Kreativitätsdenken

Every conversation I've had with business leaders recently has revolved around creativity. Fundamentally they all come down to the same thing: Why aren't my people more creative?

In their frustration, many business leaders ultimately decide they're surrounded by lousy people and blame them. Such thinking is almost always wrongheaded. Most people are infinitely more creative than their jobs allow them to be -- it's one of the principle reasons people leave their jobs to start their own businesses. So what's getting in the way?

Second guessing. Most employees want to do a good job. And since their school days, they've developed highly sophisticated antennae for sensing what's wanted and delivering it. That looks and feels like good work, and sometimes it is. But it isn't creative because it isn't about crafting an original solution to a problem; it's just second guessing the boss. This quickly becomes a bad habit, and one that is all too often rewarded. Do it long enough and creative juices pretty much dry up.

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Too many rules. In highly regulated industries or disciplines, creativity is discouraged. Most of the time, you don't want a highly creative aircraft pilot; you want one who follows the rules. The same typically applies with accountants, engineers and lawyers. Many people in these lines of work believe that creativity is not wanted, so even if they had some in the first place they've grown accustomed to censoring it.

Fear. In aggressive or competitive cultures, people are more afraid of looking stupid than hopeful of looking creative. They often have excellent ideas that they are afraid to introduce for fear of mockery, derision or envy. Bullies are also highly effective at ensuring that every creative idea is squashed at birth.

Narcissism. Narcissistic leaders think they know it all and don't really want anyone else to be creative, even though they often say that they do. They talk too much in meetings and are too quick to fall in love with their own ideas. Everyone around them just gives up. In other words, creativity is a leadership problem. While it's possible a few companies have a statistically improbably concentration of dullards, the chances are far higher that the creativity is out there. It's just been squashed.

Projekte statt langfristiger Verträge, unklare Grenzen zwischen Arbeits- und Freizeit, dafür aber auch eine kreative Tätigkeit, die die gesamte Persönlichkeit beansprucht: Viele Jobs in Branchen wie Medien, Wissenschaft und Design sind heute so. Ein Vorbild dazu hat eine lange Tradition - Künstler waren immer schon "Kreativwirtschaftler".

Im Industriezeitalter war die Arbeit in erster Linie manuell. Am Fließband wurden die immer gleichen Tätigkeiten wiederholt. Wenn die Arbeitszeit vorbei war, begann die Freizeit. Diese Art der Produktion gibt es noch immer. Sie wird heute zunehmend entweder von Robotern verrichtet, oder in jenen Ländern, in denen die Ware Arbeitskraft noch billig genug ist für die Interessen des Profits. In den westlichen Nationen ist das zumeist nicht mehr der Fall, hier ist eine andere Arbeit immer wichtiger geworden. Diese Arbeit beansprucht nicht nur die Hände der Menschen, sondern auch ihren Geist, ihre Kreativität, Gefühle und soziale Kompetenz. Es soll sogar eine "kreative Klasse" entstanden sein: So lautet jedenfalls ein Begriff, den der US-Ökonom Richard Florida vor einigen Jahren geprägt hat. Entsprechend gebe es auch eine "Kreativwirtschaft", die von den Branchen Werbung, Marketing, Design über Medien, Mode und Künste bis zur Care-Ökonomie, Software-Industrie und Biotechnologie reicht. Immer schon kreativ gearbeitet haben Künstler und Künstlerinnen. Für Pascal Gielen, den Direktor des Forschungszentrums für Kunst und Gesellschaft an der Universität Groningen, waren sie in gewisser Weise das Vorbild für die Wirtschaft von heute. Die Produktionsmittel von Künstler und Künstlerinnen heißen Kreativität, Autonomie und Authentizität. Und die sollen heute am besten alle in die Waagschale ihres Berufs werfen.....

Für ihre Mitarbeiter können sie eine Last sein, für Unternehmen jedoch von Vorteil. Selbstverliebte Vorstandschefs gleichen ihre für das Unternehmen schlecht verträgliche Eigenschaften oft mit unkonventionellen Innovationen aus, stellt eine neue Studie fest.

Narzissten seien weder bessere noch schlechtere CEOs, aber möglicherweise besser als ihr Ruf, lautet das Fazit von Forschern der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), die die Studie gemeinsam mit dem IMD in Lausanne und der Pennsylvania State University durchgeführt haben. Demnach können sie dazu beitragen, organisationale Trägheit und Starre zu überwinden. Um die positiven Seiten narzisstischer CEOs langfristig zu nutzen zu können, sei es jedoch nötig, ihre negativen Facetten wie zum Beispiel ihre mangelnde Kritikfähigkeit und Empathie so gut wie möglich zu kontrollieren.....

I've begun to wonder if the concept of innovation in large corporation is an exercise in pointless navel gazing.  And no, this isn't another bashing of brainstorming, or a recent conversion based on my experiences with faulty innovation logic.  No, the challenge to innovation is based on the recent development of a core strength: focus, efficiency, time management.  As businesses become more streamlined, more efficient, more time bound, there's ever less time for contemplation, exploration, and, God help us, simply thinking about concepts, needs and alternatives.  They are too busy to innovate.

I write this after visiting the office of a client recently.  I needed from her one fact, that only she seemed to possess.  But regardless of when I visited her office, early in the morning, mid-day or late in the afternoon, she was in a meeting.  In fact she ordered lunch to one meeting so she wouldn't waste time eating lunch.  I finally interrupted one of her meetings to simply ask for the data, which she gave me after apologizing for not being available.  When I left for the day she was still in meetings.  While she may seem extreme, she is not an isolated case.

We've been taught to manage our time, focus on what is important, stay occupied and stay in demand.  People who are constantly busy are hard to remove, while people who don't seem as engaged in day to day activities or whose capabilities or energies aren't focused on tomorrow's successes are often considered to be less useful or not contributing.  Once we are all fully booked every working hour in meetings, discussions and debates we'll finally be fully efficient, and almost as assuredly innovation will wither and die.

Als "innovativ" werden Produkte (vom Shampoo bis zu Frühstücksflocken) gerne vermarktet - doch was sind echte Innovationen und wie entstehen sie? Dazu ist ein neues Buch erschienen: "Innovator, Imitator oder Idiot” von Gertraud Leimüller.

"Das Neue fällt nicht vom Himmel" - meint Gertraud Leimüller, Innovationsexpertin und Unternehmensberaterin in Wien. Unter anderem bedürfe es der Demut, damit tatsächlich Neues geboren werde, so Leimüller im science.ORF.at-Interview: "Demut braucht man, weil sehr oft der Preis einer Umsetzung einer Idee ist, dass man die Idee abgibt - dass man die Idee jemandem anderen gibt, der sie umsetzt. Meistens braucht es mehrere Menschen, um eine Innovation umzusetzen, denn im Grunde ist Innovation etwas sehr Schwieriges."

Nicht im eigenen Saft kochen, sondern externes Wissen einholen - sei es von Wissenschaft oder Laien, von Unis oder Usern, das rät Leimüller Betrieben und Organisationen; und zwar laufend, gezielt und strukturiert Feedback einholen und nutzen, Anregungen zulassen und vor allem: darauf achten, ob und was genau im bestehenden Angebot/Prozess schief läuft. Durch Fehler- bzw. Rückmeldungen würden ja in gewissem Sinne bereits Anregungen für Verbesserungen und Neuerungen geliefert. Die Tipps der Unternehmensberaterin: Mut zum Risiko, über den Tellerrand der eigenen Organisation und bekannter Strukturen denken, Einbinden von mehreren Menschen - Innovation sei ein Teamsport.....

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A more powerful perspective

Visual thinking expert and author Dave Gray, in his excellent book Gamestorming, explains how making your thoughts tangible can free you from mental clutter and enable you to focus on generating solutions to the challenge at hand:

"Imagine yourself playing a game of chess while blindfolded. It’s possible to hold the positions of all the pieces in your mind’s eye for a time – and most chess masters can do it for an entire game – but it’s much easier to have the pieces displayed on the board in front of you. The shape and color of each piece and its position relative to the board and to the other pieces contains a rich set of information that can help you make better decisions about the game."

In much the same way, you can use visual thinking to treat your thoughts as ‘artifacts’ – tangible, portable thought objects that may include sticky notes, index cards, elements of a diagram or topics within a mind map. Rearranging them enables you to play “What if?” with information and ideas, in much the same way that a chess player ponders his potential next moves by analyzing the chess board in front of him. Best of all, visual thinking uses both sides of your brain – both the logical left hemisphere and the more creative right hemisphere – giving you greater mental horsepower to generate productive solutions for yourself and the people you serve. This powerful mindset is one that anyone can develop, and it’s an awesome differentiator for you and your unique creative style.

Visual thinking can help you to:

- See patterns and connections that others aren’t even aware of

- Envision new possibilities and ideas
- Display the quality of your thinking

- Dissect complex problems, view their components and discern their underlying causes

- Reach clarity more quickly on complex challenges

- Make better informed decisions
- Communicate your ideas in a high-impact, memorable manner to the key people you are trying to influence

- Build consensus with others

All of these are critical needs today. Why not become the ‘go-to’ expert on visual thinking in your world?

This article shares two strategies that are proving most effective for CEOs that aim to make their companies more innovative: developing a creative culture (people’s behaviors) and applying new processes and technologies. The summary of The 2012 Conference Board CEO Challenge reveals that the top two concerns for CEOs are innovation and human capital, while the top two CEO strategies to cope with them are creating a culture of innovation and applying new technologies (product, process, information, etc.). Today’s market expectations, competitive pressures and pace of change make the CEOs look at innovation as “the” solution. CEOs tend to do it however in an episodic manner, without discipline and without clear expectations on return. Executives would like to move boldly with big and discontinuous choices rather than with incremental innovations, but they miss clear strategies, structures and procedures. This results in most ideas going to the drawer without ever seeing the market light. Consequently, the company retreats to more familiar territories, and the cycle of people’s frustrations repeats itself. ....

Spiritual issues appear subjective and often perplexing: intangible, supernatural, reflecting a wondrous nature, pertaining to the divine, and forming the sacred basis of religion.  Webster defines the spirit as “an animated or vital principle held to give life” and “the activating or emotional principle influencing a person.”  Languages capture the heart and action in their word for “spirit” itself: its Greek etymological root, psycho, means “I breathe.”  The “spirit” in Hebrew is ruách, meaning a “wind” or “breath” (In these words you feel the onomatopoeia—when you say psycho, you breathe; as you say ruách, you inhale “the wind”).  In French, the spirit is élan vital, the “vital force” by which God animates the world.  The spirit empowers the soul: it is passion, commitment, conviction, and vision.  It is the base for movement of life itself. 

Because psychology historically has aligned itself with the scientific method in its development as a discipline, it is not surprising that matters of spirituality have traditionally fallen outside of its domain.  However, as those whom we serve express the value of spirituality in their life, psychologists have increasingly recognized the limitations of applying the scientific model to determine all that is significant.  Clinicians increasingly respond to the idea that the spirit as integral in the life of the person.

Current clinical interest in the spirit occurs in the context of a broader phenomenon as striking statistics on the role of spirituality and religion in the lives of Americans demonstrate.  National polls conducted by the University of Connecticut’s Roper Center report that the percentage of Americans who believe in God (however they understand this three letter word) has remained around 90% to 95% for as long as polls have been conducted (91% in a Gallup poll in May, 2011). As support for institutional religion wanes, interest in the spiritual remains and grows.

Studies have suggested that participation in religion and spirituality contributes to enhanced health in several areas: less substance abuse (Stylianou, 2004); lower incidence of heart disease (Pargament, 1997), recovery from depression (Koenig, George & Peterson, 1998), and generally reduced psychological and/or physical illness (Koenig, McCullough, Larson, 2001; Thoresen, Harris, & Oman, 2001; McCullough, 2001, Plante & Sherman, 2001).  Improvement in emotional states also correlates with spiritual and religious involvement (Koenig, 2008; Plante & Sherman, 2001).  While understanding the mechanisms for these changes remains in its early stages, outcome studies have led medical schools to include the study of spirituality and religion in their curriculum.

Participants in spiritual endeavors describe healing that not only alters blood pressure but also, as a centering and integrating vehicle, leads to more meaningful, more empowered, more loving, and more successful lives. Given these facts, is it appropriate for mental health professionals to ignore the role of the spirit in the life of those whom they serve or to feel content to judge such experience as outside their expertise?

Although, at times, it may be difficult to explore spirituality, it remains essential for us to do so. The role of the spirit in life not optional; it is a response to the need for human wholeness.  To ignore the spirit is to miss an essential part of the person.  As the field of mental health expands its purview to heal the whole person and embrace treatments that address preventive measures as well as positive aspects of life, spirituality is finding a growing reception in psychology—from discussion of the meaning of life to attending to one’s personal encounter with the holy.

nnovation means more than just new products or services. It means improving the process of creating those products, or selling them, or experiencing them, or even improving the ways we manage the people who do all of the above. Perhaps my favorite definition of innovation is Scott Berkun’s: “Innovation is significant positive change.” That change can apply to products and processes, or it can apply to people.

Recently, the Institute for Corporate Productivity published a study surveying some of the top companies and people in the fields of management and innovation. They examined some of the best people management practices at organizations known for innovation and found several ways that those companies develop and manage their human capital. In summarizing their findings, here are 10 human capital practices that drive innovation:

- Use Technology to Collaborate and Share Knowledge. Collaboration drives creativity and innovation, and social media and conferencing technologies can help bring people together (or virtually together) more often for that collaboration.

- Promote Innovation as an Organizational Value. The most innovative companies didn’t just luck into hiring creative people; they placed creative and even average people into creative cultures.

- Include Innovation as a Leadership Development Competency. Part of building an innovative culture is having leaders who value creativity, and are creative themselves.

- Tie Compensation to Innovation. The jury is still deliberating the influence of incentives on creativity, but their use in organizations sends a signal that innovation is valued. That signal is an important part of culture building.

- Develop an “Idea-finding” Program. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, it’s not enough to have great ideas. Innovative companies build a system that taps into the collective knowledge of everyone and lets everyone promote good ideas.

- Fund Outside Projects. It might sound counterintuitive to allow funding to develop projects that are technically outside your organization, but as market boundaries continue to blur, strategic innovation partnerships become even more important.

- Train for Creativity. Creativity isn’t innate. Creative thinking skills can be developed and the most innovative companies fund training programs to develop them.

- Create a Review Process for Innovative Ideas. Even the best ideas don’t come fully formed. There is a process to refining, developing and identifying the ideas with the most market potential. Creating a review process allows this to happen and signals that innovative ideas are valued.

- Recruit for Creative Talent. Especially at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The war for talent is slowing shifting its focus from quantitative minds to creative ones.

- Reward Innovation with Engaging Work. Research demonstrates that companies that are able to identify their most creative employees can enhance their creative ability by providing them autonomy to work on projects that are naturally interesting to them.

A few weeks ago, I discovered a huge box filled with older papers and personal belongings. It was found as part of the packing process -- we are moving to Connecticut over the summer -- and I saw things I hadn't seen for many years.   For the first two decades of my life, I wanted to be a creative writer. I wanted this more than anything in the world. In looking through the boxes of papers I recently found, I was astounded at the sheer quantity of stories, plays, poems, essays, and brief snippets, lines, or ideas for future stories. Every notebook, address book, or day planner I had was covered with my chicken scrawl of ideas and plans.

One thought that struck me was that I would write nearly anything (and then submit it for publication in some obscure zine). I found my "humorous" poetry, crammed eight to a page in a zine that must have been stapled in someone's basement. I found some more oddball humor (a baseball team made up of psycho killers) in Half-Truth, a free Los Angeles underground magazine (where I was published directly opposite a new piece by Charles Bukowski). I found my horror stories, in mags with names like Wicked Mystic and Aberrations. There were poems, mostly unpublished, some written for class. And there were the stories -- dozens and dozens of short-shorts, most never published. Four-page quick punches, with a plot twist or insight waiting at the end. Most of the stories had insight from my main writing professor (who was literary legend T. Coraghessan Boyle). I was struck by his amazing generosity -- I knew he'd read much of my fiction, but I'd forgotten just how many pages I had dumped in his lap over the course of four years. I found the sports sections of the local papers that I'd worked for -- mildewed articles on water polo and high school football. There were the editorial columns I wrote for my college paper. I also found the plays and musical librettos, which came later in grad school, as well as the baseball research I'd done with my father, Alan.

Perhaps the predominant memory was that there was so damn much of it, and that I would try anything. It got me thinking about how my creative writing influenced my psychology career. Some of the influence is obvious. My first master’s thesis, later one of my first published papers (Kaufman, 2002a), was an overview of past research on writers. My dissertation (Kaufman, 2002b) examined the differences in thinking styles and personality between creative writers and journalists. One of my first large research projects was a historiometric investigation of eminent writers and mental illness (Kaufman, 2001). I've continued to study creative writers, right up to my recent edited book with Scott Barry Kaufman, The Psychology of Creative Writing......

I tell the story of the six blind men and the elephant to a lot of my clients, because a significant amount of innovation work seems very similar to the story.  If you aren't familiar with the story, the concept goes something like this:

Six learned blind men live in a village.  One day an elephant comes to the village, and no one is quite sure what to make of the elephant.  The blind men, who are wise, are brought to the elephant to describe its character and makeup.  Each of the blind men touches the elephant and describes the elephant from his perspective.  One touches the elephant and describes the elephant from that perspective.  Another touches the elephant on the trunk, another on the leg and so forth.  All of them are partially correct, but none manage to piece their perspectives together to see the whole elephant. 

If you are interested, you can go further at the Wikipedia page or see the famous poem written about the blind men and the elephant, which has the interesting stanza:

And so these men of Hindustan

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong.

We, today, are a lot like the blind men when it comes to innovation, especially when we are focused on discovering new customer needs and expectations.  In many discussions about what "customers" want, it often seems like we have a group of learned blind men who know only their particular perspective.  Some speak about EXISTING customers and their needs.  Some speak about POTENTIAL customers and their needs.  Some speak about the firms internal CAPABILITIES and TECHNOLOGIES, as if this matters.  Some talk about future SCENARIOS and TRENDS that may occur.  Some talk about specific SEGMENTS of customers, ignoring others.  Some will talk about what they believe to be true, not what customers have told them.  In the end, many clients often have very narrow, segmented and biased interpretations of customer needs, often influenced by current market conditions and the existing capabilities of the business, rather than what they've learned by interacting with customers....

Do you know this guy on the left? Of course you do! The man, and in particular that photo, are icons. They represent creativity itself.

Yet Einstein is both an inspiration and an intimidation. His legend, unfortunately, has obscured much his story’s true value. He was, in many ways, unexceptional, but nevertheless managed to see the world differently and led others to do so as well.

 
Although obviously intelligent, he showed no special early aptitude. He was neither rich nor poor. While not tremendously popular as a child, he was no loner either. His extraordinarily genius was very much the product of a method and it is one which we can all follow.

Many believe that in order to be creative you must eschew conventional ideas and Einstein is often held up as an example. He isn’t.

Despite apocryphal stories that he failed math class, Einstein was a good, if unruly, student. He studied physics intensely, worked towards a doctorate and sought out a job as an ordinary physics professor. It was his poor lecturing ability (and possibly his poor behavior towards a professor) that kept him from a more conventional academic career.

Moreover, even his legendary burst of creativity in 1905, during what is now called his miracle year, focused on topics widely discussed among physicists of the time. His discoveries utilized concepts such as Planck’s law and Maxwell’s equations, standard for physicists but impenetrable to laymen, even today.

So while it’s true that he was somewhat of an outsider to the ivory towers of the physics community, it wasn’t by choice. He was, in fact, struggling to gain acceptance (of both himself and his doctoral dissertation). In a similar vein, the most creative people I have known have all been avid students of their field.

It helps to know what the rules are before you set out to break them.

At 37 years old, Carl Jung became disoriented and entered a phase of fertile confusion. Smack in the middle of his disorientation, an inner voice called him out on his integrity. When that voice calls and says, “Look at how you’re living your life. How are you walking the talk?,” most of us reply with, “You’ve got the wrong number,” hang up, and turn up the volume on Downton Abby. Or we get stuck in the pit of self-doubt. But when Jung got challenged on his own soul stuff, he didn’t hang up. He kept the line open. His ability to stay creatively in disorientation led, in many ways, to break-throughs in his thinking that in turn would influence decades later the success of great films like Thelma and Louise and the success of books like Seth Godin’s The Icarus Deception. And here’s the take-away: How Jung found his way out of that disorientation could be an example to any of us who at times doubt our artistic and entrepreneurial role in the world, who doubt our own integrity, or who hit a creative impasse.....

Innovation is a paradox for management. On the one hand you are well aware that you have to take new roads before you reach the end of the present dead end street. On the other hand it is risky. It takes a lot of time. And it takes a lot of resources. Research shows that only one out of seven innovation projects is successful. So saying yes to innovation is a step into the unknown. It creates fear of failure, which causes fear to innovate. It’s like sailing to the South Pole like Shackleton, where the surrounding ice can stop you any moment. Management is under pressure in the business of today. And as an innovator you want them to shift money and resources to the business of tomorrow. On average it takes 18 – 36 months to develop a new concept, which often will only be profitable 2-3 years after introduction. So a lot of managers wait until not innovating is not an option anymore. We all are human. As innovator you can fight this risk adverse culture, as a kind of modern Don Quixote fighting windmills. Or you can accept it. Only when you accepted it, you can deal with it. Managing innovation has everything to do with managing expectations and reducing risks. I can give you five tips that might get you more support for innovative ideas......

Jeder kennt sie, niemand mag sie – Langeweile. Und sie kann mitunter sogar gefährlich werden. Doch Studien zeigen: Langeweile macht auch kreativ und kann die Karriere fördern.

Geistige Einöde
Noch immer ist umstritten, was genau sich hinter Langeweile verbirgt. Der Duden versteht darunter ein „lästig empfundenes Gefühl des Nicht-ausgefüllt-Seins, der Eintönigkeit und Ödheit, das aus Mangel an Abwechslung, Anregung, Unterhaltung, an interessanter, reizvoller Beschäftigung entsteht“.

Psychologen konnten sich bislang nicht auf eine allgemeingültige Definition einigen. Dafür ist Langeweile, anders als Emotionen wie Angst oder Freude, zu schwer definierbar. Doch zumindest drei Aspekte finden sich in jeder Erklärung......

Innovation is not a big idea; it’s a different way of working. Understanding what’s going on and putting it in a PowerPoint is not the hard part. Changing work habits is, especially if your habits have built a sparkling career.

In 1993 the greatest basketball player to grace the NBA decided to walk away from the game he dominated and try his hand at baseball. It was a dismal failure. Two years ago in Australia, an extravagantly talented Rugby League player called Israel Folau made the switch to Aussie Rules with a similar result.

In the first case, Michael Jordan probably couldn’t imagine not succeeding. He was accustom to dominating his rivals and probably thought, once he got his eye in, he would do the same on the baseball diamond. To an objective observer basketball and baseball are very different games, and even if Michael was handy with a bat in his youth, he hadn’t spent the same thousands of hours he had sweating and scowling his way to basketball greatness.....

When I urge managers in a company to make open innovation part of their innovation strategy, they get it conceptually. They see that a solution coming from outside is more likely to be a dramatic leap versus an incremental one—simply because it came from a mind not narrowed by conventional thinking. They understand that the infusion of fresh ideas can also open their own R&D engineers and technologists to new and different possibilities and cause them to push their thinking further. At a minimum, they agree that better solutions tend to emerge when there are more options to consider in the first place. A recent project we did for FVA, a branch of the German trade association VDMA for companies that provide drive-train systems and components, bears this out. Every year, FVA conducts an industry-wide technology search to identify new and emerging solutions, and it shares the results as a service to its member companies. Although the search has been productive, members within the FVA leadership circle wanted to see if there was a better search process that would unearth more solutions and potentially create more value. A vice president of the group had been to a presentation on Open Innovation and was intrigued by the concept. And although he seriously doubted it could work in a field as specialized as drive-train technology, he was willing to find out. FVA commissioned Aachen University to manage a selection process and trial study, and the selection committee found us at NineSigma most suitable to conduct a series of technology searches.

These technology searches took the form of requests for proposals (RFPs) seeking solutions to four different technological needs: 1) durable, non-lubricated gear materials; 2) extra-fine micro particle removal from lubricated mechanisms; 3) translational research in bio-similar particle capture and 4) low-friction hard surfaces. We distributed the RFPs worldwide, within and outside the industry. The results were measured in two ways: How many solutions were submitted by new sources versus known sources? And how many of the solutions submitted were new to the industry versus already familiar to industry engineers? In all four areas, the new solution providers far outnumbered the known ones. For example, 33 new providers and only 2 known ones addressed the low-friction hard surfaces problem. The new solutions swamped the familiar ones, as well. For example, for the durable, non-lubricated gear materials problem, the search yielded 16 new solutions versus 6 known.....

There are a surprising number of blog posts about the characteristics of creative people. However, most of these seem to focus either on an idealized vision of an artist or the blog-writer’s idealized self-image! Here is my take on the characteristics of highly creative people. However, what I have done is looked at how creative people think -- based on my understanding of the latest research -- and applied it to behavior. It is also worth bearing in mind that creativity is not all positive. There are good and bad creative people. Moreover, there seem to be some characteristics of creative people, such as dishonesty, that are not very nice. More controversially, some research has shown a correlation between creativity and mental illness. (The validity of this is contested, though.) The characteristics of highly creative people are, I believe, the result of two specific behaviors of such people. Let's look at those behaviors and how they affect broader behavior.

Behavior One: Make More Use of Their Mental Raw Material

It seems that when highly creative people try to solve a problem or achieve a goal, particularly when the goal is related to their area of creative strength, they use much more of their brains than do ordinary people or, indeed, than even themselves when they are not focused on a creative task. If the average person is asked to draw a picture of a cat, she will most likely think about the physical appearance of a cat and replicate it as best she can with pen and paper. The creative artist, on the other hand, will think in much more depth. She'll think not only about the cat, but the placement of the cat; what the cat is doing; the lighting; the kind of lines to use and much more. She may decide to humanize the cat and give it emotions. Perhaps she'll decide to draw a sexy cat with a human body wearing an evening gown. Maybe she'll simply draw a blur representing a cat in motion. By using much more of her brain to achieve her goal, the highly creative person, in effect, provides herself with more raw material from which to construct ideas than the average person. The average person thinks only about drawings of cats and the basic characteristics of cats. This limits the level of creativity she can achieve. The highly creative person thinks about much more -- all the while retaining some connection to cats. It is not surprising that, with so much raw material, she is able to be more creative in the realization of her ideas.....