Our lives are full of cases of cognitive fixedness that prevent us from making changes, including changes to our careers. Some rules of creative thinking can help us see beyond the well-known and the familiar.
I have been working at SIT for 13 years, facilitating thought processes for new products and services for companies and organizations around the world. The invention of new products is a fascinating process, but just between us – how many of us get to dabble in it? How relevant is it to our everyday lives? On the other hand, perhaps we could use inventive thinking not merely for the development of new products, services and strategies, but also to reinvent ourselves?
After all, one of the major challenges of creative thinking is in the ability to overcome cognitive fixedness – the tendency to perceive things in a particular way, and the inability to notice their other facets. And we all have fixedness. We attribute certain roles to given situations or to their components and tend to be blind to other possibilities. The more we get used to certain presumptions, the more they become axiomatic in our minds, and difficult for us to abandon.
But our instances of fixedness are not restricted to our view of our environment; they also exist in how we think of ourselves. For example, we don’t like ambiguous situations. We already know what our own role is. We know what is required of us; we are acquainted with our responsibilities and know how to address them. But facing a vague situation, one where we don’t know what to expect, is no easy thing, especially when our career is at stake. I am not saying this to dishearten you. On the contrary: if you cannot predict the future, invent it.
In SIT, we say that the term NPD stands for New Promise Development, in addition to its more ordinary meaning New Product Development.
We explain that when our customers want us to innovate and bring them something new and exciting, this doesn’t necessarily have to be a product. It could be a new promise, new usages or new packaging for an existing product. A classic example comes from Orbit: Remember when chewing a gum was something you did just to freshen your breathe? Orbit reinvented the chewing gum category by promoting the anti decay benefit of its chewing gum.
We believe that developing new promises is always a great way to innovate, but in a time of recession we may need new promises even more.
This time I have a question. Albeit not yet concrete, my question offers a promising direction for cooperative exploration.
First, please close your eyes (…then open them fast so you can continue reading). Now, try and think of an innovation conference in which you’d like to participate.
As a reader of this blog and an obvious innovation-phile, I imagine that conferences crammed with speakers from 9-4 are not exactly to your style. You’re looking for something a little different; a conference that’s, well, a work of innovative itself. From the moment you get the invitation to the moment you go back home, a conference that feels different - new, interesting, effective and is informative to boot. Continue reading ‘Innovating the innovation conference’
Ok, so I’m not looking for one just at the moment - but I’m pretty sure that in no less than three years, the job of innovation manager will be just as acceptable and desirable as that of marketing manager, product development manager and sales manager.
Even today, I personally know 15 innovation managers, working in a variety of companies and organizations – the title on their business cards actually reads “Innovation Manager”. It’s amazing, isn’t it?
The other day, I bought (another) shirt with a slightly peculiar cut–a half-body design that can be turned into a V-neck. Whatever, that’s not the point.
It suddenly occurred to me just how far shirts have come since the nightmares from the 80’s–just how much innovation has been packed into one simple shirt!
So, I figured that “shirts” would be a good subject to address–to ideate about.
Let’s see if we can come up with some cool ideas for novel shirts (it’s a pity I’m not a seamstress!).
Here are some first thoughts:
A shirt that’s made entirely of pockets – stitched one next to the other, the pockets are the shirt.
A patchwork zip-shirt – the shirt is made of many different patches, each attached to its neighbors by a zipper. Each time you wear the shirt, you can choose which parts to wear and which to remove (sleeveless, one-sleeved, mid-drift, collarless, etc.). The opportunities are endless! Continue reading ‘Think About a Shirt!’
So, how exactly are we killing ideas? Relax - We all carry the bug, and each of us has heard the voice of the naughty kid inside that pops up every time we hear a new idea and gets us to say: “What?! We’ve tried that idea already and it didn’t work!”
Even if we’re creative types, we sometimes can’t stop ourselves from uttering: “Yes, but it’ll never work.”
Even if we’re patient and open-minded managers, at some point we’re likely to find the following sentence escape from our mouths: “It doesn’t fit into our current set of priorities.”
We’re all murderers; okay, that’s not a nice word. We’re all idea-killers. Perhaps it’s better that way. Otherwise, we’d be drowning in a swamp of new ideas that don’t provide a sound basis from which we can progress .
When it comes to research around “Creativity”, 3 standard approaches prevail: The first approach is the Person approach. This approach suggests that innovation is a characteristic inherent in naturally creative people. Either you’re born with it or you’re not. Some of us have it, and some of us don’t. Managers who subscribe to this view tend to recruit innovative people into the company and assume that these creative people will be the standard bearers of creativity within the organization.
The second approach is the Process approach. This approach suggests that there are particular processes that promote creativity. Take Brainstorming for example. This method says that if you create a process which gathers people from different disciplines, and you have someone to facilitate the discussion, and suspend judgment when coming up with ideas, and put emphasis on the quantity not quality of ideas, and build on the ideas of others, then you’ll get to some good ideas upon which you can build your work plan. Similar to Brainstorming, there are a variety of other methods which you can adopt in order to reach creative ideas. Continue reading ‘Can you learn how to be creative or is it just a myth?’
Managing Director of SIT Israel, responsible for developing sectors (food sector, SIT Ventures, conflict resolution, and marketing research) . Facilitator and trainer in all aspects of SIT's portfolio. B.Sc. in Communication Studies, studying for M.Sc. in Political Science and Communication. Teaches in the Communication School at Bar-Ilan University.
Our lives are full of cases of cognitive fixedness that prevent us from making changes, including changes to our careers. Some rules of creative thinking can help us see beyond the well-known and the familiar.
