Defeating Rigid Habits to Spark Creativity

Business December 06, 2012 / By Ben Weinlick

SYNOPSIS

"The Creative Act: The defeat of habit by originality overcomes everything" George Lois

Recently, Shaun Brandt of ONST Creative and I presented a session on creativity at an event for hackers, creatives and designers. Over the course of 2 days a few hundred people attended Wordcamp to learn about blogging, design, coding, creativity and WordPress. Shaun and I wanted to present something a bit different than what might be expected at an event like Wordcamp and so we gave a session called Fostering Creativity by Looking in Unlikely Places.

At first glance Shaun and I are an unlikely pairing to present on the subject, but that was in many ways the point; to show what can happen when very different domains collide. Shaun is a successful entrepreneur who along with his business partner Cam Service launched ONST Creative (pronounced honesty creative) last year and ever since have been uber-busy with international clients seeking branding, design and web development. I asked them a while ago if they wanted to be part of think jar because I noticed their designs, originality and creativity is stellar and I sensed people could learn a lot about creativity and design from them.

For myself, although I come from an art and experimental music background, the area I’ve been applying creativity for the last decade has been in the domain of human services(social services). A number of years ago I saw the value and need for creativity in human services and proceeded to explore what creative processes could be relevantly applied to social service design. That led to graduate studies and research on what it takes to develop creative organizational cultures that yield better quality work. For the wordcamp talk I gave more of the background of what creativity is, what blocks it, and my own examples of creatively linking disparate, unlikely ideas and domains.

Below is a recap of the main points on Fostering creativity by looking in unlikely places

We need to look in the places we normally don’t look because it is there that we find fresh creative ideas

“Creativity is the ability to connect the seemingly unconnected” William Plommer

Looking in unlikely places provides opportunities for Serendipity: chance events that become beneficial and useful
If we want to “think different” then we need to shake up stiff mental habits that keep us locked in the status quo

“The danger of habits is that a person can become a prisoner of familiarity.” Roger Von Oech

Hard to see new situations we encounter in a fresh way because of our habits
Problem is we don’t see new situations as they are, we are clouded by past experiences and assumptions… this hinders a creative perspective
We need to balance having experience and breaking the old rules in order to see in new ways
There are some things we can do to hack and defeat some of these rigid mental habits

Philo Farnsworth invented television by getting an idea from looking at the rows of neatly spaced crops on his farm. He applied the spacing concept to creating rows of light and dark spots on a cathode ray tube to create images. So, you could say looking at farming led to the invention of television.

“The creative act: The defeat of habit by originality overcomes everything”

George Lois- American Designer

Defeat habits by being curious about interesting ideas and interesting people – seek out and learn from others

“Keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas others have used successfully. Your idea needs to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are working on” Thomas Edison

Defeat habits by engaging lots of interests and hobbies

“Legendary innovators like Franklin and Darwin share a defining attribute, they had a lot of hobbies” -Steven Johnson, Where good ideas come from

Defeat habits by consciously shaking up routines
Defeat habits by asking the “dumb questions” - The value of beginners mind
Defeat habits by hanging out with weird

Defeat habits by focusing on a problem and then letting go; do something totally different
Defeat habits by including people in your projects who are from outside your domain

Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine always brought together men and women from different domains in his think tanks

Defeat habits by developing a culture of serious play. Play fosters trust and when there’s trust you are more likely to share and be open to fresh ideas

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Stay tuned for part 2 where Shaun Brandt will share what he and his design team do to foster creativity and the unlikely places they mine for creative gold.

Further reading in the meantime

The Art of the Dumb Question by Jim Force Ph.D.

Spinning Plates and the Serious Play of Richard Feynman by Ben Weinlick

By Think Jar Collective founder Ben Weinlick

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Author

Ben Weinlick

Ben Weinlick, MA is the founder of Think Jar Collective, a website and a group of people from diverse disciplines bringing together unique perspectives on creative thinking and innovation. Before Ben entered the community development and disability services field over 13 years ago, he thought he was going to spend his life terrorizing the experimental music and art scene. Always an idealist, Ben thought he was making a less egotistical choice by giving up art to work in a field more actively engaged in social justice issues. He soon discovered otherwise… Ben reminisced of this period, “I found I could be just as much of an ass (egotistical) in human services as the art world and began to see it was not about the domain one works in that matters in how you benefit others, but what kind of view one brings to whatever one does.” Eventually seeing the value of a creative approach in human services led Ben to complete a master's thesis which focused on enhancing creative thinking in human service design and delivery. Currently, Ben is leading think tank teams in the implementation of the research recommendations at SKILLS Society in Canada. Within Canada, Ben has been seen as a leader and innovator who is passionate about improving the quality of support services for people with disabilities. Currently, Ben is the Senior Leader of Research and Organizational Learning at SKILLS Society, part time faculty at Macewan University, a keynote speaker on creativity in human services and consults throughout Canada.... He also stills makes weird experimental music in his spare time. Of Ben’s passion he says, “People in disability services are often asking for innovation and creativity, I’m interested in how we can get our minds unstuck from status quo assumptions and see with fresh, creative eyes. If we can do a little more of that, we will set the stage for creativity and relevant innovations to emerge. I am very passionate about leading organizations to develop cultures where creativity thrives and yields better quality support services.”

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