At the heart of all creativity is a novel idea. Creativity researchers have often used three measures of creativity. First, the number of ideas one can generate. Second, the different number of categories in which one can generate ideas. Third, the originality of ideas one creates. So the question of creativity and innovation boils down to how to spark new ideas?
The question of creativity and innovation boils down to how do you spark new ideas?
Not all ideas are created equal
The length of an assignment affects the kind of ideas you generate. The longer you are in a role, the more fluid your idea generation will be. You will develop a deeper knowledge and connect the dots that others don’t see.
However, when you have been in a role for a long time, you may create a lot of ideas in the same category. If you have been in advertising for too long, you will create many new brilliant copy ideas. But you won’t generate ideas around promotional effectiveness opportunities. As a financial planning professional, you will come up with ideas around improving margins. You may not be able to come up with ideas around more responsive forecasting systems.
How to spark new ideas?
How do you connect the dots when you are deeply engrossed in one narrow domain?
You may be stuck in a rut due to execution pressures or due to no slack in your organization. At such times you wish you could connect the dots at a broader level and generate bigger insights and ideas.
The same happens in research work. Research requires months of solitary thinking and analysis focused on a narrow domain. You often go so deep into the subject matter that there are few other people you can talk to at that level of depth. In fact, that rigor and level of depth in thinking is the hallmark of academic research.
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A walk in the library
Many years back, as a Ph.D. student, I stumbled upon a cool way to spark new ideas.
One day I was bored with my research as nothing new was coming to mind, and my data wasn’t yielding any results for me. At that time, I went for a walk from my office. I decided to go for a walk in the Fuqua library.
It was an aimless walk with no goal except to observe what is available in the library. My normal library usage involved reaching a book citation during my research and then picking it up from the library. It used to be a focused activity of getting a book I needed as fast as possible. But that day was different.
I started walking from one end of the library. It was not even a walk but just an amble slow enough for me to read every title on a shelf. I went from one end of the aisle to the other end reading every title on the shelf.
Since I was doing this in an aimless manner, I picked up any book that caught my fancy. I would skim through a few pages to learn more. If I liked it, I kept it to check out and went further down the aisles until I had picked up 3 or 4 books.
These books had nothing to do with my research at all. It could be something different. But it led me to explore books I would have never picked up otherwise. And the results were amazing.
The dots you connect define who you become
These aimless walks then became a part of my routine. Every 2-3 weeks I would do this again. The result was alway the same. I came home with books and authors in categories I would not have explored.
These walks led to some significant discoveries. One such exercise led me to pick up one book by a new author. It was a book by Rollo May written back in the 1940s. His writing moved me, and I went back to read many more of his books. That led me to read more Jungian psychology. Jung’s work taught me about the shadow. That led me to explore blindspots in organizations.
As I moved along this string of reading, I made more connections. I connected Nobel prize-winning research of Kahneman and Tversky with blindspots of managers. It led me to a critical insight that became the core of my book The Dark Side of Innovation.
Creating divergence
As you may have already realized, I stumbled upon an exercise in divergent thinking. By taking a walk in the library I created this divergence for myself. It was a way to step back and head into a different area.
There are many ways to create this divergence but a walk in the library worked like a charm. If you like reading, this may be something you want to try.
As you may have already realized, I stumbled upon an exercise in divergent thinking
So the answer to “how to spark new ideas?” is “take a walk in the library. When are you planning to take a walk in the library?
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