How to be Creative

Do you think that some people are blessed with a creative ability and you either have it or you don’t?

It's true that there are and have been some remarkably creative people to whom new ideas seem to spring almost effortlessly eg Prince who wrote some of his all time classics in about 10 minutes flat! The vast majority of us however require a little more effort. Well, this article aims to introduce you to a few useful techniques and tricks, which you can use to improve your creative machinery.

There are a number of authors who have developed various mental tools in order to release the creative genius within each one of us. Edward de Bono has written many books on improving people's ability to think and he argues that our society has developed around a logical way of thinking and has ignored other potentially useful methods of thinking. This means that those who come up with new ideas tend to be those who are not playing by the logical rules. De Bono argues that a brilliant idea often appears wholly logical once we see it and people therefore assume that by using logic we can create the idea. It doesn’t work like that though the logic of the new idea is only apparent after we see it. We need other techniques to create these ideas.

De Bono talks of using a random input as a way of breaking out of a mental rut. This can be done by picking a random page number in the dictionary and then choosing the first noun. The idea is to then think back from that word to the problem at hand. This means that you are coming at it from a completely different direction and less likely to rehash the same ideas.

There are other methods that aim to force us to look at a problem from different angles. E.g. S.C.A.M.P.E.R which stands for :
Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Modify/Magnify
Put to another use
Eliminate/Minimise
Reverse/Rearrange

This was first developed by Bob Eberle as a set of brainstorming tools. You apply the tools to any item you wish to think creatively about. Try it on an object you care to think of and see what you can come up with.

There are many other methods of improving your creative side amongst my favourite is another by De Bono known as the The Six Thinking Hats. You can read his book on the method or find further information on the web but in brief you imagine you are wearing hats of different colours and each colour represents a different way of thinking about the problem at hand.
White Hat - With this thinking hat you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it

Red Hat - Wearing the red hat, you look at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion

Black Hat - Using black hat thinking, look at all the bad points of the decision. Look at it cautiously and defensively.

Yellow Hat - The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it

Green Hat - The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas.

Blue Hat - The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, etc.

It initially sounds a bit weird but it acts to prevent people who are always negative from not contributing positively and similarly those who have never ending optimism are forced to look at downsides this way everyone has to contribute to the meeting.

I hope this article has given you a flavour of the ways in which you can get your ideas going and if you are interested there are lots more sites on the web or maybe look up one of Edward de Bono’s books. Happy Creating!