Part 1: In Search of Creativity

Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Imagination and the creative impulse have a way of alchemically transforming problems into new solutions and opportunities. No matter how ominous a problem appears to be, our innate creativity finds new doorways of infinite possibilities that allow us to tackle any challenge. Creativity is a powerful archetypal force that humans can access—when we start to have fun with a problem.

In James Webb Young’s advertising classic A Technique for Producing Ideas, he calls upon the observation of the Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto: “An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.” Change something old into something new by creating new combinations that haven’t been used before.

We love great stories of amazing innovation. Remember the Japanese Olympic pole vaulter who climbed up the pole and then jumped over the bar? Although the Olympic board made his method illegal, his innovative solution was brilliant. It’s not often that you hear of someone finding amazing new strategies to jump over the business problems we face today. When was the last time the Ford Motor Company or GM re-invented the seat belt? We are often stifled when we attempt to look on the world with fresh eyes and to embrace new experiences, and we avoid the work involved in generating new ideas.

When Leon Battista Alberti declared, “A man can do all things if he will,” he condensed the ideals of the Renaissance into the figure of the Renaissance man. Since then, knowledge became specialized and having the breadth of knowledge in the wide range of subjects embraced by Renaissance men now borders on impossibility.

The Renaissance man still walks among us, but we now call him groups. People in diverse fields are beginning to understand how solutions that limit them to the fields that produced the question are inadequate. To understand how humans interact, sociologists are drawing on the skills of mathematicians and physicists in the new field of network science pioneered by Duncan Watts and Steven Strogatz; at Neuroscience 2006, there was a discussion with the renowned architect Frank Gehry about how advances in the science of perception could aid architects in their designs; at IDEO, psychologists and engineers come together to design products. The benefits of a group of diverse individuals working together are quickly becoming indispensable.

The term group has many meanings, from a collection of individuals operating independently to managers working together to solve a tactical problem; each type of group has its own dynamics. The current literature on group decision-making reveals how different the dynamics of these groups really are: What impedes a group operating in one dynamic may increase the productivity of a group operating in another.

In The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki describes situations where groups of individuals acting independently somehow arrive at the correct answer when all of their responses are considered collectively; the group as a whole seems more intelligent than any of the participants. These groups are able to guess things like the number of Jelly Beans in a jar—a logical analysis having more to do with statistics and spatial acuity than intelligence. A random group may have great success addressing similar problems that involve a correct and often mathematically-driven answer (counting jelly beans), but attempting to use a similar procedure to solve problems that lack a single, correct solution (the best advertising campaign for a new product) is likely to yield limited benefits.

Brainstorming, invented by advertising executive Alex Osborn, was designed to maximize effective and creative problem solving. Research on brainstorming initially failed to show any increase in the number and quality of ideas when compared to individuals working alone; but in the last fifteen years, research has revealed that brainstorming can be productive if the procedures guard against impediments that naturally occur, like conversation being controlled by a limited number of individuals and shared beliefs being disproportionately represented. When small groups of individuals attempt to collectively arrive at a solution through discussion, productive solutions are uncovered.

Yet, most companies don’t engage in a creative process because most of their prior “creative” meetings haven’t produced significant results. Nothing new happens, the same people come up with the same line of thinking, and the same ideas keep recurring. The solutions generated are mostly dull and uninventive. In the aftermath of these “brainstorming” sessions, everyone goes back to their desks and does what they’ve always done.

In this scenario, it’s no wonder most companies quickly abandon creative engagements. But, if current research is to be believed, this unproductive scenario is exactly what would be expected to happen.

A lack of productivity is the default tendency of a group—but, it can be prevented. These companies miss out on key insights that can move their business objectives forward. Plus, if you don’t tap into the collective wisdom of your team, your business will lose momentum because key components to solving difficult problems are never uncovered.

In today’s fast-moving business environment, we often structure teams around specific projects (as opposed to an overriding hierarchal command with cubicle-centric “business as usual”). Google.com employs a predominantly project-based environment where team leaders rotate and more resources are added to the team based on the viability and momentum of individual projects.

So how do you get more creative productivity from your team? Promoting individual creativity is hard; inspiring a group of individuals to be creative together seems insurmountable. As a “Consumer Insight Think Tank,” we survive and thrive on creativity. But as a company—as a collective of individuals with unique qualities and models of viewing the world—we are faced with the challenge of how to maximize our diverse team’s background and group dynamic to produce valuable ideas and insight for our clients. What follows is the result of our search for generating creativity in the workplace. It works brilliantly for us. We hope it serves you well, too.

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”
—Carl Jung

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