"There is nothing more marvelous than thinking of a new idea."
- Dr. Edward de Bono
creative thinking as an alternative to the more popular
"think outside the box" paradigm which focuses only on
removal of [most] inhibitions.
While doing six sigma projects during my days as an
engineer, I developed a growing interest in "inventing the
future" using creative thinking techniques. I was totally
absorbed with studying Edward de Bono's work in my
spare time in the early 1990s. Although doing so wasn't in
my job description at the time, I designed and conducted in-
house training courses for my fellow employees. Even
today, I periodically put on one of de Bono's Six Thinking
Hats, or conduct a short random input exercise.
In his book Serious Creativity, Dr. Edward de Bono, a
world-renowned authority on creative thinking, provides a
useful definition of creativity (bold text is mine):
- THE TIME SEQUENCE TRAP
Imagine a system that collects information over time. The
information does not all arrive at once but in dribs and
drabs. Suppose that at every moment the system tries to
make the best use of the information available. Obviously
this sort of system resembles individuals, institutions, cor-
porations, cultures, and so on. Information is gathered
over time and the system tries to make the best use of
what has become available.
We can play a simple game in which letters are presented
one at a time. The task is always to form a known word.
- The first letter is A.
- This is followed by T to give the word AT.
- The next letter is R, which is simply added to
give RAT.
The letters represent incoming information, and the total
available information is used to make up a word.
- The next letter is E to give the word RATE.
- The next letter is G, which gets added to
give GRATE.
So far the new information has been easily added on to
the existing structures.
- The next letter is T. There is no easy way this can
be added on. A new word can only be formed by
going back and disrupting existing structures to
reassemble the letters to give TARGET.
In this simple example we can see how the time se-
quence of arrival of information sets up struc-
tures which have to be disrupted in order to
put things together in a different way.
We need creativity in order to break free from the
temporary structures that have been set up by a
particular sequence of experience.
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