The Creative Thinking Handbook summary

Imagine that your boss asks you to come up with a new product that will boost your sales to a record high. After some thinking, you land on what you think is the perfect solution, only for it to yield less than impressive results.

We often fail at being creative because, without realising it, we’ve become used to thinking patterns that stifle fresh ideas. 

Have you ever explained a problem to someone and they immediately started sharing ideas for solutions? Most people rush to find solutions but the chances of coming up with a good idea this way are slim. This is because creativity calls for more than a superficial understanding of the problem; you have to dig deep.

A good start is defining the problem and clarifying what you do and don’t know about it. State the challenge as it stands, and describe what would be a good enough outcome and a best-case scenario. For example, you might ideally want to sell more than your competitors this year, but would still consider it a win if sales increased by ten percent. You’ll probably have your own opinions and experiences with the problem, or know of things standing in the way of solving it. Write all this down, pushing aside any ideas that pop up – these can wait!

How many times have you been in a brainstorming meeting for hours, only to leave with no exciting ideas to show for it? This happens too often and leaves many people wondering if brainstorming is worth the time.

Well, it can be, but you have to do more than put people in a room and ask them to be creative.

Throughout life, we’re asked to make choices. From small ones like what clothes to wear to more impactful ones like which college to go to. It’s easy to assume that making the best decisions is a matter of what makes the most sense, but our emotions play an important role too. And it’s the same when you need to choose a creative idea to go forward with.

In fact, when you take emotions out of the equation, decision-making becomes essentially impossible.

When you’ve gone through multiple steps and ideation sessions, and finally have the solution to your challenge, you’ll probably feel as though the work is done and you can take a break from all the thinking. 

Finding a star idea is definitely an accomplishment, but you’ll need more creativity to bring it to life, as well as a plan of action.

So you’ve successfully followed the creative thinking steps and your new product is out in the world. What happens next? Well, if your plan is to go back to business as usual until another challenge comes along, you might want to think again. 

Like any other skill, you can’t put your creativity on a shelf and expect it to grow. You need to be intentional about fostering it if you want to make it part of how you work.