Page 128 - Keys To Community College Success

You have set the stage for creativity with this recipe. Next, explore actions that will
help you build your creative thinking skill: braingaming, shifting your perspective, and
taking risks.

Go Beyond Brainstorming

You’ve likely heard of brainstorming—letting your mind freely associate to come up
with different ideas or answers to a question. This longstanding creative technique
demands that you generate ideas without regard to usefulness, and evaluate their
quality later. New research calls the value of brainstorming into question, showing
that avoiding evaluating idea quality can result in fewer and less effective ideas.
Researchers report that constructive criticism and dissent generate more ideas and
4 promote the rethinking and refining that lead to an idea’s most productive form.
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CHAPTER “All these errant discussions add up,” says Lehrer. “In fact, they may even be the most
essential part of the creative process. . . . It is the human friction that makes
the sparks.”
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Teamwork is crucial in today’s workplace, and the most productive teamwork will
incorporate constructive dissent and questioning. Instead of brainstorming, think of it
as braingaming—a term that incorporates the challenges and back-and-forth that can
take groups to new heights of creativity. Remember that you don’t have to sacrifice
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civility to have a successful braingaming session. At Pixar, groups use a technique called
“plussing,” which refers to positive, productive criticism that includes way of improving
on the idea being discussed. Keep the “plus” in mind as you contribute and evaluate.
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Use the following strategies to get the most out of your braingaming.
Avoid looking for one right answer. Questions may have many “right answers”—
answers that have degrees of usefulness. The more possibilities you generate, the better
your chance of finding the best one. Thomas Edison is said to have tried over 2,000
filaments before he found the right one for the tungsten electric bulb.

Mix collaboration with private time. Group members can become inspired by,
and make creative use of, one another’s ideas. However, creativity also requires time
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alone, and working in groups can have drawbacks, including team members letting
others do all the work or mimicking others’ ideas out of peer pressure. Consider
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having members generate ideas on their own before bringing them to the group. Shar-
ing ideas electronically is often extremely productive because group members can feel
independent while taking in ideas from others at the same time.
Keep recording tools at the ready. Creative ideas can fly out of your mind as
quickly as they enter. Get in the habit of recording ideas as you think of them. Keep a
pen and paper by your bed, your smartphone in your pocket, a note-
pad in your car, or a recorder in your backpack so you can record
creative thoughts before they fade.

Shift Your Perspective
If no one ever questioned established opinion, people would still think
the sun revolved around the Earth. Here are some ways to change how
you look at a situation or problem.

Challenge assumptions. Taking the risk of going against what
people assume to be true can lead you down innovative paths. In the
late 1960s, for example, most people assumed that school provided
education and television provided entertainment. Jim Henson, a pio-
When you think through something with others neer in children’s television, asked, “Why can’t we use TV to educate
in a group, the variety of ideas gives you a better young children?” From that question, the characters of Sesame Street,
chance of finding a workable solution to a problem.
and many other educational programs, were born. Another example

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