Diversity is the mother of creativity

Jeffrey Baumgartner publishes Report 103 - a twice monthly newsletter focused on creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business. All the newsletters can be found at http://www.jpb.com/report103/archives.php

The following extract 'Diversity is the mother of creativity' is used with his permission.

Arguably, one of the most important ingredients for creative thinking is diversity. We all know that diverse teams produce more creative results than teams in which all members are from a similar background. Tests have shown that the one sure-fire way of improving your creativity is to move abroad. Not travel, but move. Living in a new culture, learning new ways of doing things and, in short, diversifying your life makes you more creative. That’s not surprising.

To understand why this is the case, let’s look at what creativity is. It is a mental process in which two or more bits of information come together in your mind to create a new and useful idea. (I use the word “useful” in its broadest sense here. Scientific evidence shows that schizophrenia is similar: various bits of information come together to form new ideas and beliefs. However, in this case the new ideas are not based in reality and can lead to delusions, hallucinations and paranoia).

This seems simple enough. But our minds organise information in a structured manner, so that similar pieces of information are associated with each other and effectively exist in proximity. Such structure is necessary for processing and managing all the data that is stored in our heads.

As a result, when you are looking for solutions to a problem – and virtually all creativity is the result of trying to solve some kind of problem (see CPS) – your brain tends to work with information that is related to the problem. For instance, if you want to impress a client with a business presentation, your immediate mental reaction will probably be to think about PowerPoint software, images, slogans, case studies and that kind of thing. All of these thoughts are associated with business presentations in your mind.

But, if you want to get creative, you need to diversify your thinking and encourage your mind to look for information associated with other concepts. For instance, you might think about drama, which is vaguely related to presentations, and have the creative idea to perform a small role play for a client, in order to demonstrate your company’s services in a more realistic way. This latter approach is more creative, basically as a result of diversifying your thinking.

Diversification in Personal Creativity

If you are looking to generate more creative ideas to solve a problem, the best thing you can do is to diversify your thinking. A classic way to do this is to open a dictionary, or any book, and select a word at random. Then try to generate ideas that use that word. This forces your brain to diversify its thinking and look for solutions in more distant mental nooks and crannies. Incidentally, a more modern variation on that approach is to then google the word and select the fourth link on the eighth page of results (or use some other arbitrary pair of numbers).

Likewise, going for a walk, visiting an art gallery or applying a distantly related model to the problem can also be effective. The last method, applying a distantly related model, can be very effective. Choose a concept – such as a business model, a complex object or a game – that is only slightly related to the problem at hand. In the example above, looking at drama to find a solution for a business problem is an example. Another example is a bank that wants to provide more streamlined services to customers. They might use the model of a fast food restaurant. Both are service oriented businesses, but they have little else in common. Nevertheless, looking at how a fast food restaurant manages food, serves customers quickly and promotes new products can provide a wealth of inspiration for a bank.

Diversification in Teams

Teams can use personal creativity-diversity techniques in order to generate more creative ideas. In addition, team leaders and those putting together teams should strive for diversification. Bring in women and me from various departments, with various educational backgrounds and, ideally with different cultural backgrounds. Such people will provide a wider range of knowledge from which to extract information and build upon ideas.

Nevertheless, the work environment can not only stifle creativity, but can force people to think in a corporate way. In terms of corporate image, this is good. But for creativity it is bad. Hence taking the team to external locations in order to generate and develop ideas also injects diversity into group thinking.

Diversification in Companies

In order to have diverse teams in your company, it is essential that your people are diverse in background, education, knowledge and experience. Ideally, hire people from other countries and cultures as well. Not only do such people provide diversity within your workforce, but each of them will also have networks of professional associates whose knowledge they can tap in order to solve problems and accomplish tasks. Needless-to-say, diverse people will have diverse networks and provide your company with a vast and diverse meta-network at your disposal.

Diversity should also include, as much as possible, an even mix of sexes not only at the employee level, but also at management and board level.

Diversity and Managers

Clearly, managers should hire diverse people for their divisions and build diverse teams to handle projects. Ideally, those teams will include people in other divisions as well. More importantly, managers need to give responsibility to subordinates and trust those subordinates to handle those responsibilities in their own way. This can often be difficult for new managers who have found their own effective approaches to performing tasks. And it can often lead to micromanagement. But taking the latter approach leads to more work for the manager and less creativity for the division.

Instead, managers need to trust their people, to do things their own way, and learn from the new approaches team members take in order to solve problems.

Diversity Homework

Even when not actively trying to solve problems, adding diversity to your life provides you with more knowledge, experience and insight than you would have without that diversity, Diversity can be as simple as trying new foods, taking evening classes in new subjects, travelling abroad and reading books on new subjects. Moving abroad is even better, but not always practical.

Thanks to the popularity of networking web sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, many of us now have networks that include people we have never met. So, from time to time, why not select someone from your on-line network and meet up for a coffee just to exchange ideas and get to know each other. It’s a great way to learn and diversify.

And, of course, if you are ever in the Brussels, Belgium area, you can always buy me a coffee! I’d love to meet you!

An ideas museum in Barcelona

Jeffrey Baumgartner publishes Report 103 - a twice monthly newsletter focused on creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business. All the newsletters can be found at http://www.jpb.com/report103/archives.php

The following extract 'An ideas museum in Barcelona' is used with his permission.

Catalan inventor Pep Torres believes that "An idea locked up in your head is like a thorn in your heart". The inventor will shortly be able to remove his own thorn by bringing to life his idea to create a museum dedicated to creativity and inventions. It will be called the miBa, and will be housed in a six hundred metre square central location in Barcelona, which will open its doors to visitors in January 2011.
miBa stands for Ideas and Inventions Museum, Barcelona. But this is no ordinary museum; this one will appeal to everyone. Pep Torres says "The subject matter of some museums, such as Barcelona's Erotic Museum, excludes a large section of the public, and other specialised museums, such as the Footwear Museum, isn't for all tastes. However, everyone likes an invention."
The miBa will also stand out from the crowd as it aims to offer more than any conventional museum. It will support and convey creativity and inventions by inspiring, training and communicating with visitors. As such, according to Torres, this museum is about more than just looking at displays. "The miBa is, above all, a hands-on project to awaken latent creativity and get the visitors thinking," says Torres. "The intention is that everyone who steps through the door will leave wanting to turn their ideas into reality."
Inspiration is can be found in the museum's permanent collection: a tour of the imaginary everyday items we will be using in 2300 (Futour), hysterical useless and absurd inventions (Funventions) and a cause-and-effect machine that the visitors can operate, alongside a selection of the ideas and inventions that are shaping our future.
The miBa also invites exhibition-goers to reflect. "We are going to raise people's awareness and get visitors to react to the subject matter. We want them to creatively participate to resolve the matters being put forward, for them to do their bit, so that together, we build a better world."


Training
The miBa will also become a training centre. Its Labs will be used to apply the creative knowledge and inspiration derived from the museum. "We are going to develop a series of conferences based on the TED Talks, which provide innovators with a platform, whether they are well known or not," says Torres, who will also be applying his years of experience to give conferences on creativity and innovation.
In reality, this museum is a way of introducing the public to the work carried out by Torres and his creative agency, Stereonoise. As such, the museum will hold frequent workshops. "We hope that the participants in the creative workshops take the practical ideas from the sessions away with them and immediately apply them to their own personal and professional projects." Visitors will be able to see the team cooking up ideas for the museum live, just like an open restaurant kitchen. "And can even have a chat or a cup of coffee with us," adds Torres.
While the adults are using their little grey cells to create a better world to live in, the kids will also be able to join in the fun. "The Twentyone Lab is based on the format developed by British inventor Bill Currie, which comprises a group of twenty-one children developing various inventions using a creative method that brings out individual as well as team talent over a period of twenty-one weeks; it also involves “Hola, Soy Inventor” (Hi, I'm an Inventor), a dynamic, short presentation for children about the world of inventions, which involves testing and discussing a range of inventions from my personal collection," explains Torres.
"All in all, the aim of this personal project is to give the city of Barcelona a space where people find the drive to bring the ideas buzzing around in their heads to life," he concludes. Space designed by: Juanola & DeMiguel Arquitectes

Report 103

Report 103 is a twice-monthly newsletter on creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business edited by Jeffrey Baumgartner. You can find archived copies at http://www.jpb.com/report103/archives.php

The latest issue includes and article of mine on Strengths, Fatal Flaws and Allowable Weaknesses - A Whole Brain Strategy for Success.
Also included is a link to a great article by Steven Johnson whom I have featured in a previous blog. Steven Johnson has just published a book entitled Where Good Ideas Come From, which looks at the collaborative nature of creativity and the evolution of ideas. You can read a fascinating interview with him in the Guardian Newspaper at http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/19/steven-johnson-good-ideas

There is also a link to a podcast where Liz Massey, a writer, editor, media producer and a creative agent provocateur, interviewed Jeffrey and enjoyed a wide ranging discussion on creativity, business innovation and idea generation. The interview is now on-line in Liz’s web site and you can download a podcast of the interview on
http://creativeliberty.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/interview-with-an-innovator-jeffrey-baumgartner/
You can read more of Liz Massey's work on http://creativeliberty.wordpress.com/services/

Sign up to Report 103. Its one of the best of its type around.

Distance Creativity

Jeffrey Baumgartner publishes Report 103 twice a month. Its good!

You can find this and every issue of Report 103 ever written at at his archives on http://www.jpb.com/report103/archives.php

The most recent issue [156] has a great article on a very simple and scientifically proven method to boost your creative thinking skills temporarily.

Here is a small extract - if you want the rest check out the newsletter.

"If you are looking to boost your creativity, you will find a lot of tips out there (including my own slightly flippant “10 Steps to Boost Your Creativity” at http://www.jpb.com/creative/creative.php which first went on-line in 1996 and has been reproduced in numerous books, magazines, web pages and PowerPoint slides since). But few of those tips are based on any empirical evidence. Indeed, evidence tends to show your level of creativity is largely the result of how your brain is wired (see for instance the 19 September 2006 issue of Report 103: http://www.jpb.com/report103/archive.php?issue_no=20060919 ) and so cannot be significantly changed.

However, recent research by Lile Jia , Edward R. Hirta and Samuel C. Karpena at Indiana University has shown that there is a very simple and scientifically proven method to boost your creative thinking skills temporarily. You simply need to distance yourself from the problem – even if only in the mind.

The team observed that according to the construal level theory of psychological distance, thoughts which we do not see as being part of the here and now are considered psychologically distant. Moreover, we tend to see such psychologically distant things as being more abstract; while thoughts related to the here and know we perceive as being more concrete.
Lile and the team theorised that the abstract thinking of distant thoughts would be beneficial to creative thinking. To test this, they devised two experiments."

And if you want to know more about the experiments and the results go to http://www.jpb.com/report103/archives.php Look for the 15 September 2009 issue.