technical creativity

Creativity is a broad skill that can be applied to all areas. Creativity is a set of lateral thinking tools that can be applied to any field. Creativity is a way of using the mind.

All this may seem very obvious - but it is not. In education there are very many people who still believe that 'thinking' is not a generalisable skill. They believe that thinking is a matter of learning the idiom of a particular field and then juggling around within that field. So there are 'thinking historians' and 'thinking physicists' but no general purpose thinkers. I totally disagree with this belief.

It is true that people within a certain field can achieve much by just juggling the pieces around within that field: finding new combinations and insights. Take that person outside that specialised field and their general thinking skill is no longer apparent. I found this to be the case with some Nobel prize laureates. Outside their field of expertise, their thinking skills were good but not exceptional.

On the other hand there are lateral thinking techniques that can be applied to any field: challenge, concept extraction, provocation, random entry, etc.

FIELD IGNORANCE
It is obvious that if you do not know the field then you have nothing to play with. You cannot design new ideas. You cannot set up provocations. You can never tell if an idea is going to work or to have benefit.

So how can a creative person work in a technical field which is not his or her own? How can a creative facilitator work with a group that has technical knowledge that is not available to the facilitator?

There are different approaches which will be considered here.

DEAL IN CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES
Even the most complicated technical field can be described in concepts and principles. These might be very broad in nature. There is a need to pin-point someone in the field who knows it so well that the field can be described in terms of broad principles.

These principles can then be challenged. Provocations can be set up. The ideas that will emerge from creativity at this level will also be in terms of principles and concepts.

At one time, in Sweden, I was asked by Gunnar Wessman to teach lateral thinking to a group of school children. Problems were then put to the children by various adults. Some of the problems were technical. One problem concerned the dense packing of components on a printed circuit board. One child suggested putting the components on a much larger board and then 'scrunching the board up afterwards'.

Another child suggested that the components not be connected by wires, but that each component should send 'rays' to another component, which would then signal on in the same way. At the meeting there was a senior electronics engineer who took these very broadly stated ideas and showed how they could in fact be executed.

THE TRANSLATOR
When matters are dealt with at a very broad level there is a need for a 'translator' who will take the broad concepts and principles and translate them into practical ideas within that field. A skilled translator can take a very broad principle and turn it into practical detail. This is a very useful skill.

Sometimes there is value in having a total outsider come into the field in order to provide a new perspective. Because the outsider does not know the field, he or she is free from the usual concept traps. At the same time, this useful ignorance (or innocence) means that the person is only going to be able to function at a broad concept level. This is possible - and useful - provided a skilled translator is at hand.

The availability of such skilled translators suddenly makes it possible to use all sorts of idea generation. Without it, idea generation has to remain within the field. I do not put as much value on 'innocent outsiders' as some people might. This is because the formal tools of lateral thinking, especially provocation, allow a person to break out of the thought patterns of the field. So the value of innocence is not so very important.

VALUE FINDERS
When an outsider is talking to a technical group there is no way an outsider can appreciate the practicality or usefulness of an idea that is generated. This makes it very difficult to motivate the group or to show progress. One way around this is to ask one or more of the group to act as 'value finders'. Such people should permanently wear the 'yellow hat': when any idea comes up they immediately look for the value. Their 'value sensitivity' should be high. These value finders take over from the facilitator the role of reconising value in ideas that have been generated. In a way they act as assistants to the facilitator.

DIFFERENCE
Because people within a highly technical area have their ideas formed by technical possibilities, difference is important. So it is useful to ask of any new idea: 'How is this different from our usual thinking?' At first the difference may not suggest a practical idea. Nevertheless, the idea can be used as a provocation from which to move forward. Without some emphasis on 'difference' there is the danger that all new ideas will immediately drain back to the traditional ideas.

MOVEMENT
Because technical fields are governed by much more rigorous laws than other fields there is an immediate temptation to show 'why something cannot work'. There is an urge to show why a suggested idea contravenes some basic principle. Just as an artist would never permit a false stroke to be placed upon the canvas so a technical person cannot permit to be uttered an idea which contravenes a basic natural law in that field.

Thus it is extremely important to emphasise the logic and nature of provocation within self-organising systems. There is a mathematical need for provocation and technical people should be able to see that.

Once provocation is understood then movement follows. This means that any idea, no matter how unrealistic, can be used for its movement value. Movement value is very different from judgement value. (There is a worldwide network of trainers able to deliver formal lateral thinking and parallel thinking training in any organisation...fax 44 20 7602 1779).

SUCCESS
In spite of the many difficulties of working in a technical field, there is one huge advantage. It becomes possible to tell in advance whether an idea is likely to work. The rigid laws of nature, which would exclude so many ideas, can also be used to support new ideas. So there can be a much greater feeling of success. Ideas seem practical and promising.

It is important to keep all the above points in mind. Otherwise people in a highly technical area will not accept that the basic tools of creativity can indeed be applied in their area.