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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
Expert guide to sharpen and revitalize your creative spirit in any business environment
Written by trailblazing global product innovator Leslie Grandy, Creative Velocity: Propelling Breakthrough Ideas in the Age of Generative AI provides everything readers need to develop the mindset, skills, and confidence that allow creativity to flourish, enabling them to challenge conventional thinking to improve customer, business, and personal results and collaborate effectively with generative AI to cultivate and explore novel ideas. This book integrates Grandy's real-world examples and practical exercises with compelling insights from thought leaders and academic researchers, rooting her approach in cognitive science and providing empirical evidence of the value of these techniques.
The book is an enduring reference that readers can return to whenever they need to revitalize their creative spirit. In this book, readers will learn about:
- Non-linear thinking methods and how to use them to explore novel possibilities
- Trigger mechanisms that can jump-start new trains of thought and spark disruptive ideation
- Different forms of play that stimulate creative thoughts, critical thinking skills, and flexibility
- Achieving a state of flow and how it helps identify groundbreaking discoveries.
Creative Velocity: Propelling Breakthrough Ideas in the Age of Generative AI earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of product leaders, business professionals, and entrepreneurs seeking to build a culture of innovation within their organizations and generate fresh ideas to solve business challenges.
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Seitenzahl: 395
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Creativity is everyone’s superpower
Introduction
The Myths of Creativity
Create. Generate. Make.
Co-creating with Generative AI
CHAPTER 1: The MacGyver Mindset
Generic Parts Technique
Exquisite Corpse Technique
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
CHAPTER 2: When X Meets Y
Combinational or Combinatorial?
Twists and Qualifiers
Blending Distant Domains
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
CHAPTER 3: The Same, Only Different
The Startup Pitch
How Analogies Work
Types of Analogies
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
CHAPTER 4: Change the Rules
Creative Destruction
The SCAMPER Method
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
CHAPTER 5: Do the Opposite
Inversion Thinking
Janusian Thinking
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
CHAPTER 6: All the Feels
Emotion Regulation
The Empathy Gap
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
CHAPTER 7: Conscious Mind, Unconscious Behaviors
Bad Habits
Good Habits
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
CHAPTER 8: Go with the Flow
Self-Reflection, Mindfulness, and Meditation
Abstract and Associative Thinking
Sleep Fuels Creative Flow
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
CHAPTER 9: Go Play
Serious Play
Doodling
Playfulness, Improvisation, and Creativity
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
CHAPTER 10: Spin a Story
Story Thinking
Artist's Books
Partnering with Generative AI
Exercises
Epilogue
Puzzle Answers
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Exquisite Corpse Art Project.
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 a. Pair 1 and Pair 3 are analogous. They both demonstrate the sam...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1 Bob Eberle introduced the SCAMPER mnemonic represented here in 19...
Figure 4.2 Photorealistic images of a luxury tiny house made from shipping c...
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 Author's conversation with Google Gemini 2024.08.01.
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 Emotion regulation assessment matrix, Leslie Grandy © 2024....
Figure 6.2 When will you become self-aware?.
Figure 6.3 A dog and robot cartoon
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 The habit loop.
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 Image generated by DALL-E for the input “Line-drawn image of a pe...
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 Real Thought Crimes, ©2023, Pat Copeland.
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Artist's book created by Leslie Grandy, ©2024.
Guide
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Creativity is everyone’s superpower
Introduction
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Epilogue
Puzzle Answers
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
End User License Agreement
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Additional Praise for Creative Velocity
Leslie draws from a lifetime of practical professional experiences to celebrate human creativity and demystify what we think of as out-of-the-box thinking. This book is a practical primer. Creativity isn't magic; it's a chemical reaction that she distills into a mix of habits, processes, and mindset shifts that lead to breakthrough results.
—Richard SternCEO, TuneIn
This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to harness creativity as a core skill in today's fast-evolving world. Leslie Grandy masterfully argues that creativity is not a talent reserved for a few but a vital skill that can be nurtured and developed in everyone. What sets Creative Velocity apart is its practical approach—Grandy doesn't just offer theories but provides powerful exercises and frameworks that empower readers to unlock their creative potential. Whether you're a Fortune 500 CEO trying to unlock growth, an entrepreneur, or a creative professional, this book offers a roadmap to cultivating creativity that will transform individuals and organizations.
—Jason BaumgartenGlobal Head of CEO and Board Practice, Spencer Stuart
Whether you seek the creative confidence to innovate or have already had success pushing boundaries, Creative Velocity can unlock your imaginative potential. I'd recommend this book even to the most successful creative minds because the exercises serve as an invaluable reminder to flex mental muscles in unique ways. Everyone can benefit from new perspectives to look at old problems.
—Jeffrey D. ShulmanProfessor of Marketing, Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington; Podcaster; Filmmaker
What if creativity wasn't just for artists but for everyone—from engineers to executives? Creative Velocity redefines creativity as a skill that anyone can master. Packed with insights from highly productive innovators, this book provides a practical roadmap for unleashing your creative potential and accelerating breakthrough ideas. Whether you're leading a team or just getting started, Creative Velocity will inspire you to think bigger, work smarter, and achieve more.
—Jim Louderback,Editor and CEO, Inside the Creator Economy
Creative Velocity is the cheat code for unlocking innovative potential. In this book, Leslie Grandy has masterfully synthesized research, her own experiences, and the wisdom of successful leaders from across industries to provide actionable strategies answering the age-old question: how do you overcome the roadblocks to “thinking outside the box” and unlock individual and team innovative potential?
—Karim MeghjiChief Product Officer, Code.org
Creative Velocity is a masterpiece of insight and inspiration. It distills the most actionable findings from the science of creativity and, through engaging interviews with top business leaders, demonstrates how these insights can drive revolutionary success across diverse industries. With numerous hands-on exercises that help boost creative thinking, it makes good on its premise that creativity is not some mythical talent reserved for the few but rather can come from anywhere, from anyone. As a business school faculty member who studies and teaches creativity to countless managers each year, Leslie Grandy's book is an essential handbook that I recommend to anyone who appreciates the power of ideas to create a better status quo but doesn't quite know how to get there.
—Crystal FahrProfessor of Management, Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington
Creative Velocity is a fresh, innovative, and deeply compelling analysis of the central value of innovative thought and action that draws on the author's extensive professional experience. Her book offers powerful techniques to enhance personal and team creativity, supported by useful end-of-chapter individual and group exercises. A recurring focus on incorporating generative AI into creative processes provides added practical benefit. Leslie Grandy's book represents something increasingly rare in the field: a truly novel perspective on an often-misunderstood concept, with a clear, actionable path to realizing the benefits of her insights.
—William Koehler, PhDDean, Sloane School of Business and Communication; Professor of Management, Regis College
CREATIVE VELOCITY
PROPELLING BREAKTHROUGH IDEAS IN THE AGE OF GENERATIVE AI
LESLIE GRANDY
Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
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To my husband, Jay, whose love has been my greatest source of strength. This book is a tribute to your support and encouragement throughout our unconventional journey together. Thank you for always standing by me, cheering me on, and believing in my creative capacity. You are my hero.
Creativity is everyone’s superpower
Creativity is the lifeblood of humanity. It isn't a gift reserved for the chosen few. It is not about talent or privilege. It's within us all, waiting to be encouraged, nurtured, and indulged. Creativity thrives on attention and is fed by curiosity. It fractures under the weight of pessimism, fear, and doubt. Ambiguity is creativity's playground. Mistakes and failure are the fuel that creativity needs. It is how we solve problems, imagine possibilities, and manifest our future. Creativity allows us to dismantle outdated constructs and reimagine how things work to improve the quality of the human experience. When we access our creative soul, we can embrace the fuzzy front end and messy middle while anticipating the joy of unexpected discoveries from imperfect exploration to uncover novel ideas.
Introduction
“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
—Maya Angelou
Imagine a workplace where the air is charged with sparks of creativity and the buzz of exciting possibilities. Envision a team in which engineers, product managers, data analysts, accountants, customer care agents, sales teams, and operations leaders are empowered to be as creative as designers. Picture an environment where everyone approaches their work with an open mind, free from expert bias, and fueled by the desire to be their best self. You'd think this place would be a great place to work alongside creative minds who are free from stress and inspired to solve big, meaty problems. And you'd be right – studies confirm that creativity doesn't just make us happier, it makes us more productive, too. Creativity, happiness, and productivity are all correlated.
As a leader, I've seen the transformative power of creative thinking firsthand. However, when I challenge my teams to dream bigger and stretch their imaginations beyond the day-to-day, I often meet resistance. “I don't have the time to think big,” they argue, or “I don't have the opportunity to be creative in my job,” or even, “Isn't that what the design team is supposed to do?” I insist that creativity is indispensable for surmounting the market's latest challenge, carving out new ventures, and navigating the day-to-day hurdles with agility and vision. By championing creative thought, I have aimed to dismantle the barriers of cognitive fixedness and expert bias that narrow their thinking, to kindle a fire of creative confidence that empowers them to aim higher in order to broaden the team's collective perspective, and to increase their capacity to imagine novel solutions to challenging problems.
Creative velocity refers to the ability to quickly and efficiently originate new and innovative ideas that are both useful and valuable. It measures one's capacity to produce the maximum amount of creative output in the least amount of time, which occurs when there are minimal creative barriers and sufficient time spent in a productive flow state.
Through interviews with successful creative thinkers—including Scott Belsky, a partner at A24, an independent film studio, and former executive vice president at Adobe; Jason Silva, storyteller, futurist, and Emmy-nominated television host; and Scilla Andreen, cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) of IndieFlix and the Impactful Group—you will learn how creative confidence has served as the foundation for creative velocity. Their stories illustrate the importance of an inclusive and open mind, a comfort with ambiguity, a willingness to be self-reflective, and a commitment to always be learning. Maintaining creative velocity requires continuous cultivation of the cognitive skills that fuel it and a commitment to making the time and space to attend to it. After reading the interviews at the end of each chapter, you will find some common themes among this diverse group of people; they possess a surprising level of self-awareness, curiosity, and resilience. And you will find that they endorse and leverage many of the techniques discussed in the book. Most important, they understand how to accept failure, purposefully recharge and activate their creative spirit, regulate their emotions, and achieve a flow state. As Silva admits in Chapter 8, “The relationship between creativity and mood regulation is an important one for me.”
Companies often think that building an innovation lab filled with unconventional meeting spaces for brainstorming and hiring a team of people whose job it is to invent will change the trajectory of their business and help them achieve creative velocity. Anointing a special team to be the company's inventors undermines the creative confidence of everyone else in the business required to execute the idea. Consequently, it is common that ideas that emerge from these labs don't materialize commercially because the business operators kill them, usually due to expert bias and a “that will never work” mentality that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In his interview in Chapter 4, Scott Ehrlich, the chief innovation officer at Sinclair, points out, “There are different kinds of negative feedback, particularly in a company. It's not actually the idea but what that idea represents that is threatening. Negative feedback could mean fear.” That fear can translate into a lack of creative thinking across job functions that are not normally perceived as imaginative and kills innovation, hindering the organization's ability to achieve creative velocity.
For a company to achieve creative velocity, most employees should share a reasonable level of creative confidence, also known as creative self-efficacy. Employees with creative confidence are more likely to initiate and engage in innovative processes and be open and willing to propose new ideas and solutions, an essential first step toward achieving creative velocity. Reaching creative velocity requires employees who feel empowered and confident in their creative abilities and who can use them to solve customers' problems, maximize productivity, face unexpected market challenges, and tackle new business opportunities. Companies that exhibit creative velocity have a pipeline of new ideas to explore, test, and iterate, high employee engagement, and the ability to adjust to unexpected events quickly. In my experience, which is also supported by multiple research studies, employees working in an environment that values their creativity show higher satisfaction and retention scores.
This book goes beyond theory and shares practical insights from C-level executives and entrepreneurs who have discovered that thinking differently is a strength, not a weakness. The individuals interviewed for this book all believe that certain cognitive attributes are crucial for achieving creative velocity. An open mindset, characterized by a willingness to consider new ideas, perspectives, and experiences, is foundational to developing the skills outlined in this book. It is necessary to support the six essential traits of these productive creative thinkers: discernment, flexibility, curiosity, resilience, reflection, and equanimity. Therefore, it's important to approach this book with an open mind as the first step to successfully training yourself to utilize the techniques in each chapter. The exercises at the end of each chapter allow you to practice these methods to help you creatively address business challenges, improve customers' outcomes, and rethink how work is done. Creative thinking isn't an inborn talent but a muscle that strengthens with exercise and is honed through deliberate practice and open-minded exploration.
You can develop and practice the skills and techniques in each chapter on your own or in a group, with or without AI as a partner. Training your brain to solve problems creatively is like learning to cook. You can use a single tool and still make something delicious to eat or combine the tools and techniques to produce more complex recipes. For example, building functional flexibility (Chapter 1) can expand your capacity for imagining mixtures (Chapter 2) and analogies (Chapter 3) and make it easier to disrupt the status quo (Chapters 4 and 5). Similarly, emotions (Chapter 6) and habits (Chapter 7) can impede or activate a flow state (Chapter 8), which is why equanimity is a foundational trait to help you reach peak creative performance.
All these techniques benefit from a playful attitude (Chapter 9), and taken together, they can enhance your storytelling abilities (Chapter 10) because playfulness encourages flexibility in thinking, another trait required to achieve creative velocity.
The Myths of Creativity
Creativity is often surrounded by misconceptions and myths that make it difficult to unleash our creative potential. From my adolescence through my early thirties, I found myself trapped in this web of falsehoods, struggling to navigate my way through it.
The first myth that took root in my beliefs was that creativity is synonymous with artistic talent. This notion seamlessly paved the way for the second myth I embraced: the belief that creativity was a gift bestowed at birth. I believed that this innate talent distinguished the creatively endowed from the rest of us. Both myths became closely tied in my mind to the third fallacy—the idea that creativity manifests solely through art. I was convinced that somewhere within me was buried an untapped well of creativity, waiting for the perfect medium to unleash it.
Driven by these beliefs, I embarked on a quest to uncover my hidden talent, taking piano, sculpting, acting, painting, and even dancing lessons. Yet, each venture ended in disappointment and disillusionment. My fingers stumbled over piano keys, lacking rhythm and musicality. My attempts at acting were met with scathing reviews, my artwork rarely rose above the level of refrigerator art, and my poor dancing bruised my body and soul. The diagnosis was swift and unforgiving: I was left-brained, sentenced to a life governed by logic and precision, a realm supposedly anathema to the creative spirit claimed by those of the right-brained persuasion.
The negative feedback I'd receive about my performances and string of failed artistic endeavors slowly chipped away at my creative confidence. Doubt crept in, undermining my dreams of ever identifying as a creative person.
It wasn't until later in life, working alongside some of the most innovative and creative minds—some of whom I interviewed for this book—that I had an epiphany. This significant realization changed my perception of creativity forever. Through their wisdom and my own experiences, I discovered that creativity isn't an elusive trait tucked away in the genetic code of the fortunate few. Creativity is accessible to anyone willing to embark on the journey to access it. And it needs to be nurtured, developed, and expanded with conscious intention.
Creative thinking can improve our approach to problems, transform complex processes, drive digital and physical product development, and reimagine how individuals conduct everyday activities like grocery shopping or paying for parking. The universe of creative people is not limited to those who can sculpt or sing a beautiful ballad or design a breathtaking space. It includes everyday people, like the person who in 1955 invented Velcro®; the ophthalmologist who realized he could replace a natural, cloudy lens from cataracts with a synthetic lens to restore vision in 1949; and the woman who invented and patented the windshield wiper in 1903. It was that realization that changed my life.
Furthermore, recent research has shown that the brain is far more complex than this simplistic right-brain/left-brain myth I had subscribed to. In fact, neuroscientists have found that creativity involves the simultaneous activation of both hemispheres and multiple regions within each hemisphere.1 Groundbreaking discoveries in neuroscience demonstrate that creativity doesn't stay limited to one brain hemisphere. Instead, it emerges from the performance of both hemispheres, engaging multiple regions in a coordinated concert of neural activity. This revelation means that creativity grows and flourishes with the involvement of both hemispheres.
The myth of the “right-brained” artist or the “left-brained” logician obscures a more profound truth: creativity is a universal skill that engages the full spectrum of the brain's capabilities. The interplay among these varied regions forms the bedrock of creativity. While the right hemisphere has traditionally been activated by new and unfamiliar things, tying it intimately to creative endeavors, recent psychological research shifts the narrative. It suggests that the utility of an idea—its applicability and effectiveness—is as critical to the definition of creativity as its novelty. While generating novel ideas is essential to the creative process, evaluating their practicality and potential usefulness is equally important. By tapping into the analytical strengths of the left hemisphere, individuals can effectively assess an idea's value and feasibility, helping to ensure that only the most promising ideas are pursued.
Indeed, creative thought demands a rich array of cognitive functions—problem-solving, critical analysis, adaptability, curiosity, and the ability to forge connections across disparate domains. Creativity is equally about leveraging the capacity of one's imagination and designing innovative solutions to the tangible challenges that pervade science, business, and the activities of daily life. The act of creativity calls for a blend of analytical precision, intuitive leaps, and the flexibility to move between diverse modes of thinking that can adapt as the situation demands.
Throughout my career, I've observed how pervasive myths about creativity can limit teams, dampening their ambition to think expansively. From enduring numerous uninspired startup pitches to evaluating the contributions of countless employees, I've come to understand that creativity demands more than just the generation of new ideas. Indeed, this insight gains weight when considering not all patents have value. A deluge of inventive concepts may showcase an individual's imaginative prowess, yet without practical application, such ideas often fall by the wayside, deemed useless or pointless. The true formula for creativity includes a mix of all these variables: imagination, originality, value, and feasibility. The first two leverage the right brain, and the latter two lean into the left brain.
Humanity's prowess for creative thought has guided our species' constant adaptation and evolution. The cornerstone of fostering creativity lies in actively pursuing novel experiences, embracing the allure of the unknown, and approaching ideas with curiosity rather than immediate judgment. In the diverse roles I have occupied across various companies and industries, I have fostered a mindset that thrives on experimentation, values learning from blending perspectives, and is adept at viewing the world through a kaleidoscope of lenses—principles that have been instrumental in igniting and nurturing the creative energy within me.
From being an aspiring artist with unfulfilled dreams to making a mark in the world of technology innovation, my journey is a testament to the endless possibilities of creative skills. It challenges the notion that creativity is an innate gift and champions the idea that it is a craft that can be honed and enriched through dedication. The burgeoning body of scientific inquiry into creativity bolsters the view that every individual harbors the potential for creative thought. This starkly contrasts with a 2021 study that found that 58% of the participants believed that creative accomplishments usually result from sudden inspiration.2
In the contemporary discourse on creativity, few psychologists or research scientists in the twenty-first century believe that creativity comes from spontaneous brilliance, although there is some evidence that “eureka moments” exist. The people I interviewed at the end of each chapter have a common understanding of this point. They believe that certain preconditions—some of which are unique to them—must exist to increase the likelihood of having an “aha moment.” By being aware of this context, they believe it is possible to intentionally increase the probability of having epiphanies. However, these light bulb moments are usually the result of prior knowledge and thoughts that have been simmering in the subconscious. This suggests that being open to new ideas and allowing them time to develop can inspire more profound creative ideas. Having an open mind that encourages the exploration of novel concepts is a common trait among the people I interviewed.
The myths surrounding creativity can act as barriers, obscuring our path to realizing our creative velocity. Yet, by debunking these myths and embracing creativity as a skill that can be cultivated, we unlock the door to boundless innovation. Dismissing the notion that creativity is the exclusive domain of the arts or a fixed trait, we can nurture this ability through targeted practice and engagement in activities that stimulate our cognitive faculties. By adopting a growth mindset and demonstrating grit and resilience, we can dispel these misconceptions, tapping into our innate creative energies to devise solutions and pioneer advancements in any endeavor.
Create. Generate. Make.
The notion that creativity encompasses the generation of ideas that are both novel and valuable echoes the sentiments of French mathematician Henri Poincaré, who posited, “To create consists precisely in not making useless combinations and in making those which are useful, and which are only a small minority. Invention is discernment, choice.”3 This perspective underscores a crucial aspect of creativity that AI, despite its advancements, struggles to replicate: the ability to discern which ideas are valuable and useful with ethics, empathy, genuine consciousness, and an understanding of the human experience.
The difference between “generative AI” and the “creative use of AI” goes beyond semantics. There is a significant distinction in capability and intention, particularly as AI becomes more ingrained in our daily lives. The ease of generating content quickly challenges the essence of human creativity. Though AI can produce new content, streamline tasks, and introduce diverse viewpoints, it falls short of the human capacity to understand usefulness, style, resonance, and taste. Unlike humans, AI lacks an understanding of art, literature, and music in their nuanced and subtle forms. And often, what makes these works meaningful lies within a metaphor, a figure of speech, or a symbol of an intangible feeling. It also may lie within our personal values. The content it generates, devoid of the human touch, can miss the authenticity and emotional resonance that define genuinely inspirational works. For instance, an AI might compose a poem with impeccable meter and rhyme. Yet, for the present, it will likely fail to capture the soul-stirring pathos or evoke the deep, genuine emotional response characteristic of poetry crafted by a human hand and borne from human experience.
Generate and create are often used interchangeably, but they convey distinct concepts. Generate implies producing something through a predefined set of rules or algorithms, a process inherently systematic and bounded by the parameters of existing data and models. On the other hand, create signifies a leap into the unknown, the birth of something new and original, not merely an iteration of what already exists but a true innovation, unfettered by the constraints that guide AI's output.
While make is used synonymously with generate or create in casual conversation to denote the act of production, it's essential to recognize its broader applicability. As the most versatile among the trio, make encompasses a wide array of activities. It can imply constructing, producing, or assembling something, whether from disparate parts or existing materials, aligning it more closely with generate in terms of its emphasis on the process rather than the novelty of the outcome. Additionally, make can signify the act of bringing something into existence or causing an event to occur, further broadening its scope of use.
Although the act of making can and often does involve creativity, it doesn't inherently require originality—a cornerstone of creativity. This distinction is crucial, as it underlines that the essence of creativity lies in its dedication to originality. While “making” might benefit from creative input, creativity should not be assumed to be present in the act of making anything. A good example of making something without creativity is following a box recipe to make a cake and bringing nothing new to the process.
Co-creating with Generative AI
AI's prowess in swiftly navigating through extensive datasets to unearth patterns, trends, and correlations is invaluable, particularly in market research, where understanding consumer behavior is critical. While AI accelerates the discovery of insights, the human role becomes crucial in navigating the complexities of intellectual property, ensuring authenticity and impact, and addressing biases. Thus, AI and human creativity form a symbiotic relationship, blending computational might with the nuanced application of curiosity, intuition, and discernment.
A pivotal role that humans play when collaborating with AI on ideation is ensuring the ongoing refinement of the problem statement provided in the prompts. The effectiveness of your AI collaboration hinges on the quality of the prompts and datasets used for its training. While AI can propose solutions, it falls upon humans to frame the right questions and precisely define the problem space. This requires a deep understanding of context, audience, and the desired impact of the creative endeavor. Humans play a vital role in steering AI toward outcomes that resonate with customer expectations and business objectives. The human touch should not influence results but rather inform the partnership through relevant inputs, practical constraints, and identification of necessary elements. Moreover, human input is indispensable when it comes to embodying brand values and catering to specific audience tastes. When co-creating with generative AI, using human discernment to evaluate the options is critical, principally because AI, despite its vast capabilities, lacks the understanding of human intricacies and cultural subtleties.
Scott Belsky, author, founder, former executive vice president at Adobe, and partner at A24, whose interview appears in Chapter 10, shares, “As the process part of creativity—chipping away at the stone or mixing the colors or iterating the pixels—becomes less of an obstacle, the other parts of creativity—the original idea, judgment, the innovations in process, and the story—become more important than ever.”4 Artificial intelligence may contribute to the volume of ideas and the narrative. Still, it cannot generate and infuse meaning into its output due to a limited understanding of the nuances of word choice, cultural distinctions, the compound nature of personal experiences, and the causes of emotional response.
Each chapter provides tips on partnering with generative AI when practicing these creative thinking techniques. By using the exercises at the end of each chapter, you will learn various approaches you can use to build creative confidence with or without AI as your partner. Some of them may be easier to convert to AI prompts than others. That is because the intent of this book is not to make you a better AI collaborator, although that is more than likely to happen. Instead, the goal is to unlock your creative confidence in your personal and professional lives by equipping you with various methods to accelerate your capacity to propel breakthrough ideas and achieve creative velocity.
Notes
1
. Nielsen, Jared A., Brandon A. Zielinski, Michael A. Ferguson, Janet E. Lainhart, and Jeffrey S. Anderson. 2013. “An Evaluation of the Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain Hypothesis with Resting State Functional Connectivity Magnetic Resonance Imaging.”
PLoS One
8, no. 8: e71275.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0071275
.
2
. Mathias Benedek, Martin Karstendiek, Simon M. Ceh, Roland H. Grabner, Georg Krammer, Izabela Lebuda, Paul J. Silvia, Katherine N. Cotter, Yangping Li, Weiping Hu, Khatuna Martskvishvili, James C. Kaufman. “Creativity Myths: Prevalence and Correlates of Misconceptions on Creativity.”
Personality and Individual Differences
182 (2021). Accessed June 24, 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111068
.
3
. Livingston, Paisley. “Chapter Seven. Poincaré's ‘Delicate Sieve’: On Creativity And Constraints In The Arts.” pp. 127–146
The Idea of Creativity
(Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009)
https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004174443.i-348.46
4
. Belsky, Scott. “Creating in the Era of Creative Confidence - Scott Belsky - Medium,” Medium, December 24, 2022,
https://scottbelsky.medium.com/creating-in-the-era-of-creative-confidence-b4e251d725f
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CHAPTER 1The MacGyver Mindset
“With a little bit of imagination, anything is possible.”
—Angus MacGyver
In the 1980s, throughout the popular television series MacGyver, the title character is admired for his resourcefulness and talent for solving problems using everyday items. His imagination and ingenuity help him solve complex problems, catapulting the narrative forward with his cognitive skills. In one episode of the show, MacGyver used a ballpoint pen case to fix a car's fuel line. In another, he plays back an old phonographic record on a black cylinder using a piece of paper and a safety pin. In another example of functional flexibility, MacGyver fixed a broken rowing boat using a stick with a fork, a sleeping bag cover, some ropes, and a tarpaulin. MacGyver consistently escaped difficult situations by repurposing objects beyond their intended use, using his extensive knowledge, problem-solving mindset, and cognitive skills. The term “MacGyver” has become a part of our cultural vocabulary. Merriam-Webster defines it as the ability “to make, form, or repair something using whatever is conveniently on hand.”1 This skill involves looking beyond the intended uses of objects and repurposing their components to create inventive solutions.
MacGyver's success depended on many of the creative thinking skills we will cover in this book. For example, he demonstrated combinational and improvisational creativity, rule-breaking, and opposite thinking to tackle challenges, all of which will be discussed in later chapters. A lateral thinker, MacGyver was able to make associations between seemingly unrelated concepts. For example, in episode 6 of season 2, co-written by Kerry Lenhart and John Sakmar, whose interview appears at the end of this chapter, MacGyver used red wine to charge a battery. His ability to think on his feet and maintain an open mind when under stress were critical to his problem-solving skills. He was undeterred when faced with constraints because he was extremely confident in his understanding of how things worked and in his ability to improvise solutions with limited resources on hand. MacGyver was never hindered by knowledge of an object's conventional functionality when working toward his goals. He was naturally comfortable deconstructing the object to its simplest form, combining it with other items, or modifying elements of it to achieve a different purpose.
In the 1930s, German psychologist Karl Duncker identified the cognitive bias that blocks one's ability to repurpose objects beyond their intended use. By the 1940s, the term functional fixedness2 gained traction with social scientists. Since then, researchers have investigated the causes of this bias and explored the circumstances that can help people avoid it and adopt a MacGyver mindset, which accelerates creative velocity. They discovered that the ability to creatively repurpose items depends upon flexible thinking and an open mind.
Functional fixedness arises from ingrained beliefs and rigid mindsets about how things work based on prior knowledge and experience. Researchers learned that while we use these beliefs as a mental shortcut, they narrow our vision and imagination over time.3 Functional fixedness strengthens as we get older and can become part of our cognitive operating system. It can cause us to become focused or stuck on traditional and established solutions, preventing us from considering new and improved alternatives. This can hinder our ability to come up with creative ideas and may even make it difficult for us to consider innovative approaches to solving problems. The good news is there are techniques you can use to break fixations that will prevent you from seeing novel solutions.
For example, doodling engages our brain in a different activity, disrupting habitual thought patterns, which can help increase our functional flexibility. It encourages us to think beyond the usual associations with objects or tools. Doodling allows more abstract, free-flowing connections to form. Pat Copeland, whose interview appears in Chapter 9, has said, “Doodling serves as a stress reliever and gives us a view of our unconscious thoughts.” This low-stress way of exploring our subconscious can open our minds to consider unconventional uses for familiar objects. In addition, the visual-spatial aspects of doodling can facilitate making novel associations and connections that can overcome a fixation on a single idea or approach. And since doodling is often described as aimless, it permits unexpected mixtures of shapes and forms without the pressure to produce a viable outcome. When we're less anxious about “getting it right,” we're more open to exploring alternative solutions and breaking free from functional fixedness.
In a research study that explored the role of AI in extending human creativity, Northwestern researchers noted, “A key component of creativity involves abstraction, the process of learning how to make sense of information by identifying the conceptual components which are relevant” for meaning, mechanics and purpose.4 Observing and analyzing objects, focusing specifically on their structure and potential for reuse, is foundational for overcoming functional fixedness and helpful when using analogic thinking, explored in more detail in Chapter 3.
In Chapter 4, you will learn more about the SCAMPER technique, a methodology that also benefits from breaking down an idea into its core components to challenge existing assumptions about its structure and encourage a fresh perspective. Introduced in the 1970s, SCAMPER prompts different actions to take to reformulate a novel solution that looks different than the current sum of a solution's parts. The “P” part of the SCAMPER methodology considers what can be “put to other use.” Abstraction facilitates repurposing by increasing awareness of an object's components, their relationships within the design space, and how they collectively contribute to the overall utility and experience. This opens the mind to considering other ways to utilize or modify the parts and is essential to busting the bias of functional fixedness.
Design thinking is based on foundational tools such as ethnographic research, problem reframing, and experimentation, which help to avoid being stuck in conventional thinking. When engaging in design thinking, it is essential to abstract the specific problem at hand to eliminate cognitive bias and reduce attachment to a specific approach when creating potential solutions. By framing the challenge in a less concrete manner, it becomes possible to explore a wider range of potential solutions and overcome functional fixedness.
Ethnographic research, observing and understanding your target customer behaviors, is foundational to design thinking, and often reveals how customers develop workarounds and shortcuts in their current processes. Your lead customers are often the most motivated to MacGyver a solution if it makes their life easier. Design thinking requires you to be open to the broadest view of the problem space, as MacGyver would, which ensures you don't miss unconventional solutions hidden in plain sight. You may realize that the original issue you were trying to address is just a symptom of a different, deeper underlying problem, or you may find a solution from a different domain that can be applied to a new context. The objective of this approach is to be open to seeing more than the limited set of solutions you are considering.5 Whether you use design thinking or SCAMPER, the important thing is to recognize the existence of conscious and unconscious biases that can constrain your capacity to generate initial ideas by limiting your openness to unexpected approaches.
When you hear a colleague say “This is how we have always done things” or “This is how things work,” it may signal that the person is fixated on a specific way something functions and is resistant to considering alternative approaches. It can also indicate a closed mindset, which limits the possibilities they'd be willing to explore to identify novel solutions. These types of statements suggest a lack of cognitive flexibility and a resistance to looking at the challenge in a new way. After initially validating their fixed mindset, it will take a conscious effort to help them overcome that fixation because the conventional approach won't work. The goal is to move the person into a mental impasse when they realize for themself that the conventional approach isn't the only option.
Insight problems are one tool that can help challenge someone's specific assumptions or fixed mindset. They are a type of problem that requires a sudden restructuring or shift in perspective to solve. These problems are often difficult to solve using only logic and require visual, spatial, mathematical, or verbal skills. This type of problem requires restructuring the stated issue to overcome a mental block and reach a novel or counterintuitive solution. When trying to move a fixated person to a new perspective, begin by presenting a scenario or task that initially seems to require the functionally fixated use of the item. Then, slowly reframe the problem such that the functionally fixated solution is inadequate or impractical.
An example of an insight problem is the “Surgeon Riddle”: A child is brought into the emergency room after a serious accident. The surgeon on duty looks at the child and exclaims, “I can't operate on this child; he is my son!” However, the surgeon is not the child's father. How is this possible? Of course, the surgeon is the child's mother. This problem requires letting go of gender bias, unconsciously assuming the surgeon must be a man.
You can reframe the problem and expand the solution set by providing an approach that challenges a fixated person's assumptions. In the 2015 article “Find Innovation Where You Least Expect It,” published in the Harvard Business Review, Dr. Tony McCaffrey, a cognitive psychologist who has studied functional fixedness, suggests that one way around functional fixedness is to change how you describe the problem or the object. By reframing the issue, as you do when using design thinking, you can change the context of the solution.
For example, consider the Titanic collision. McCaffrey points out that if the goal had been reframed as “keep people out of the water” instead of just “save people,” more solutions might have been considered, potentially leading to more survivors.6 McCaffrey goes on to describe alternative approaches to only seating people in lifeboats, such as building a platform out of doors and lashing them to the lifeboats so more people could be saved than could fit in the lifeboat. Another idea was to use the tires from the 40 or so cars on the ship to create a raft upon which a mattress or door could be placed. McCaffrey even suggests that the lifeboats might have ferried people from the sinking ship to the iceberg, where they could have stayed dry while waiting for help to arrive. However, this solution would have required the passengers and crew to see the iceberg as a savior and not the enemy, which, under the stress of the situation and with the initial framing of the problem, was highly unlikely.
Generic Parts Technique
To overcome a tendency toward functional fixedness, McCaffrey suggests deconstructing the issue or object into discrete elements, which allows one to see it in its most general terms. His methodology, the Generic Parts Technique, depends upon the reduction of any issue or item to its simplest, most generalized description and the least defined use, repeatedly posing two questions: “Can this be decomposed further?” and “Does this description imply a use?”7 With his colleague, Jim Pearson, McCaffrey studied the impact of generating generic descriptions of the elements on creative velocity and discovered that the group using this Generic Parts Technique (GPT) was better able to solve insight problems than the control group that was not taught this method.
