Have you ever wondered why certain environments, music and even scents inspire you and stimulate creative thought and ideas? To expand on this question even further. Why do we come up with the greatest ideas when we’re not coming up with ideas? When we play, ideas happen.
We’re in a constant cycle of growth and learning. As we move through life, we unconsciously develop ways to make our life more efficient by creating habits and routines. We find shorter ways to get from point A to point B. We develop new systems to get things done. And, we often learn efficiency and fall into habits without thinking. Our learning and growing is never without influence; whether the influence is a person, a story, an idea or an internal drive.
One of the forms of learning is Associative Learning. We often refer to this as Classical Conditioning (yes, the story of Pavlov’s dogs!) In a nutshell, if the brain is presented and conditioned with stimuli that evokes a specific response, then anytime a similar stimuli is presented, the same response is triggered. Over time, our minds develop an association between the stimulus and the response.
The greatest ideas typically result from Abductive Reasoning, where one looks at a set of seemingly unrelated data with the understanding that a solution is there.
Two additional reasoning methods can be used to develop ideas and explore opportunities, Deductive and Inductive Reasoning.
Deductive Reasoning (DR) begins with a Theory, an observation or speculation about a particular interest or subject; a belief. According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, a definition of Theory is a “supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.” A Hypotheses is then formed around the Theory, to provide an explanation that is not based on concrete evidence. Through a series of testing, observations and prototyping the Theory is proven either true or false. DR works from the general to the specific.
Application: DR works well with existing ideas (products, services, beliefs). Implementing DR in a creative session can expose weaknesses of a particular idea, thus providing an opportunity to improve the idea, or create a new one.
Inductive Reasoning (IR) works from the specifics (observations, testing, prototyping) to the general (The Theory).
Application – IR is a great tool that can be used by entrepreneurs to identify and capitalize on trends. By observing cultural nuances, social shifts and early-adopter behaviors, theories can be concluded and turned into entrepreneurial opportunities.
Having a broader understanding of reasoning and logic, additional approaches are available for identifying and generating ideas.
How do you explain why others are able to achieve things that defy all assumptions?
All the great leaders and organizations in the world think, act and communicate the exact same way, and it’s the complete opposite of how everyone else does it.
Very few organizations know why they do what they do, their purpose, their belief, their cause.
Why does your organization exist?
Why do you get out of bed in the morning?
Why should anyone care?
Typically, most organizations think, act and communication from the outside in (starting with the What, then How, and finally Why), going from the clearest to the fuzziest.
The greatest individuals and organizations think from the inside out – starting with the Why.
Abductive Reasoning is at the heart of Creativity, including Innovation, Design Thinking, and all other methods and visionary goals. The most ground-breaking ideas resulted from looking at a set of seemingly unrelated components.
Abductive reasoning typically begins with an incomplete set of observations and proceeds to the likeliest possible explanation for the set. Abductive reasoning yields the kind of daily decision-making that does its best with the information at hand, which often is incomplete. (Source Link)
Our imaginations follow this type of thinking pattern. It is ideas and thoughts that at first appear absurd and ridiculous. Einstein regularly experimented using this method to explore the world around him.
Action: Using small note cards, write down anything that captures your attention during the course of a week (things, objects, ideas, products/services used, food consumed, tangible, intangible, etc.). At the end of the week, take the inventory of cards and force yourself to find relationships, trends, opportunities and ideas – regardless of how ludicrous that may be.
This has stirred up some interesting conversations at TheDieLine.com. Here my share;
This work is genius!!!
Look at all of the heated conversations. And chances are, this idea will stick with you, whether you love it or oppose it.
THIS is the heart of Advertising – to make you talk about the product. The more you talk about the product – the more it sticks! When it sticks, your recall of that product/message increases. And now you’re an evangelist for that product, whether you love it or hate it.
How many of you talked to your friends about this concept, and how horrible or clever this was?
A key to generating creative ideas is to train your mind to think in a particular way. Naturally, we revert to safe thinking; our ideas need to make sense; we doubt in our ability; we wonder what others might think. In actuality, we limit the ideas and predetermine their failure.
If the mind is trained to think freely, without boundaries – you will be in the position to generate limitless ideas.
A simple technique:
For the next thirty days, force yourself to come up with outrageous ideas – ideas that may not necessarily make sense at all. The goal is to train to mind to break the boundaries that we naturally set up that confide our idea generation. Note each idea. Sketch it out.
Several pointed to keep in mind:
The journaling is only for you, no one else will see this.
Feel free to explore existing products & services, and look for ways to improve them.
Look at your everyday life, be sensitive to the things that you cannot find a feasible solution to.
Personal interests and explorations are a key to new ideas, innovative approaches and fresh directions that we can take in life. In basic economics there’s a rule in play that states if one adds resources (people, technology, options, etc.) productivity will increase, and if the resources continue to multiply there will come a point when productivity will actually being to deteriorate.
It is absolutely critical to eliminate some of the personal projects laying around. Like in pruning, a gardener will always take away, that the plant might produce more fruit, not less.
When you’re exploring personal interests, always ask yourself , “what is the most important thing I can do at this very moment”? And learn to say no to yourself.
We will go through seasons of collecting, absorbing, researching. Our information bank on the particular subject grows increasingly. We surround ourselves with piles of rocks, sometimes more than we know what to do with. There comes a time when we must force ourselves to stop the collecting process, and begin building. Take one rock at a time and make something happen. There is no change if there is no change. Take action, stop fooling yourself into thinking that progress is being made when in all actuality, you are drowning yourself in the sea collected things.
