I am always surprised to find that many exponents of creativity still believe that 'messing around' is enough. Some of these exponents seem to run thriving consultancies, so I must suppose that their clients are equally convinced that messing around is the essence of creativity. Why should this be?
The main reason is historical. Deliberate creativity in the modern sense started with 'brainstorming', which was developed for the advertising world. This is a world in which messing around has more value than in any other. The reason is that advertising is to do with communication. So messing around in a group may suddenly reveal an approach that is seen by members of the group to have a high communicating value.
This traditional label of 'brainstorming' has stuck and become very dominant. This is because it is powerful and evocative - which explains that high communication value. It is so well established that those who are not yet knowledgeable in the field still believe that brainstorming and creativity are actually synonymous.
Indeed, many consultants themselves still seem to believe so. Sometimes the label has become so generic that all approaches to creativity come to be called brainstorming. I am often told that what I am myself advocating is brainstorming, even though I am in fact putting forward a more structured and more rigorous approach.
SUSPENDING JUDGMENT
The second reason is that 'messing around', accompanied by suspension of judgment, is seen to be so different from normal judgment-based thinking that this 'difference' is believed to constitute creativity. If this is so different from normal thinking, then surely it can only be creative thinking? People expect creative thinking to be very different.
Since creativity is offered as the covering excuse for messing around, that excuse easily becomes the process itself. Under the cover of 'dieting', individuals may be induced to follow all sorts of food fads in the belief that the odder the fad, the more effective a dieting regime it must be!
The next reason is that 'messing about' does give the appearance of results. People who are not used to creativity are very easily surprised and satisfied by rather weak ideas. From feeling that they could never have a creative idea, they find that their creative ideas are accepted by the group. They feel proud of having been 'creative enough' to produce such ideas.
SENSE OF ACHIEVMENT
At the end of brainstorming sessions, I am usually surprised by the sense of achievement. People who would never have been proud of the same ideas, had they been produced by any other method, seem to be proud of these ideas because they were produced by creativity.
In truth, however, creativity does not itself confer any value on an idea. The idea has to show benefits and feasibility in its own right. The excellence of a dish depends directly on the taste of that dish, not on the reputation or the qualifications of the chef in the kitchen.
The next reason is that 'messing around' does sometimes produce good ideas. It would be absurd to claim that messing around never works. That there are far more effective ways of producing new ideas does not mean that messing around is useless. That there is a fast train from A to B does not mean that you cannot get from A to B by walking.
People who do not expect much from creativity (and sometimes expect nothing at all) are surprised by any result. I have seen some good ideas produced by messing around. I have also seen a great deal of rubbish.
THE PLAY EFFECT
There are at least two types of play. In the first type of play the players follow defined rules. It is play only in the sense that the purpose of the activity is fun and enjoyment. The play has its own end. With animals, play may be a rehearsing of action patterns that will be needed later in adult life. In both cases, the basic pattern of play is laid down beforehand.
In the other types of play we play around without fixed rules 'in order to see what happens.' An artist may have coloured pieces of cardboard, which are moved around more or less randomly until a pleasing combination is assembled. The play is the generating factor. The artistic aesthetic sense is watching all the time to note an aesthetic or significant combination.
In the same way, messing around with ideas can provide a play effect. Suddenly a valuable concept or principle might be spotted in one combination. This is more likely to happen when the combinations are made almost at random than if they are made to fit a pre-set purpose.
Though there is an element of 'play' in messing around, this is not as strong as might be supposed. Mostly people are hunting around in their own minds for simple alternative ideas, rather than playing around with combinations of ideas. It is as if children were constantly seeking fresh toys rather than playing with the available toys.
STIMULATION
Many people still believe that creativity has to be a group process, because that's what brainstorming has to be. People who believe this have probably never read any of my books or attended any seminar of mine, because I emphasise that creative processes can all be used by an individual on his or her own.
The reason groups are needed in brainstorming or messing around is that someone else's ideas may trigger a new idea in your own mind. Without such stimulation, how are you going to have ideas? Each of the formal techniques of lateral thinking allows a thinker to stimulate his or her own brain (provocations, random entry, etc.). Forced association, as in morphological analysis, does the same. In practice, other people's ideas may open up a family of ideas related to the idea suggested, but are unlikely to lead to a really new idea. A formal provocation forces new ideas.
In thinking about check-out points in a supermarket, an idea suggesting scanners on each cart could lead to a whole family of auto-scanning ideas. The provocation 'No goods shout out their price' might lead to radio-tags which indicate a price as the goods are wheeled past a scanning point.
LAUGHTER
Too often a group 'messing around' session ends up as an attempt to make other members of the group laugh. This is taken to be free and provocative thinking. Humour is seen as permission to escape the boundaries of experience. Too often the ideas that result are more way-out than provocative.
There is also a big difference between a wild idea treated as a potential idea and a wild idea that is set up as a formal provocation. With a formal provocation there is always an attempt to 'move' on from the provocation to an idea that is useful or effective. That is one of the fundamental differences between brainstorming and lateral thinking.
PRE-EMPTION
I have no real objection to the notion that 'messing around' is sufficient creative thinking. It does sometimes produce results, and those taking part do believe that they are being creative. What is unfortunate is that many people are led to believe that this is all there is to creativity. The result is that creativity continues to be treated as a peripheral, and not very important, luxury rather than a necessity in an organisation. This is unlikely to change unless organisations can be shown the reality of 'serious' creativity.
There are those who believe that the introduction to creativity should begin with 'messing around', because that is easy. Formal tools can then be introduced later. I disagree with this approach, because I believe it sets the wrong 'tone' for creativity. What then happens is that, when people have difficulty using the formal tools, they happily slink back to messing around.
Messing around is indeed motivating, and that is its main danger. Compared to messing around, struggling to develop skill with formal provocation/movement is hard work. But the results are likely to be more radical. Riding a tricycle is likely to be easier than learning to ride a bicycle. But when you have learned to ride a bicycle, you will outpace anyone on a tricycle.
If initial motivation is important, then the simple random word technique can serve that purpose. It is simple. It is effective. It demonstrates that formal creativity does work. Those who use messing around because they do not know any better will risk delaying the general acceptance of creativity.
Those who use messing around out of laziness are doing their clients no favour - and risk their client finding out that there are better approaches. Those who use messing around because it gives the 'appearance' of creativity are fooling their clients.
SUMMARY
Any serious user of creativity should make a serious effort to become trained in the methods of serious creativity. Creativity has gone beyond the stage where messing around was enough - because there was nothing else.
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