Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity

Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity
by Keith Sawyer

"No matter what kind of creativity I studied, the process was the same. Creativity did not descend like a bolt of lightning that lit up the world in a single brilliant flash. It came in tiny steps, bits of insight, and incremental changes. Zigs and zags. When people followed those zigs and zags, ideas and revelations started flowing."


8-stage model that all creativity and innovation efforts move through. The eight stages are as follows:

1. Find the right question (are you asking the right questions?)

If you're stumped, it's often because you're asking the wrong question. Maybe your question is too narrow and focused, and you just need to think bigger. For example, instead of asking yourself "Should I repair my old car, or buy a new one?" try asking "Can I get a job within walking distance of home?" or "Can I move closer to public transportation?"

2. Prepare your mind (plotting the dots thru' diverse discipline)

The most creative people are voracious learners; they dabble in things they know nothing about. Teach yourself something about weaponry, hypnosis, glass blowing, auto repair, Sufi mysticism…

3. Be aware (plotting more dots thru' views of others)

Research shows that the most creative people are more likely talk to lots of different people. So try this: Before you attend your next party or social event, choose a color. Then at the event, make a point of meeting and chatting with anyone who's wearing that color.

4. Free your mind (jump out of box into other boxes)

When you're facing a creative challenge, try to imagine it as a problem in a very different world, like Dentistry; Lawn care; Furniture design; Prison; The Circus. How would your problem look in that world? How would you try to solve it?

5. Generate ideas (practice, practice, practice)

You can increase your ability to generate good ideas by practicing idea generation every day in simple tasks. For example, make a long list of specific facts about how the world would be different: If gravity stopped for one second each day? If there were five sexes? Come up with your own idea challenges as you go through your day. In the kitchen: What if my refrigerator had 20 shelves? Preparing for bed at night: What if people could sleep standing up?

6. Combine ideas (connecting the dots)

The best insights come from combining ideas that are completely unrelated. Take out paper and pencil and sketch a piece of furniture that is also a kind of fruit; or, a lampshade that is also a kind of book; or, just pick two words at random by closing your eyes and pointing at different pages in a book, and invent a combination.

7. Make ideas even better (develop the dotted patterns)

Once you have a few ideas, take each one of them (even the ones that aren't so great) and list at least three benefits of that idea, and then list at least three practical steps you would have to take to implement the idea. This simple technique often helps you think of ways to make the ideas even better.

8. Get your ideas into the world (fit your patterns into real world)

Buy a stack of ten magazines. (Or take some of those old magazines in your dentist's waiting room) Clip out any photos that seem related to your problem, and keep going until you have 50 photos. Use a glue stick and make a collage by sticking them onto a large piece of poster board. Keep the collage near your desk for a couple of weeks, and make sure to look at it each day.

Let it be

From Lao-Tse

If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves;

If I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves;

If I keep from preaching at people, they improve themselves;

If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves.

Classic Haiku -- Yuzuru Miura

Classic Haiku -- Yuzuru Miura

1.
春の海
�日(ひねもす)
のたりのたりかな
�� 与��村

In the spring sea
Waves undulating and undulating
All dat long -- Yosa Buson

2.
花散(ち)りて
木の�の
寺となりにけり
�� 与��村

With the cherry blossoms gone
The temple is glimpsed
Through twigs and branches -- Yosa Buson

3.
原中や
物にもつかず
�(なく)�雀(ひばり)
�� 松尾芭蕉

Amidst the grassland
Sings a skylark
Free and disengaged from all things -- Matsuo Basho

4.
山�けの
明かりに下る
夜舟(よふね)哉(かな)
�� 小林一茶

A night boat
Sails away
Illuminated by a wildfire -- Kobayashi Issa

5.
御�(みほとけ)や
寝てござっても
花と�(ゼニ)
�� 小林一茶

Buddha the Savior
Gets offerings of flowers and money
Even while sleeping -- Kobayashi Issa

6.
一重(ひとえ)づつ
一重づつ散(ち)れ
八重�(やえざくら)
�� 正�子�

Double cherry blossoms
Flutter in the wind
One petal after another -- Masaoka Shiki

7.
�(しずか)さや
岩にしみている
蝉(せみ)の声
�� 松尾芭蕉

Calm and serene
The sound of a cicada
Penetrates the rock -- Matsuo Basho

8.
明�(めいめつ)の
いづれ悲しき
�かな
�� 川端茅舍

Flickering lights
Of fireflies
Forebode their short lives -- Kawabata Bosha


9.
�しさや
�を�るる
�の�
�� 与��村

Coolness!
The sound of the bell
Leaving the bell -- Yosa Buson

10.
限り有る
命の暇や
秋の暮(く)れ
�� 与��村

An autumn eve :
An hour of leisure
In a fleeting life -- Yosa Buson


11.
ものいわず
客と亭主(ていしゅ)と
白菊(しらぎく)と
�� 大�蓼太

Silent communion
Between the guest,
The host, and the white chrysanthemum -- Oshima Ryota


12.
落�ふんで
人道念(どうねん)を
全(まっと)うす
�� �田蛇笏

My mind
Is calm and resigned
As I tread the fallen leaves -- Iida Dakotsu


13.
淋しさに
又(また)��(どら)打つや
鹿火屋(かびや)守(もり)
�� 原石鼎

Pressed by loneliness
The kabiya keeper
Sounded one gong after another -- Hara Sekitei


14.
山�に
かへす�(こだま)や
啄木�(けらつつき)
�� �田蛇笏

A woodpecker's drilling
Echoes
To the mountain clouds -- Iida Dakotsu


15.
赤とんぼ
さらさら流る
茜(あかね)空
�� 三浦�

Red dragonflies
Flowing like a ripple
Toward the crimson sky -- Miura Yuzuru


16.
茶の花に
�れん坊する
雀(すずめ)かな
�� 小林一茶

Sparrows
Playing hide-and-seek
Among the tea blossoms -- Kobayashi Issa


17.
寂しさの
底ぬけてふる
みぞれかな
�� 内藤丈草

The sleet falls
As if coming through the bottom
Of loneliness -- Naito Joso


18.
冬海や
落花(らっか)の如(ごと)く
�(かもめ)浮(う)く
�� 中村草田男

On the winter seas
Seagulls float
Like fallen flowers -- Nakamura Kusatao

A way of Being

Carl Rogers, in A Way of Being : one of the most satisfying feelings I know ... comes from my experiencing an individual in the same way that I appreciate a sunset.  People are just as wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it.  When I look at a sunset as I did the other evening, I don't find myself saying, "soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and a little more pink in the cloud colour." I don't do that. I don't try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds.

Out of our minds

Out of our minds

The apparently impersonal process of scientific inquiry involves a very personal commitment by the scientist in 4 ways:
(1) the choice of problems; (2)the methods of scientific inquiry;
(3)personal judgement; and (4)standards of objectivity.

Creative organisation :
-- gives people freedom to take risks
- - allows people to discover and develop their own natural intelligence
-- a place where there is no stupid questions and no right answers
-- a place that values irreverence

The task of teaching is not to teach subjects: it is to teach students.

In teaching for creativity, teachers aim to:

- promote experiment and inquiry and a willingness to make mistakes
- encourage generative thought, free from immediate criticism
- encourage the expression of personal ideas and feelings
- convey an understanding of phases in creative work and the need for time
- develop an awareness of the roles of intuition and aesthetic processes
- encourage students to play with ideas and conjecture about possibilities
- facilitate critical evaluation of ideas

Decisive by Chip Heath

Decisive by Chip Heath

4 villains
1. Narrow framing
2. Confirmation bias
3. Short-term emotion
4. Overconfidence

Usual procedure:
- you encounter a choice
- you analyse your options
- you make a choice
- then you live with it

- (you encounter a choice) narrow framing makes you miss options
#WIDEN YOUR OPTIONS#

- (you analyse your options) confirmation bias leads you to gather self-serving info
#REALITY-TEST YOUR ASSUMPTIONS#

- (you make a choice)
short-term emotion tempt you to make the wrong option
#ATTAIN DISTANCE BEFORE DECIDING#

- (you live with it)
you will often be overconfident about how the future will unfold
#PREPARED TO BE WRONG#

WRAP -- using the process forces you to switch from auto-spotlight mode (most accessible and recent info automatically become more important) to manual spotlight mode (looking and correctly frame information)


WIDENING OF OPTIONS

Widening of options
-- Distrust "whether or not" decisions
-- Think of opportunity cost
-- you won't think up additional alternatives if you aren't aware you're neglecting them
-- focusing is great for analysing alternatives but terrible for spotting them
-- Vanishing options test

Multi tracking -- considering more than one option SIMULTANEOUSLY

Multi tracking keeps egos in check and gives a better landscape view of the problem

Not too many options -> leading to decision paralysis

Prevention focus = avoiding negative outcome
Promotion focus =
Pursuing positive outcome

Adding promotion mindset to prevention mindset or vice versa will encourage a shift in "spotlight" and reveal more options.

Push for "this AND that" rather than "this OR that"

Find someone who has solved your problem:
- look outside (competitive analysis, benchmarking, best practices)
- look inside (for bright spots) and try multiply the bright spots
- ladder up via analogies


REALITY-TEST YOUR ASSUMPTIONS

Confirmation bias = hunting for info that confirms our initial assumptions

3 ways to fight against confirmation bias:

-- invite constructive disagreement by making it easier for people to disagree with us
-- ask "disconfirming" questions = questions that are more likely to surface contrary info
-- become the "opposition" = consider the opposite, make mistakes deliberately

ZOOM OUT
Trust the Average (base rates) --
We should trust outside view (=how things generally unfold in situations like ours) more than inside view (=our evaluation of our specific situation)

If you can't find base rates, ask experts to help you estimate base rates (NOT predicting your success rate)

ZOOM IN
A close-up can add texture that's missing from outside view
#Note that Zoom-in is NOT taking an "inside view"

OOCH
Ooching=running small experiments to test our theories

Why try to predict when we can ooch?

Ooching should be used as a way to speed up the collection of trustworthy info, not as a way to slow down a decision that deserves our full commitment.


ATTAIN DISTANCE BEFORE DECIDING

Overcome short-term emotion by attaining some distance

10/10/10 forces us to consider future emotions as much as present ones. It's irrelevant whether our future emotions are correct or not, the crux is to remove the over-focus on short-term emotions

Our decisions are often altered by 2 subtle short-term emotions:
(1) mere exposure=we like what's familiar
(2) loss aversion=losses are more painful than gains are pleasant

(1)+(2)= status quo bias

Take an observer's perspective 旁�者清
-- what would I tell my friend to do in this situation?

Honour your core priorities
-- identifying and enshrining your core priorities will allow easy resolution of present Nd future dilemmas

Knowing is not the same as doing. Need to carve out space to pursue our core priorities

PREPARE TO BE WRONG

The future is not a "point" forecast but a "range". No point predicting the point as the likelihood is you will miss the forecast. It is best to consider the range

Bookend the future
-- When we think about the extremes, we stretch our sense of what's possible, and the expanded range better reflects reality

Pre-mortem (lower bookend) and Pre-parade (higher bookend)
-- Prospective hindsight seems to spur more insights because it forces us to fill in the blanks between today and a certain future event

Use a safety factor to prepare for unforeseen future

Anticipating the range of future allows us to prepare, prevent, and cope with the outcome.

Tripwire -- needed to jolt us out of unconscious routines and make us aware that we have a choice to make

At some point, the virtue of being persistent turns into the vice of denying reality

Types of tripwires::
Deadlines give reminders
Partitions set boundaries

Tripwires remind us that we have a choice to make

Decision making Process

Decisions made by groups must've seen as fair

Allow for "bargaining" will not only improve the decision making process (more options, vanishing option, reality testing, .. ), but will also encourage buy-in and the decision will likely be seen as a fair outcome

Groups must trust that the process is just

Success emerges from the quality of the decisions we make and the quantity of luck we receive

Know what you don't know -- Michael Roberto

Know what you don't know -- Michael Roberto

It is important that when present with problems, a leader must have the know how and decision-making process to solve them. However, it is of equal importance, if not more, for leaders to DISCOVER problems. He or she must figure out what problem needs to be solved before beginning to make decisions. Identifying the true problem facing an organization often proved to be the most difficult challenge that ­leaders face. In many instances leaders do not spot a threat until far too late. At times, leaders set out to solve the wrong problem.

SEVEN sets of skills and capabilities that leaders must master if they want to become effective problem-finders.

1. Circumvent the "gatekeepers" (i.e. those who control filters and other barriers)
---- you must recognize that people around you filter information, often with good intentions. They hope to conserve your precious time. Sometimes, though, they filter out the bad news. Problem-finders learn how to circumvent these filters.

2. Become an ethnographer (observe carefully, ask questions, listen intently, etc.)
-- you must learn to behave like an anthropologist who observes groups of people in natural settings. You cannot simply ask people questions; you must watch how they behave. After all, people often say one thing and do another.

3. Hunt for patterns (e.g. identify verifiable causal relationships)
-- the most effective problem-finders become adept at searching for and identifying patterns. They learn how to mine past experience, both personal and organizational, so that they can recognize problems more quickly.

4. Connect the dots
-- you must refine your ability to "connect the dots" among seemingly disparate pieces of information. Threats do not come to us in neat little packages. They often remain maddeningly diffuse. Only by putting together many small bits of information can we spot the problem facing the organization.

5. Encourage useful failures (i.e. those that are small, brief, inexpensive, and informative)
-- effective problem-finders learn how to encourage people to take risks and learn from their mistakes. They recognize that some failures can be quite useful, because they provide opportunities for learning and improvement. You must distinguish between excusable and inexcusable mistakes, though, lest you erode accountability in the organization.

6. Teach how to talk and to listen (also when and why)
-- you must refine your own and your organization's communication skills. You have to train people how to speak up more effectively and teach leaders at all levels how to respond appropriately to someone who surfaces a concern, points out a problem, or challenges the conventional wisdom.

7. Watch the "game film" of past performance (make adjustments, practice deliberately)
-- the best problem-­finders become like great coaches who watch film of past performances and glean important lessons about their team's problems as well as those of their principal rivals. You must become adept at review and reflection, as well as how to practice new behaviors effectively.