An Introduction To Creative Thinking
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This document provides an introduction to creative thinking. It defines critical thinking as analyzing claims and arguments to find the correct answer, while creative thinking explores ideas and possibilities. Creativity involves bringing new products, processes, or thoughts into existence. The creative process involves preparation, incubation, intimation, illumination, and verification. Characteristics of creative people include curiosity, seeking problems, enjoying challenges, and being optimistic. The document also provides 12 facts about creative thinking, such as that everyone is born creative; creative thinking requires work and trying new ideas; and that there is rarely one single right answer.
An Introduction To Creative Thinking
- 1. A I t d ti t An Introduction to Creative Thinking g By: Budiraharjo y j
- 2. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.“ (Albert Einstein) (Albert Einstein)
- 3. P t 1 Part 1: Definitions
- 4. Critical vs Creative Much of the thinking done in formal education emphasizes the skills of analysis‐‐teaching students p y g how to understand claims, follow or create a logical argument, figure out the answer, eliminate the incorrect paths and focus on the correct one. This is called Critical Thinking. However, there is another kind of thinking, one that focuses on exploring ideas, generating possibilities, l ki f i ht th th j t looking for many right answers rather than just one. Both of these kinds of thinking are vital to a successful working life yet the latter one tends to be ignored until working life, yet the latter one tends to be ignored until after college. And this is called Creative Thinking.
- 5. What is creativity? Creativity is the bringing into being of something which did not exist before, either as a product, a process or a thought. You would be demonstrating creativity if you: You would be demonstrating creativity if you: • Invent something which has never existed before • Invent something which exists elsewhere but you are not aware of • Invent a new process for doing something • Reapply an existing process or product into a new or different market • Develop a new way of looking at something (bringing a new idea into existence) • Change the way someone else looks at something In fact, we are all creative every day because we are constantly changing the ideas which we hold about the world about us. Creativity does not have to be about developing something new to the world, it is more to do with developing something new to ourselves. When we change ourselves, h ld h i h b h h h h ld ff d b h d d the world changes with us, both in the way that the world is affected by our changed actions and in the changed way that we experience the world. Creativity can be used to make products, processes and services better and it can be used to h i h fi l i d h i i i i ill h l create them in the first place. It is expected that increasing your creativity will help you, your organization and your customers become happier through improvements in your quality and quantity of output.
- 6. What is creative thinking? Creative thinking is the process which we use when we come up with a new idea. It is the merging of ideas which have not been merged before. Brainstorming is one form of creative thinking: it works by merging someone else's ideas with your g y g g y own to create a new one. You are using the ideas of others as a stimulus for your own. This creative thinking process can be accidental or deliberate. g p Without using special techniques creative thinking does still occur, but usually in the accidental way; like a chance happening making you think about something in a different way and you then discovering a beneficial change. Other changes a different way and you then discovering a beneficial change. Other changes happen slowly through pure use of intelligence and logical progression. Using this accidental or logical progression process, it often takes a long time for products to develop and improve. In an accelerating and competitive world this is obviously disadvantageous. Using special techniques, deliberate creative thinking can be used to develop new ideas. These techniques force the mergance of a wide range of ideas to spark off new thoughts and processes. Brainstorming is one of these special techniques, but traditionally it starts with unoriginal ideas.
- 7. The creative process In his work Art of Thought, published in 1926, Graham Wallas presented one of the first models of the creative process, consisting of 5 stages: • Preparation Preparation preparatory work on a problem that focuses the individual's mind on the problem and explores the problem's dimensions • Incubation • Incubation where the problem is internalized into the unconscious mind and nothing appears externally to be happening • Intimation • Intimation the creative person gets a "feeling" that a solution is on its way • Illumination or insight where the creative idea bursts forth from its preconscious processing into conscious awareness; and • Verification where the idea is consciously verified, elaborated, and then applied.
- 8. Negative attitudes that block creativity Negative attitudes that block creativity Oh bl ! • Oh no, a problem! • It can't be done ! • There's nothing I can do. B t I' t ti • But I'm not creative. • That's childish. • What will people think? I i h f il • I might fail.
- 9. Characteristics of the creative person • curious k bl • seeks problems • enjoys challenge • optimistic • optimistic • able to suspend judgment • comfortable with imagination comfortable with imagination • sees problems as opportunities • sees problems as interesting sees problems as interesting • problems are emotionally acceptable • challenges assumptions g p • doesn't give up easily
- 10. P 2 Part 2: 12 facts about thinking creative g
- 11. You are creative (1) The artist is not a special person, each one of us is a special kind of artist. Every one of us is born a creative, spontaneous thinker. The only difference between people who are creative and The only difference between people who are creative and people who are not is a simple belief. Creative people believe they are creative. People who believe they are not creative, are not. Once you have a particular identity and set of beliefs about yourself, you become interested in seeking out the skills needed to express your identity and beliefs. This is why people who p y y y p p believe they are creative become creative. If you believe you are not creative, then there is no need to learn how to become creative and you don't The reality is that believing you are not creative and you don t. The reality is that believing you are not creative excuses you from trying or attempting anything new. When someone tells you that they are not creative, you are lk h h d ll k ff talking to someone who has no interest and will make no effort to be a creative thinker.
- 12. Creative thinking is work (2) You must have passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of creating new and different ideas. Then you must have patience to persevere against all adversity. All creative geniuses work passionately hard and produce incredible numbers of ideas, most of which are bad. In fact, more bad poems were written by the major poets than by minor poets. Thomas Edison created 3000 different ideas for lighting systems before he evaluated them for practicality and profitability. Wolfgang Amadeus evaluated them for practicality and profitability. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart produced more than six hundred pieces of music, including forty‐one symphonies and some forty‐odd operas and masses, during his short creative life Rembrandt produced around 650 during his short creative life. Rembrandt produced around 650 paintings and 2,000 drawings and Picasso executed more than 20,000 works. Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets. Some were t i hil th b tt th hi t i masterpieces, while others were no better than his contemporaries could have written, and some were simply bad.
- 13. You must go through the motions of being creative (3) When you go through the motions of trying to come up with id i i b i b i i th new ideas, you are energizing your brain by increasing the number of contacts between neurons. The more times you try to get ideas, the more active your brain becomes and the more creative you become. If you want to become an artist and all you did was paint a picture every day, you will become an artist. You may not become another Vincent Van Gogh but you will become may not become another Vincent Van Gogh, but you will become more of an artist than someone who has never tried.
- 14. Your brain is not a computer (4) Your brain is not a computer (4) Your brain is a dynamic system that evolves its patterns of y y p activity rather than computes them like a computer. It thrives on the creative energy of feedback from experiences real or fictional You can synthesize experience; literally create it in your fictional. You can synthesize experience; literally create it in your own imagination. The human brain cannot tell the difference between an "actual" experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail. This discovery is what enabled Albert Einstein to create his thought experiments with imaginary scenarios that led to his revolutionary ideas about space and y p time. One day, for example, he imagined falling in love. Then he imagined meeting the woman he fell in love with two weeks after he fell in love after he fell in love.
- 15. There is no one right answer (5) There is no one right answer (5) Reality is ambiguous. Aristotle said it is either A or not‐A. It y g cannot be both. The sky is either blue or not blue. This is black and white thinking as the sky is a billion different shades of blue. A beam of light is either a wave or not a wave (A or not A) A beam of light is either a wave or not a wave (A or not‐A). Physicists discovered that light can be either a wave or particle depending on the viewpoint of the observer. The only certainty in life is uncertainty. When trying to get ideas, do not censor or evaluate them as they occur. Nothing kills creativity faster than self‐censorship of ideas while generating them. Think of all your p g g y ideas as possibilities and generate as many as you can before you decide which ones to select. The world is not black or white. It is grey grey.
- 16. Never stop with your first d id (6) good idea (6) Always strive to find a better one and continue until you have y y one that is still better. In 1862, Phillip Reis demonstrated his invention which could transmit music over the wires. He was days away from improving it into a telephone that could transmit days away from improving it into a telephone that could transmit speech. Every communication expert in Germany dissuaded him from making improvements, as they said the telegraph is good enough. No one would buy or use a telephone. Ten years later, Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. Thomas Edison was always trying to spring board from one idea to another in his y y g p g work. He spring boarded his work from the telephone (sounds transmitted) to the phonograph (sounds recorded) and, finally, to motion pictures (images recorded) to motion pictures (images recorded).
- 17. Expect the experts to be negative (7) p p g ( ) The more expert and specialized a person becomes, the more their mindset becomes narrowed and the more fixated they become on confirming what they believe to be absolute. Consequently, when confronted with new and different ideas, q y, , their focus will be on conformity. Does it conform with what I know is right? If not, experts will spend all their time showing and explaining why it can't be done and why it can't work They and explaining why it can t be done and why it can t work. They will not look for ways to make it work or get it done because this might demonstrate that what they regarded as absolute is not absolute at all. This is why when Fred Smith created Federal Express, every delivery expert in the U.S. predicted its certain doom. After all, they said, if this delivery concept was doable, , y , y p , the Post Office or UPS would have done it long ago
- 18. Trust your instincts (8) Trust your instincts (8) Don't allow yourself to get discouraged. Albert Einstein was expelled from school because his attitude had a negative effect on serious students; he failed his university entrance exam and had to attend a trade school for one year before finally being y y g admitted; and was the only one in his graduating class who did not get a teaching position because no professor would recommend him One professor said Einstein was "the laziest recommend him. One professor said Einstein was the laziest dog" the university ever had. Beethoven's parents were told he was too stupid to be a music composer. Charles Darwin's colleagues called him a fool and what he was doing "fool's experiments" when he worked on his theory of biological evolution. Walt Disney was fired from his first job on a y j newspaper because "he lacked imagination.”
- 19. There is no such thing as failure (9) There is no such thing as failure (9) Whenever you try to do something and do not succeed, you do not fail. You have learned something that does not work. Always g y ask "What have I learned about what doesn't work?", "Can this explain something that I didn't set out to explain?", and "What have I discovered that I didn't set out to discover?" Whenever have I discovered that I didn t set out to discover? Whenever someone tells you that they have never made a mistake, you are talking to someone who has never tried anything new.
- 20. You do not see things as they are; th (10) you see them as you are (10) Interpret your own experiences. All experiences are neutral. They have i i h i b h h no meaning. You give them meaning by the way you choose to interpret them. If you are a priest, you see evidence of God everywhere. If you are an atheist, you see the absence of God everywhere. IBM observed that no one in the world had a personal computer. IBM interpreted this to mean there was no market. College dropouts, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, looked at the same absence of personal computers and saw a massive opportunity. Once Thomas Edison was approached by an assistant while working on the filament for the light bulb. The assistant asked Edison why he didn't give up. "After all," he said, "you have failed 5000 times." Edison looked at him and told him that he didn't understand what the assistant meant by failure, because, Edison said, "I have discovered 5000 things that don't work." You construct your own reality by how you choose to interpret your experiences.
- 21. Always approach a problem it t (11) on its own terms (11) Do not trust your first perspective of a problem as it will be too biased d l f hi ki l l k bl f toward your usual way of thinking. Always look at your problem from multiple perspectives. Always remember that genius is finding a perspective no one else has taken. Look for different ways to look at the problem. Write the problem statement several times using different words. Take another role, for example, how would someone else see it, how would Jay Leno, Pablo Picasso, George Patton see it? Draw a picture of the problem, make a model, or mold a sculpture. Take a walk and look for things that metaphorically represent the problem and force connections between those things and the problem (How is a broken store window like my communications problem with my students?) Ask your friends and strangers how they see the problem. Ask a child. How would a ten year old solve it? Ask a grandparent. Imagine you are the problem. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
- 22. Learn to think unconventionally (12) y ( ) Creative geniuses do not think analytically and logically. Conventional, logical, analytical thinkers are exclusive thinkers which means they logical, analytical thinkers are exclusive thinkers which means they exclude all information that is not related to the problem. They look for ways to eliminate possibilities. Creative geniuses are inclusive thinkers which mean they look for ways to include everything thinkers which mean they look for ways to include everything, including things that are dissimilar and totally unrelated. Generating associations and connections between unrelated or dissimilar subjects is how they provoke different thinking patterns in their brain These is how they provoke different thinking patterns in their brain. These new patterns lead to new connections which give them a different way to focus on the information and different ways to interpret what they are focusing on This is how original and truly novel ideas are created are focusing on. This is how original and truly novel ideas are created. Albert Einstein once famously remarked "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now kno and nderstand hile imagination embraces the entire orld know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."
- 23. P 3 Part 3: Test your right brain y g
- 24. Activity 1 Activity 1 Using a piece of paper, make a plane. The fastest plane in the class will be the winner plane in the class will be the winner..
- 25. Activity 2 Activity 2 draw four straight lines which go through all of the dots without taking the pencil off the paper the dots without taking the pencil off the paper
- 26. Lessons to be learned f h from the activities Look beyond the current definition of the problem Look beyond the current definition of the problem. • Analyse the definition to find out what is allowed and what i is not. • Are there any real rules to the problem anyway? (especially valid in human related problems ‐ there are only h l l ) perceptions, not physical rules) • Look for other definitions of problems. • Do not accept other people's definitions of problems The • Do not accept other people's definitions of problems. They may be either wrong or biased. • If a problem definition is wrong, no number of solutions will solve the real problem.
- 27. Investigate the boundaries • What are the boundaries which the solution must fit into? • Are the boundaries your own perceptions or reality? Wh h ibili i if h h • What are the possibilities if you push the boundaries? • What are the benefits of small boundary • What are the benefits of small boundary changes?
- 28. Physical hard work is not always the solution • Repeating the same wrong process again and again with more vigour does not work. g g • You can be very close to a solution while not getting any closer to it getting any closer to it. • Thought is the solution, physical hard work ll k will not work.
- 30. Use "Balloon" in the context of Use Balloon in the context of new ideas about “Cars“.
- 31. Thank you… ☺