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College Success Chapter 3.3: Searching for “Aha!” - Coggle Diagram
College Success Chapter 3.3: Searching for “Aha!”
Learning Objectives
Use creative thinking: the competitive advantage in the twenty-first century.
Understand the difference between creative thinking and free-form thinking.
Practice guidelines for creating ideas.
Use rules and directions to create effectively.
Understand group creativity: how to conduct effective brainstorming.
Definition
Creative thinking is the ability to look at things from a new perspective, to come up with fresh solutions to problems. It is a deliberate process that allows you to think in ways that improve the likelihood of generating new ideas or thoughts.
Creative thinking involves coming up with new or original ideas; it is the process of seeing the same things others see but seeing them differently.
You use skills such as:
examining associations and relationships
flexibility
elaboration
modification
imagery
metaphorical thinking
couple of myths:
Creativity is an inherited skill.
Creativity is not something people are born with but is a skill that is developed over time with consistent practice.
It can be argued that people you think were “born” creative because their parents were creative, too, are creative simply because they have been practicing creative thinking since childhood, stimulated by their parents’ questions and discussions.
Creativity is free-form thinking.
Rules and requirements do not limit creative thinking—they provide the scaffolding on which truly creative solutions can be built.
Free-form thinking often lacks direction or an objective; creative thinking is aimed at producing a defined outcome or solution.
Tips for Creative Thinking
Feed your curiosity
Read. Read books, newspapers, magazines, blogs—anything at any time.
When surfing the Web, follow links just to see where they will take you
Go to the theatre or movies
Attend lectures
Creative people make a habit of gathering information, because they never know when they might put it to good use
Creativity is often as much about rearranging known ideas as it is about creating a completely new concept
The more “known ideas” you have been exposed to, the more options you’ll have for combining them into new concepts.
Develop your flexibility
Throughout school we have been conditioned to come up with the right answer; the reality is that there is often more than one “right” answer.
Throughout school we have been conditioned to come up with the right answer; the reality is that there is often more than one “right” answer. Examine all the possibilities.
The value of an idea can only be determined by comparing it with another.
Multiple ideas will also help you generate new approaches by combining elements from a variety of “right” answers.
In fact, the greatest danger to creative thinking is to have only one idea. Always ask yourself, “What’s the other right answer?”
Combine old ideas in new ways.
Train yourself to think “out of the box.”
Ask yourself questions like, “What is the most ridiculous solution I can come up with for this problem?” or “If I were transported by a time machine back to the 1930s, how would I solve this problem?”
You may enjoy watching competitive design, cooking, or fashion shows (Top Chef, Chopped, Project Runway, etc.); they are great examples of combining old ideas to make new, functional ones.
Think metaphorically.
Metaphors are useful to describe complex ideas; they are also useful in making problems more familiar and in stimulating possible solutions.
When faced with a problem, take time to think about metaphors to describe it, and the desired solution.
Observe how metaphors are used throughout communication and think about why those metaphors are effective.
Have you ever noticed that the financial business uses water-based metaphors (cash flow, frozen assets, liquidity) and that meteorologists use war terms (fronts, wind force, storm surge)?
Ask.
A creative thinker always questions the way things are: Why are we doing things this way? What were the objectives of this process and the assumptions made when we developed the process? Are they still valid? What if we changed certain aspects? What if our circumstances changed? Would we need to change the process? How? Get in the habit of asking questions—lots of questions.
Key Takeaways
Creative thinking is a requirement for success.
Creative thinking is a deliberate process that can be learned and practiced.
Creative thinking involves, but is not limited to, curiosity, flexibility, looking for the second right answer, combining things in new ways, thinking metaphorically, and questioning the way things are.