Bite-Sized Training

Get Creative!
 Get Creative Bite-Sized Training | Mind ToolsTM

Get Creative!
Bite-Sized Training
This e-book is published by:

Mind Tools Ltd.

Copyright Mind Tools Ltd, 2007-2011. All rights

reserved.

Version 1.3

This e-book is protected by international copyright

law. You may use it only if you are a member of
the Mind Tools Club. If you have any queries,
please contact us at
members.helpdesk@mindtools.com.

Cover image iStockphoto/ermingut

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 Get Creative Bite-Sized Training | Mind ToolsTM

Contents

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 4

2. Can You Get Creative? ................................................................................................................ 5

3. Reverse Brainstorming................................................................................................................... 6

4. Starbursting ................................................................................................................................... 9

5. Random Input .............................................................................................................................. 11

6. Key Learning Points ..................................................................................................................... 13

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1. Introduction
Creativity is often thought of as in the realm of
other people. Somehow, unless were blessed
with an obvious talent for creativity and
innovation, and perhaps have a creative remit in
our job spec, we may think we dont have a
creative bone in our body.
Think for a moment about how many times you
have said, Dont ask me, Im not creative!, or sat
in a brainstorming meeting trying your best to
blend into the woodwork and hoping no one
would notice you werent contributing.
If youre one of the brave souls, perhaps you do
speak up in brainstorming sessions, but maybe
you do it reluctantly and dont really believe any of
your contributions will make a difference.
If you see yourself in these scenarios, youre not
alone. And its an unfortunate circumstance,
because being creative is as much about self-
perception as it is about the skills involved in
thinking outside the box.
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If you think you are creative, you probably will be.
If you think you arent, well, chances are you
wont be. In order to get to a place where you can
let your mind be free enough to generate original
ideas, it cant be hung up on negative thinking.
Creativeness is a brain exercise, and you need all
your resources at your full disposal.
This Bite-Sized Training session is designed
to boost your confidence with creative thinking
and show you methods you can use to unlock the
creativity that lurks within all of us. Youll learn
and practice the following powerful ways to
improve your creativity:
Reverse Brainstorming asking yourself
how to make the problem worse instead of
making it better.
Starbursting asking questions to find the
answers.
Random Input gaining insight from
unrelated concepts.
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2. Can You Get Creative?
The question that many people have is whether
you can learn to be creative or whether you are
simply born with the creativity gene.
Without doubt, some people are more creative
than others. However, creativity is not an all or
nothing proposition. Its a continuum. And while
where you start off might have something to do
with how your brain is hard-wired, you can also
build your skills in this area of competency just
like any other.
It really is all about learning to trust in yourself
and your ideas. Its about being willing to let go of
your inhibitions and your preconceived notions.
And its about being open to looking at issues
from an entirely different perspective.
Creativity is a way of having a dialogue with
yourself where you are your own best champion.
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You need to urge yourself to try new things and
look at things differently. You need to tell yourself
that its OK to be different, to blurt out whatever
comes to mind, to risk not being understood, and
to not care.
Of course, to get to this point you need
confidence. Practicing your creative thinking skills
is an important exercise. Its how youll get better,
and build the self-trust and assurance that you
need to keep pushing the creative envelope.
When you open yourself up to creativity, you
never really stop seeing new connections and
new ways to view the circumstances in front of
you. Thats when creativity gets exciting.
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3. Reverse Brainstorming
As you probably know, brainstorming is an activity
where you simply let ideas flow with no judgments
or critiques. The objective is to put as many ideas
that address the issue you are discussing, on
paper as possible. From within them, a unique
solution typically appears. (See our article on
brainstorming for a more detailed guide.)
To practice the creativity techniques we have
here, you first need to identify a problem or
situation you want answers for. Maybe you are
brainstorming career alternatives? Perhaps there
is an issue at work that you are unsure how best
What problem or issue are you getting creative about?
Traditional brainstorming would have you start
thinking about ways to solve the problem. For the
example, you might consider engaging a public
relations campaign or providing better access to
information.
With Reverse Brainstorming, you take a different
perspective. You reverse your original statement,
and come at it from the opposite direction. You
ask:
How could I cause the problem? rather than
How do I solve it?
How could I not achieve the results I desire?
rather than How do I achieve them?
So, for our example, the problem statement
becomes:
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to handle? There might even be a business
concern that you would like to investigate and
identify new ways to manage.
For illustrative purposes, the problem were going
to get creative about is:
What can we do to improve the publics
perception of police services?
Action: Whatever the situation is, take some time
to write out your problem statement in the space
below.
How could we cause police services to be
perceived poorly?
By simply reversing the direction from which you
approach the problem, a whole new set of
solutions becomes apparent.
We could encourage a poor perception by:
Scrapping the schools liaison program.
Reducing the number of officers on the
beat (although having officers on the beat
has little effect on reducing crime, people
feel safer when they see officers in their
area).
Discouraging police officers from talking to
the community when theyre on patrol.
Covering up mistakes.
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Action: At the top of the box below, rewrite

your problem statement in the reverse.

Reverse Brainstorming problem statement:

Ideas:

Now comes the fun part!
Action: Take 10 minutes and brainstorm as many
ideas as possible. Record them in the space
above. Do not censor your thoughts. Write down
whatever comes to mind. What youll find is one
idea will lead to another and there might be some
that overlap or piggyback on one another.
Keep the ideas flowing for the full 10 minutes.
You might find you run out of steam after five
minutes or so. Thats OK. Force yourself to keep
thinking as its often when you break through that
mental barrier that really unique ideas come to
you.

Mind Tools Ltd, 2007-2011. 7


When youre finished, youll have a set of ways to
cause the problem or not achieve the results you
desire. To finish the exercise, you need to reverse
these statements and develop potential solutions.
So instead of saying, Scrapping the schools
liaison program, you could rewrite it to say,
Positive Solutions:
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Developing new liaison programs in other
sections of the community.
Action: For each of your reverse ideas, rewrite
the statement as a positive solution to your
original statement.
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4. Starbursting
Getting creative is all about finding as many
different ways to look at a situation as possible.
The more tools and techniques you have at your
disposal the better.
Starbursting is a creativity tool that gets you
asking questions rather than finding answers.
What questions could you ask yourself that would
help you find ways to address the problem? From
the questions you generate, you can then use
further creativity techniques to uncover solutions.
To use this tool, think of as many questions as
you can that begin with the following six words:
Who.
What.
When.
Where.
Why.
How.
The objective is to generate lots of good
questions, which will, in turn, be used as starting
points for brainstorming. The answers are not the
focus right now: When you have many questions
in your mind, it will be easier to think of solutions
when you go to looking for them.
Going back to the example problem of figuring out
ways to improve the publics perception of police
services, questions to ask include:
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Who influences public perception?
What perceptions are currently out there?
When do perceptions change or turn
negative?
Where can we look for support?
Why do we need a positive perception?
How do we measure perception?
Can you see how asking different questions can
lead you in entirely different directions than simply
focusing on the one problem statement?
Action: For the problem statement you have
been working on, use the worksheet on the next
page to generate as many questions as you can
that will help you address the issue. Give yourself
10 minutes and write down whatever comes to
mind. Remember, the questions dont have to be
right or even answerable. The point of the
exercise is to shake up your thinking and come at
the issue from all angles.
Tip:
While we dont have time in this session to go back
and brainstorm answers to the questions you
generate, this is a valuable next step in the
creativity process. Consider completing this portion
of the exercise on your own, or with your team.
You can see an example of a completed starburst
worksheet here.
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4.1 Starbursting Exercise

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5. Random Input
The final tool were going to work through
Random Input is quite a departure from the
more traditional ways of getting creative.
One of the reasons we find it difficult to be
creative in the first place is because we get
entrenched in thinking patterns. Our experiences
limit our perception of the world. When we get
stuck in one way of viewing things, we analyze
and interpret in similar ways as well.
Random Input helps us to think laterally and
challenge our established patterns. It forces us to
find connections between things that we never
thought could be connected. Much of being
creative is about looking for unusual linkages and
comparisons.
With Random Input, you link your original problem
to something completely random and unrelated.
When you do that, your mind merges your
experiences from both inputs. The combination
can open many new options to you.
Going back to our example regarding police
perception, I could decide to link it with the
random word glass. Now by thinking about
glass, I get a whole new set of experiences to
draw on.
Glass is transparent, it is sharp so you have to be
careful with it, it has reflective qualities, and it can
be used to distort.
If I do some brainstorming around my problem
statement and use my experience of glass to
trigger potential solutions I come up with the
following:
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Create a transparent process for dealing
with mistakes that can be accessed and
seen by the public.
Create a system where members of the
public can come in and observe what
goes on in the cells area or when a
prisoner is booked.
Have live video feed in all patrol cars and
make it available to the public.
Find out where perception hurts the police
the most and concentrate on that one area
until we get it right.
Schedule regular internal audits to reflect
back how we think we are doing.
Use appointed non-police personnel to
communicate breaking news and provide
police updates.
Some of the ideas will turn out to be impractical,
of course. However, the act of connecting two
divergent ideas produces interesting results.
Action: Choose a random word to associate with
your problem statement. Nouns make good words
as they are tangible and have real qualities.
Some people scan the words on a paper in front
of them or pick a word at random from the
dictionary. You might have to scan through a few
words until one sparks some creative juice.
Write down your word at the top of the box on the
next page. Then take 10 minutes to brainstorm
solutions to your problem statement using the
insights you gain from thinking about your random
word.
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Random Input:

Problem Statement:

Ideas:

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6. Key Learning Points
There is no correct way to be creative. Each
person will respond differently to different
creativity techniques. The objective is to start
thinking in as many different directions as you
can.
The more ways you can come at a problem, the
more interesting and robust your ideas.
The three tools we discussed here complement
one another very well. Reverse Brainstorming
asks you to come at the problem from the
opposite direction. Starbursting requires you to
think of more questions to ask yourself before you
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even start brainstorming solutions. And Random
Input forces you to find connections between
items you would never have put together.
After using the three tools together, you should
have a large set of ideas to build on and more
questions to keep asking. The further you dig the
more interesting your answers become. This is
how true innovation starts. Keep digging away.
Find new angles and connections. Along the way
your confidence with creativity will build and youll
find yourself deliberately looking for, and finding,
the innovation you seek.
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