One of my favourite books is a rather dog-eared 1970 edition of The Practice of Creativity by George Prince. The book gives wonderful examples and tools for having successful creative discussions in meetings. So much, George lays out, hinges on genuine listening to understand others points of view, and creating a space which protects the egos of people in the meeting, creating an atmosphere of psychological safety. One really simple tool and reframe he offers is the spectrum policy.

The spectrum policy acknowledges that few ideas will come out fully-formed and solve a problem perfectly in one go. Often our first reaction on hearing something is to evaluate it. When we hear an idea we can't help but see the negative aspects of an idea — the things that obviously won't work — and because of these negative aspects we may dismiss the whole idea. The idea is good, or it is bad. As well as the group losing out on what may have been the genesis of a solution, the originator can often feel snubbed and retire from full participation in the rest of the meeting.

With the spectrum policy we recognise that, "because you are never dealing with fools", all ideas put forward, even if we see obvious flaws, will have some good points as well as the bad. Before pointing out the flaws we make a point of finding the good in an idea and acknowledging it. This keeps elements of the idea available to build on for others and the egos of all participants intact and fully engaged in solving the problem.

The spectrum policy

This simple model for the progression of ideas is sometimes called a dialectic. It has many philosophical roots, but regardless it’s a nice way to think of how ideas, and perhaps society can progress. Something is created or put forward. It has some benefits but gives rise to negative effects and somehow we figure out a resolution as progress. That new solution then becomes the basis for the next step.

In engineering I learned that we progress by the resolution of contradictions. As a very simple example, it’s nice to have a walking stick. But a full-length walking stick is difficult to transport. You want it to be long when you’re walking, and short when you’re traveling with it. So we invent retractable ones. But retractable ones break more easily, so we invent…to be determined.

You also see a similar idea in stories, for example, the story spine.

It’s sometimes erroneously called Hegel’s dialectic, perhaps partly because Hegel’s work was sometimes so difficult to grasp and this is nicely simple.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis

Nifty water camouflage practised by dolphins, porpoises, some fish and other neat sea creatures. The simple strategy: look light like the sky for anyone below, and look dark like the sea for anyone above. 

Counter-shading

Scribbling on a post-it doesn’t give your ideas they respect they deserve. Change the way you and others consider them by using a simple format that makes people think twice before dismissing and does more to get your idea across.

Treat your ideas with respect

I love the Smart Little People problem-solving tool from TRIZ that invites you to compose your problem of smart little people and ask, “What would they do?”

Smart Little People is one of a suite of psychological inertia tools for unblocking your thinking and giving you new ways to look at solving a problem.

In the sketch, I was trying to illustrate how they might find a solution to a cut with what is effectively a clot.

Smart little people

Unuseless inventions. Invented by the Japanese. Worth a quick chindogu search.

Chindogu: unuseless inventions

There are others too. But these are big ones. Curious? Read Metaphors We Live By was a frame-changing easy read for me.

PS Accidentally, mixed my metaphors in the final sketch. The Mind Is A Machine metaphor is so pervasive it’s hard to ‘sketch’ across thinking without it.

Metaphors for ideas

One of the 40 inventive principles. Application not limited to mechanical engineering.

Cheap disposable objects

De Bono talks a lot about provocation as a means, for example, of deliberating provoking something impossible just to provide a new perspective. For example, when trying to design a car that’s better for passengers you might provoke with something like, what would a car look like that didn’t go anywhere. Of course, you probably need the car to go somewhere, but it might lead to an idea that the doors needn’t be at the side, that the roof might change height, or that you could plumb it in. It may lead nowhere. Then again, it may lead to something new and interesting in the next step.

In case you missed the previous posts, Fundamentals of Lateral Thinking:

You don’t have to be right at every step

Lateral thinking: 4. Lateral thinking changes perspective just to be provocative

I love the principle behind this — that you can get to something that works without having things that are possible and would work along the way.

A stickier way of saying a similar thing is:

There is nothing more dangerous than to leap a chasm in two jumps

Lateral thinking: 3. You don’t have to be right at every step

During lateral thinking labels don’t have to clearly be one thing or another, they can be flexible. The phablet is a reasonable recent example of how existing terms and definitions can constrain on your thinking.

Lateral thinking: 2. Labels are not collectors but signposts. They are not fixed

There’s a lot of mention of lateral thinking without a whole lot of knowledge about the what and the why of it. Very often it seems that it’s just brainstorming. Here’s a short set of some of the fundamentals of lateral thinking. In this one the point really is that lateral thinking doesn’t solve things by itself, but you need both lateral and vertical thinking at different times. And they are very hard to do together because they are quite different mindsets.

As I understand it, Lateral thinking is from Edward de Bono.

Lateral thinking: 1. Lateral thinking is about increasing the breadth of options

Mnemonic from the entertaining and informative book Made to Stick.

Make your idea sticky

Definitely think there’s some truth to this. It’s all about expectation and belief. Like how if you simply ask people to be creative, they come up with more creative ideas. Simple. Conrad credits Lucas McCann for the quote (who no doubt said it much more concisely and pithily).

The number of ideas produced in an ideation session is proportional to the size of the stack of paper in front of you

Not so easy to get your head around as we’re used to thinking that most things are they way they are because someone chose it for a reason. But it turns out that increasingly we see products that have found benefits in otherwise stable products by simply taking a flat surface and either adding shape or texture. (two of TRIZ’s trends of technology evolution)

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Category: ideas