Tina Seelig

The scientific method is clearly invaluable when you are trying to unlock the mysteries of the world. However, you need a complementary set of tools and techniques— creative thinking— when you want to invent rather than discover.

Reframing problems takes effort, attention, and practice, and allows you to see the world around you in a brand-new light. You can practice reframing by physically or mentally changing your point of view, by seeing the world from others’ perspectives, and by asking questions that begin with “why.”

Very innovative companies, such a Twitter, know how important this type of cross -pollination is to creativity in their businesses, and they make an effort to hire people with unusual skills, knowing that diversity of thinking will certainly influence the development of their products

Genrich Altshuller, a Soviet inventor. TRIZ [the Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving]is described as an “algorithmic approach to finding inventive solutions by identifying and resolving contradictions.” Altshuller’s book Creativity as an Exact Science describes his forty inventive principles. Building on Altshuller’s scientific approach, others created an even more detailed process called the “Algorithm of Inventive Problem Solving,” which includes an eighty-five-step method for solving complicated problems.

This might seem terribly mundane. But this simple act reminded the students that they so often fall into routines, such as eating at the same café day after day, when over thirty different options are available on campus.

What type of messages do these environments communicate ? When you enter any space, you are immersed in a narrative and become an actor in that story. You know your role and what is expected of you. For example, how do you feel and act when you walk into a lecture hall, a hotel room , an airport terminal, a doctor’s office, a concert hall, or a playground ? Each space compels you to respond differently.

Remarkably, the students in the ecosystem on the side of the room with the chairs (but no tables ) almost instantly started to collaborate with one another. Within minutes, the chairs were rearranged into one large circle or pushed aside altogether, as they worked on the puzzles on the floor. They figured out that by working together, they earned the maximum number of points for the game. On the other hand, the teams on the side of the room with tables (but no chairs) all anchored themselves to their respective tables. They did not collaborate at all and thus ended up limiting the number of points each team earned.

There are many effective tools for preparing individuals to work on creative teams. One of my favorites is the “Six Thinking Hats” model, developed by Edward de Bono, the renowned inventor of the concept of lateral thinking. This model describes six different roles we play on teams and shows the benefits of each role. 1 I introduce this model early in my creativity classes, because it gives the students a concrete tool that they can draw upon for the rest of the course— and the rest of their lives. In de Bono’s model there are six different roles we play on teams, each represented by a different colored hat. Most people have one dominant hat color, with one or two other colors close behind.

Heidi Neck, who teaches entrepreneurship at Babson College, runs a workshop in which she asks the students to complete a jigsaw puzzle. When they are done, they go into another room to create a patchwork quilt, starting with a crazy collection of different fabrics. When they’re finished, she compares the two approaches and end products. Putting puzzles together requires a fixed goal, and if a single piece of the puzzle is missing, you aren’t able to succeed. On the other hand, making a quilt is an open-ended process in which you can quickly change direction based upon the pieces you have on hand. And no matter what materials you are given, you are able to complete the quilt. Heidi shows her students that innovators and entrepreneurs are much more like quilt makers than puzzle builders. They have a mind-set that allows them to respond to the unexpected and to leverage the resources that are available in order to create something of value rather than waiting for all the expected pieces to show up.

Using your knowledge about the world as fuel, your imagination is an endless renewable resource. To demonstrate this point, I ask students in my classes to do a warm-up exercise inspired by Patricia Ryan Madson in her book, Improv Wisdom. I tell them there is an imaginary present sitting on their desk and ask them to pick it up and feel how heavy it is, how big it is, and to imagine how beautifully it is wrapped. Without opening it, they are to imagine what’s in the box. Once they have that in mind , they are to open the box slowly to see what is inside. I tell them that they will be surprised to find that the present isn’t what they expected . We go around the room and each person says what they thought was in the box and what they actually found. Everyone names different things, from books and chocolate to airplane tickets for an around-the-world adventure. I then ask them to look into the box to find yet another present, and another, and another. Each time they bring out something new and surprising. The key is that this “box”— your imagination— is bottomless. If you dig down, you will always find something new.