights necessary to become more creative. However, to actually become creative, try the exercises and apply the results to your own life.

PART I

BACKGROUND

To become more creative, it is beneficial to begin by briefily exploring the questions: What is creativity? Why do people create? What are the obstacles to becoming more creative? What are creative people like? What is natural creativity? How can people be deliberately creative? and How can people better recognize creative problems, challenges and opportunities?

Chapter 1

WHAT IS CREATIVITY?

Creativity is the ability to create. No single, generally acceptable statement of what constitutes a creation exists. A creation to one person might mean discovering a new planet, to another playing the piano or tennis well, to another painting unusually good pictures, or to another it might simply mean trying something new. The psychologist Abraham Maslow stated that a first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

For the purpose of research on creative thinking, creativity is often considered to consist of two elements: fluency and flexibility. Fluency is evidenced by the ability to smoothly and rapidly produce a large number of solution ideas for a problem. On a creativity test for fluency, a person might be asked to list all the possible uses of a coat hanger, brick, or paper clip during a fixed period of time.

Flexibility generally refers to the capability of finding divergent, unusual solution ideas for a problem. For example, a divergent solution idea for improving the method of opening doors would be to locate the door knob on the wall adjacent to the door instead of on the door itself. Flexible thinking is also evidenced by the ability to find divergent uses for existing products.