The end of an era

Dear creative readers,

Time has come to take you on a journey.
The 'simply blogging for fun' era has come to an end.

I am now taking things seriously :-)
I have moved to a new blog and new website which I let you discover.

This blog will no longer be fueled with creative posts. Therefore, please surf on over to the new blog to make sure you don't miss a thing.

Both Blogger and Mindfulmimi.com will continue to direct to the new blog.

Meet you there for some serious creative business!

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Creativity: bring play into every day

When I spend an afternoon with my children (3 and almost 5) I am always and again amazed at their ability to play.

EVERYTHING is play. Everything they do is for entertainment and learning only.

Some examples of just one afternoon:

• My 3 year old:
• spent 15 minutes throwing a balloon into the air shouting 'wheeeee' and catching it (marveling at how it never falls back down the same way or place)
• then he got a plastic container in which he put the balloon and ran around the house with it going 'yaaaah' (marveling at how the balloon tried to escape)
• spent 5 minutes drawing with different color pens on his face
• spent half an hour digging in the gravel outside, filling and emptying buckets
• spent 5 minutes picking out fluff from between his toes
  
• My 5 year old:
• spent 1 hour drawing on a roll of wallpaper trying out the letters he recently learned and asking what he had written (which was something interesting like LOKRLICCOPAAAMMM)
• spent 15 minutes listening to the same song and accompanying it with all sorts of kid's musical instruments we have (flute, xylophone, drum, tambourine...)
• spent half an hour cutting paper and gluing the pieces together with sticky tape

All that without any 'real' purpose.

How often does that happen to you?
How often do you do thing just for fun, just to play and be merry?

What can you do to bring some more play into your daily life?
How about a few of these?

1. go to a toy store and buy a toy you'd love to play with - take it to the office
2. do kart-wheels
3. With your family (or colleagues), spend half an hour without speaking: instead, DRAW everything you want to say
4. put stickers in your agenda (I do for each time I went running)
5. order a kid's menu instead of your regular choice
6. keep at bucket of crayons on your desk
7. instead of the canteen, take your colleagues on a picnic lunch in the park/woods
8. pretend to be a superhero for a day (try to think and act like one)
9. jump up and down (you can do this in the bathroom if you are shy :-)
10. hang a flip chart page on your wall and every time someone comes to your office, ask them to draw something on it (with the box of crayons you have on your desk)
11. put your to do list as post it notes on your wall
12. play with your food at lunch or eat with your fingers
13. keep some Lego blocks on you desk - or if that is too childish, try Kapla.
14. Try solving a Rubik's cube
15. Have a dress up or theme day at work
16. Have your meeting at the local museum instead of your meeting room
17. Sit on the ground for meeting

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How to protect your creative bubble

Creativity is killed by:

• office politics
• a boss who controls
• fear
• the hanging on to 'things have always been done this way'
• procedures and process
• etc

So in order to protect your creativity from these viruses, you need to create a protective bubble.

The bubble is an environment filled with things like:

• self knowledge
• curiosity
• faith, safety and trust
• allowance to make mistakes
• playfulness
• friends, like minded people and sounding boards
• etc

Do you have a bubble?
If not, how can you blow one up slowly?

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Your normal is someone else's exotic

I was listening to an audio book where an American student was describing his Guatemalan roommate as exotic.

Sun on your skin, beaches, mosquitoes, colorful clothing, palm trees and lush green and blue scenery, sing song language.

Exotic, yes. But normal, every day life when you're Guatemalan.

It's the same with creativity.

The things you do in your normal way may look exotic to someone else.

And have you really looked at the normal, routine life you're leading? Is it really that mundane?

There are so many normal ways of being creative that we tend to forget about them.

• How you cook dinner is creative.
• How you dress every day is creative.
• How you solve problems is creative (yes even the problem of how to clean your baby's poo off the couch!)
• How you write your blog posts is creative.
• How you bring laughter on someone's face is creative.
• How you fold laundry is creative (I have never seen two people fold laundry the same way...)
• How you manage stress is creative.
• How you entertain guests is creative.
• How you manage to fit all the garbage in the can every week is creative.

So you don't have to paint a masterpiece, speak a foreign language, or live on an exotic island to be creative.

Creativity can be found in the ordinary. You just need to see it.

So what's your ordinary this week? Can you see how this may seem creative to someone else?

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Why you need to notice the little things to be creative

Some people are lucky:

• They find the penny (or even a bill) on the street.
• They bump into the right people at the right moment.
• Good things just happen to them all the time.
• They are seated next to Carl Lewis on the plane (yes yes, I know someone).
• They get to do the coolest things they love to do.
• They keep coming up with the best ideas.

Why is that you think? Luck?
And then why don't these things happen to me?

Well, let me ask you a question: Do you notice every 'little thing'?

No, of course not. How can you? You only have one brain. You have a job, kids, stuff to handle, groceries to buy, appointments to get to, emails to respond to while walking down the street to catch the bus.
No time to notice EVERY little thing.

No, of course not. But do you notice ANY little thing?

Is your mind open to luck, to simple things, to stuff that has nothing to do with what your mind is on about right now?

I have just spent two days in Rome and I have noticed the following little things:

• Otto is eight in Italian and also the name of a guy. It can be written in a very creative, designy way.
• There is art on pavements (not only in Rome)
• Italian cab drivers have a nice little plaque with their name inside the cab.
• There was no room service in my hotel (ok, maybe not such a small thing after all)
• The contents of my minibar were included in my room charge (too bad they forgot to tell me this beforehand...)
• They have huge, tall, heavy, wooden, decorated doors. I wonder who makes those.
• Hardly anyone wears heals (too many cobble stoned streets).
• Most Italian scooters are no longer of Italian brands.
• etc etc etc

Now, I admit this is nothing that makes me rich or famous.
But all these little ideas will sit in my head and I just know they will meet some other information there that can be useful.
Or the little things are waiting (simmering, incubating) until I notice some other little thing so that they can mate and create a wonderful little idea.

What are the little things you are noticing this week?

And if you're completely out of practice, I suggest you go for a walk with a toddler of 3 or 4. They do notice EVERY little thing.

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5 tips to start the day creatively

People tell me it's difficult to be creative every day.
Of course it is.

But if you set up a few systems to create a creative routine, you can easily be creative every day.

Being creative does not necessarily mean you have to paint a painting or write a song.

Here are a few ideas on how you can start (or end) your day with something creative:

1. Buy the book "The Art of Looking Sideways" by Alan Fletcher.
   Put it on your desk at work and open it to a new page every day. You will not only learn some interesting things but also have a daily dose of inspiration.
   
   
2. Brush your teeth with your other hand.
   This will confuse your brain, but it will also teach it to create new neural pathways. And that is good for creativity.
   
   
3. Visit Keri Smith's website for 100 ideas for little, funny, crazy actions.
   Do one every day. I suggest you get her books too.
   
   
4. Do something with your hands first.
   We are so used to working with our brains that we don't know how to work with our hands anymore. So start your day with something manual.
   * take some paper, cut it into pieces, glue it together with glue or tape
   * get some paper flowers and fashion them into a bouquet for your office
   * hand write the agenda of your day
   
5. Take a picture a day:
   Bring a disposable camera to work and take a different picture of your office. Rearrange things, add new things. When the roll of film is full, develop the picture and make a mosaic to hang on your wall. Or participate in the art project A Million Little Pictures.
   

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Creative mortification

As a child, everything you create is great.

Your parents ooh and aah at the slightest scribble when you're two.
They continue to praise you when you give your bus 10 square wheels or your princess a crown on her feet.

Then you go to school and the sun has to be yellow, the sky blue and they tell you that you should not use so much black.

Your pieces of art are compared to your little friends and for the first time you don't get 100% praise. The girls laugh at your princess, because everyone knows the crown goes on the head. The boys chuckle at your bus because square wheels don't exist.

And it's the first time you experience a bit of creative mortification.
You feel shame. Your painting sucks. People don't appreciate it.
And you recoil into your creative house.

Beghetto, a professor at the University of Oregon, calls this Creative Mortification.

Basically, all these little (or big) instances of shame and humiliation, slowly kill your creativity.

Ken Robinson confirms this by saying that schools kill creativity.

Over time, the judging, negative feedback, laughs and criticism you receive whenever your creativity tries to speak up, your house of creativity becomes smaller.

Until one day, it's the size of a snail house.

From now on, whenever you are at dinner parties or professional meetings, you laugh off any attempt to bring out your creativity. 'Oh, I am not creative at all.' you say with a 'get away from me' gesture.

I can think up a few creative mortification instances myself:

• Church choir: I was told I couldn't sing.
  Turns out they put me with the other girls in the sopranos group although I clearly am an alto!
  I ended up singing gospel and rock songs in church later and sang in a blues band for a while.
  
• Writing my first book at age 14 and sending it to publishers just to get rebuffed. Made me stop writing anything of value for a long time.
  I ended up writing the blog you are reading now :-)
  
• Drawing: I liked to fill entire pages with one curling line until I was told this was silly.
  I recently did this again and my son loooves it :-)

Did you experience this kind of creative killings?
How can you repair those?

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Shaping serendipity

Serendipity is the faculty of finding things we didn't know we were looking for.
-- Glauco Ortolano

Serendipity plays quite a big role in creativity, because there is only so much you can actively search for when you are looking for new ideas.

Creative people tend to increase the probability of serendipitous encounters that may prove both relevant and valuable to them.

How do they to that?

Attention:
You can't really find anything if you don't know what you're looking for.
But if you know what you're looking for you know where to find it, right?

Not necessarily.
Sometimes what you are looking for is just a vague idea. You have a plan about increasing the team spirit at work - but you don't really know how exactly you are going to do that.
Is it training you need? Or some team building events?

You need to give the issue some attention. You need to think about it, talk about it with colleagues, do some research. Write the project name on your wall or whiteboard. Have it in front of you even (and especially) when you are not actively thinking about it.

Environment
Your surroundings play a big role in shaping your serendipitous encounters. After all, if you live in a sterile, empty place, you won't bump into anything.

So look around you. Is your office a standard cubicle? The same furniture as your neighbor?
Can't decorate because company police does not allow it? Fine, you don't have to turn your feng shui house into a messy, cluttered place.

All you need is a box really. A magic box full of STUFF: wrapping paper, yarn, buttons, crayons, playdoh, post-it notes, wooden blocks, stones, shells, broken pieces of things etc. Fill your box with very diverse things. And whenever you are looking for an idea, open the box and wait for the magic to jump out.

Preparedness
When you are working on a specific project, you need to start with an new, empty box.
Give your attention to the project and everything that is related to it.

And whatever you come across that even slightly reminds you of your project - even though you have no idea why and can't explain what you're going to do with it - put it in the box. A video you like, a rotten piece of bark that has a great shape and texture, a picture in a magazine that is only slightly related to your idea.

You are preparing your project.

Whenever you are working on your project, open the box, spread out the contents. Let yourself be inspired by it.

Practice
Be prepared for luck. People who don't expect to find money on the street, will never even notice the penny on the sidewalk. Expect the penny. Expect luck.

Practice serendipity by exposing yourself to many surfaces: attend conferences that have nothing to do with your subject, connect with people that are the opposite of those you work with (i.e. if you are a ballet choreographer, go talk to computer programmers or soup kitchen volunteers). You never know what comes out of that.

Reciprocity and sharing
Creative people don't hide ideas. They talk about them. All the time. To A LOT of people.
The don't hoard ideas. They give them away.

Both reciprocity and sharing are good indicators of shaping your luck environment.

The people you talk to might give you some advice, or tell you a story that sparks an idea, or connect you with someone who does something similar.

When you give something (advice, help, your art etc), something you're good at, something that is of value, the receiver is most likely going to reciprocate. This is not the same as 'I give you this and I expect something in return from you'. Creative and lucky people give freely without any strings attached. Try it. It does a world of good.

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2 free creative ideas for a business

I recently went to see my Tuina therapist.
She has set up a program to offer her services to businesses.
She had me look at her proposal and asked for my advice.

I told her that it was not clear to me who she was pitching to.

Human Resources, the CEO, employees directly?
The all speak a different language, have a different interest and different needs to fulfill. What may seem a benefit to one, is probably just a 'nice to have' for the other.

And what kind of businesses were her customers? Hotels, banks, shops,... What environment do people work in? That largely defines what their health problems might be that she has to address.

She told me that it is difficult for her to get an insider's view of how companies work, who decides what and what their needs are that she could address.

So in the lines of A wish is a niche, it made me think about a few business ideas that would cover her need and even take it a step further.

My Company Insider

A place where employees sign up to propose their insider knowledge. Not confidential knowledge that could interest a trader, but just simple things like:

• who in your company do I need to contact for X, Y, Z?
• what would be the best way to sell my product in your company?
• how does your company get rid of old computers and is there a way to recuperate them? 
• who is the decision maker for this?

It would avoid an overloaded company webmaster.
It would avoid many unanswered emails.
It would create interesting connections that could be useful.
It would connect the company to a community of people that are interested in them (on many different levels).

Competency market (for startups or non-profits)

We all have very diversified skills. We might even use all of them at work.
Most often we only use a select few. Because our job requires a certain set of skills and not another.
William Bridges says that it is a 19th-century contingency to “package the work that needed doing in the growing factories and bureaucracies of the industrialised nations”.
Today's job market tries to fit the best people into given jobs.

What if we explored the option of aligning what people can offer – their competencies – against the demands of companies, the community and other individuals?
Let's say you are good at building simple websites and want to start your own business. You 'advertise' your service and each time you 'sell' it to someone, you earn a certain number of points (depending on the level of service rendered).
Some weeks later, you need someone to look at your business plan. You find the person offering this service and pay with the points you earned.

Such barter sites already exists (although not so much in Europe) but they offer too many things at once.
It would be nice to have a site that deals with selected partners to offer all services needed for startups or non profits. I found one site that goes into this direction.
Lately I have encountered many wishes from non profits and startups for certain services, so a barter service geared towards them would surely be a success.

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How to tame your inner critic

I am participating in a group over at Coach Creative Space about taking tiny creative steps boldly.

We were talking about our Inner Critic and how powerful this little creature in our head can be.

Some describe it as a physical little being like a goblin or even a witch. Others describe more of a voice that is angry, scared, frustrated, unsure.

Here are a few tips for banning its destructive methods or just simply putting it to sleep.

1. Befriend it:
   Don't fight your inner critic. It is not there to harm you. It is part of you.
   It's like having the hiccups: the more you try to get rid of them, the longer they last. Accept it.
   
   
2. Learn from it:
   Listen to it. Get to know it by what it is telling you. The better you know someone, the more you learn how to deal with it.
   Note down what it is telling you. What kind of messages does it give you? Are they spelling fear? Or frustration? Or are they belittling and trying to make you unsure? In what kind of situations does it speak up?
   
3. Use it:
   Usually the inner critic goblin shows up when you are approaching the limits of your comfort zone. And that can be very useful. It teaches you about yourself and the boundaries that you have set yourself or that were set by your education.
   Use the stop signs your inner critic provides to think twice about your project or action. Are his questions justified? Why? Why not?
   
4. Answer it:
   Now that you know whether your goblin is more of an angry little sucker or just a fearful little soul, you can answer him. Ask him 'what is the worst that can happen?'.
   If he throws the likes of 'people will laugh at you' or 'you will get fired' at you, ask him Why? Why will people laugh at me? Because my idea is stupid or because only part of it is a bit laughable? Why will I get fired? Because I have shown initiative and creativity by introducing a new idea? Really?
   Keep asking why until you really get to the crux of it.
   You'd be surprised how awfully silly the real reason for your inner critic is.
   And if you know how to answer your inner critic, you are prepared to answer the outer critics as well.

When the above steps don't work, I personally like to take my little goblin with me when I go jogging. We have our discussion about the pros and cons, the fears, the judgment and all that surrounds stepping out of your comfort zone. We ping-pong our way through the subject at hand as I struggle my way uphill through the woods.

When I get out of the woods and onto the clearing, my goblin has often decided to stay in the woods for a little while longer :-)

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The right color for creativity

I recently did a search on what color represents creativity.

Blue, yellow, purple, green....

Noone seems to agree even though blue and yellow seem to be most prominent.


Sciencedaily says it depends on the task.

What they all agree on though, is that color is important, influences us, our perceptions and our moods.

Now, if you want to increase creativity, you probably can't go ahead and paint your office like a Swedish flag (unless you work for Ikea).

But how can you surround yourself with color that inspires you?

• put a blue screen saver on your pc
• hang up a poster of van Gogh's Starry Night
• order blue (or green or...) binders (instead of gray or white ones)
• get colored post-it notes
• put some removable colorful stickers on your wall or window
• go for a walk under the blue sky
• Cover your walls in ideapaint and doodle away

How do you put color in your life?


The color wheel: from primary over monochromatic to neutral - all in one place
Color matters: extensive site all about color

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How a 4 year old solves the dead birds mystery

Do you remember the dead birds that fell from the skies in the US and Europe recently?

We never really heard what exactly the reason was for them falling from the sky all together at the same time, did we?

Well, my 4 year old has a few solutions for you:

1. The wind blew them onto the ground.
   Makes sense. Was my first kind of rational thought too. Big storm, birds get caught and whisked back to earth.
   
2. It was raining so hard, it rained them on the ground.
   Yeah, not bad. In the same line of bad weather phenomena. Plus rain makes their wings wet and heavy. In this case it was not raining cats and dogs, but birds...
   
3. The flew against a tree. No no, a signpost.
   Right. I had come up with the odd obstacle as well like airplanes and such. Must have been a lot of signposts around that area in Arkansas!
   
4. It rained and they opened their mouths -birds have beaks dear- ...beaks, drank too much rain and got sick.
   Mmmh. Now we're getting creative! Acid rain. I guess that could kill a bird or two.

Now acid rain is more of a deposition than rain really. So I guess they must have flown in that rain for a very long time to be affected in a way to make them drop to earth.

However, the principal natural phenomena that contribute acid-producing gases to the atmosphere are emissions from volcanoes.

So maybe those birds have been hovering too long above Eyjafjallajökull recently. And here is how my son solved that problem.



In the same series:
How a 4 year old solves the Greek debt crisis

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How switching off the TV makes you more creative

How much time do you spend in front of the TV?

Honestly. Give me a number if you can...
One movie a night?
That's 1,5-2 hours times 7...

Not that bad you say.

Well, statistics say that if you live in the US or the UK, you spend 28 hours per week in front of the screen.

You're doing a little better if you live elsewhere.

28 HOURS!

That's more than 3 whole work days!

Wow! Just think about what you get DONE in 3 work days! And that's at WORK!

This is your free time we're talking about!

You're giving it away willingly to the most mind-killing medium that exists.

• TV gives you emotionally charged images
• TV presents over simplified solutions
• TV chews thoughts for you
• TV is dulling

And dull is the end of creativity.

I am not saying all TV is bad - there are some good educational and informative documentaries, and I like a good movie from time to time. But every night?

TRY THIS:

Skip television one evening per week. If that's hard, pick the day of the week where you always complain that nothing is on...

Make a list of (fun, creative) things you can do instead (i.e. don't put 'ironing' on there):

• Write a letter to a friend (not a Facebook message or an email, a real handwritten letter)
• Go for a walk instead (you'll be amazed at how the world looks when it's dark and empty)
• Talk to your partner: pick a theme a week (and it can't be topics like the groceries or the kids)
• Learn something new: take a class or pick a new word in the dictionary and find uses for it
• Start a blog
• Make a dinner plan for the week
• Meditate
• Be bored: lie on your couch and do nothing. Think, look around you, listen.
• Got to bed early. Very healthy!

Can you come up with more?

See how you're doing after 2 weeks.

Increase to 2 nights a week of television freeness!

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Why you need to fail early and fail often

Whenever we have an idea, we would like to run it by some people to get validation.
We want to hear that our idea is great.

We don't want to fail. So we want others to tell us that we won't.
We want to make it foolproof.

Then again, we don't want others to think we (or our ideas) are stupid.
And we often lack confidence in our own ability to come up with brilliance.

So often enough, we keep our idea to ourselves.
We work away on it, trying to perfect it.

And when we think it's ready for the outside world, we often fall flat on our face.

We have invested time, often even money to come this far.

What went wrong?

Failing early, when your ideas are still small (as opposed to when you're in front of the management committee or the board) allows you to:

• get honest feedback (as no budget, responsibilities or egos are involved yet)
• change things that don't work quickly (as they don't cost anything or very little)
• see whether the idea has potential
• get new ideas (people love to give their opinion, for free!)

So in order to fail early, fail often. Here is how:

1. Make a short pitch about your initial idea
   - answering the 5W1H questions
   - try to present it like a story (with a statement, an unexpected turn etc)
   
2. Make a list of 3-5 people who you can test the pitch and idea on
   - people who would have to be involved if the project flies
   - people with special capabilities (creativity, business development, mentoring etc)
   
3. Rework the pitch and start thinking about a sponsor
   - ideally someone influential, known or important (but not a decision maker for this idea)
    
4. Prototype your idea - or run a pilot project
   - it's the only way to test for success and get rid of glitches or faults
   
5. Launch or abandon
   - by the time you're launching or presenting to management you have gained insight, experience, and feedback and basically know what your talking about and have gotten rid of first hick-ups
   - if you decide to abandon you will have learned a lot and gained information for a next project; and you will have shown those around you that you can ship your ideas

So, fail early, fail often.

But don't fail small! Don't leave out the good, special, weird, compelling stuff because it's safer to fail small.

That makes you settle for Good Enough...

And 'good enough' doesn't fly in business, in love or on your way to the moon,


For more insight:

Seth Godin: Random rules for ideas worth spreading

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How doing nothing can help creativity

Do Nothing is a technique described by Brian Clegg in his book Crash Course in Creativity.

1. How often have you been in a meeting where a problem is being discussed and you think it's not really that important?
2. How often do we spend working on something and afterward feel like we could have spent this time more efficiently?
3. How often has someone rushed into your office with an urgent 'needs to be done immediately or else...' issue?

We often assume that something needs to be done about a problem.

What would happen if we did NOTHING?

Think about it for a while.

What would have happened to the issue listed in number 1?
What could we have achieved if we had spent our time more efficiently?
What would have happened had you done absolutely nothing?

Doing nothing usually leads to one of three possible outcomes:

1. The problem doesn't need to be solved
2. You will have a better idea of the benefits of solving the problem
3. You will have generated some alternative problems to solve 

So next time, stop and imagine what would happen if you did nothing. Isn't that a nice feeling for a change?

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Creativity tip: go to the hairdresser

This week I went to the hairdresser.

There is not much you can do while someone washes, cuts, tweaks and blow dries your hair...

I realized that a few stepping stones of creativity were reunited here:

• I had some free time
• I was in a somewhat unfamiliar environment
• I was relaxed and not thinking about my TO DO list

So I started looking around. And here is what I wrote down on my Trigger list.

1. They had a TV high up on the wall so that people getting their washed could watch Fashion TV.
   
2. They kept asking me whether the water was at the right temperature.
   
3. They were all dressed in white. It looked clean.
   
4. There were only women clients.
   
5. They put a number tag on my handbag when they put away my coat.

And such a list is precisely there to trigger some new ideas, whether immediately or in two weeks.

Here's a few immediate triggers I got:

1. Could they have put something more creative up than a tv? (Interactive) art maybe?
    
2. Why hasn't someone come up with a tap that automatically puts the water at the right temperature (whatever that is)?
   
3. Where else could people dress in white to make the place look spic and span? The garbage people? -maybe too extreme.
    
4. Did they have a special 'woman's day'? Where else (unusual) could you introduce such a day? The gym for example?
   
   
5. Instead of giving you a number to identify your coat, they could have lend me a cuddly bear, a colored scarf around my waist etc. Where else would we prefer not to be a number?

So next time you go to the hairdresser, make sure you use it to be creative and record your observations and ideas.

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Creativity tip: hack others' ideas

Being creative is often not more than taking two existing things or ideas to create something new.

So basically, you are stealing from others to create your own, new version.

It is not enough to add a new feature to an existing product.

It's more like working for a glue company, sitting on a plane, seeing a woman use a lipstick and coming up with the first glue stick. A-ha!

So look at common objects and think what you could turn them into.

Some examples:

• Simple Ikea photo frames to create wall art.
• Toast art
• Thumbtacks art
• Crayon totems and Crayon art sculptures
• Book art
• Eatphabet (alphabet with food)
• Bottles
• Clothes chair
• Coin sofa's
• Burger grease

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Word of the Year 2010: CREATE

Some time ago, Christine Kane had the idea of choosing a word for the new year instead making resolutions one didn't keep. The original idea is described here.

I have been doing this for some years now and must say that the concept really resonates with me.

My word for 2009 was Serenity and you can read about it here.

2010 was a year full of creativity and I have a guest post today on Christine's blog about my 2010 Word of the year which was CREATE.

If you want to try it yourself, please check out her free Word of the Year Discover Tool.

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Creativity tip: use the compass

Often enough when we have a problem we dive right into trying to solve it.
But how can we be sure whether the problem is really well defined?
Or whether it's the right problem we should be tackling?
There may be some underlying levels that we have not even thought about.

The compass technique puts you in the right direction.

1. Start with a problem statement (preferably as a How to... question or  We need to...statement).
   Example:
   We need to improve the level of attendance to our trainings?
   
2. Then you ask: WHY?
    
3. Whatever the first answer to this question is, write it down.
   Example:
   Because the trainers are expensive and we need to make good use of their time.
    
4. Then ask WHY? again and write down the next answer.
   Example:
   Spending big trainings budgets for a small amount of people is a waste.
    
5. Keep repeating this process until you feel you have reached a dead end.

From each response you can derive another How to question:
- How to get cheaper trainers?
- How to make best use of the trainers' time?
- How to organize trainings for few people?

These might be more fruitful areas of exploration than your initial question.

It is a very easy and quick but also very useful technique which you can slide into a meeting at anytime without anyone noticing :-)

It can help a team get unstuck, give new direction or perspective and often drills down to the very essence of the problem.

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Creativity tip: take your time

Many studies show that creativity is reduced when people's attention is more on the result and its consequences than on the question itself.

Putting people under pressure to deliver pushes them back into overdependence on familiar lines of thought.


So basically: having good ideas takes time.

Do you know the 'Bed, Bath and Bus' theory of creativity?

It basically comes down to the fact that for many people, the best ideas come to them when they're either in bed, in their bath or riding the bus...

Which is typically when they are no longer working on any problems but have shifted their minds into wandering, gazing, boredom,...

Creative people build this 'incubation' time into their creative work.
Whether it's creating a painting, working on a project or figuring out a scientific problem.

That's when they set the painting aside for a while.
It's when they let petri dishes sit for a week.

• So, stop running after the result. 
• Don't let yourself be pressured for an answer, an idea or a solution.
• Take your time. 
• Put the project/problem on the shelf for a while and go do something else.
• Take a break.

And next time you're out jogging, shopping or riding the bus, an idea may pop into your head that puts you on the right track, brings you a step further or even hands you the solution.

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