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Habit - the enemy of creativity.
You are a collection of habits. In fact, you can be categorized by your response to situations. Successful marketers capitalize on that.
Habits are not easily reversed. Neither are the thought processes behind them. To move outside established patterns, you have to force your brain into a different synaptic flow.
Edward DeBono, originator of lateral thinking, offers an analogy based on rivers. My interpretation: Imagine a hard rain falling on a nearly flat plateau. As it accumulates, it begins flowing down hill. Depressions form, channeling the flow of water in the most efficient route. The channels grow, forming streams. Streams feed creeks. Creeks feed rivers. Rivers carve canyons.
Thought patterns are established when information falls on the plateau of your senses. Your brain creates connections. Channels define thought processes. New input is identified and directed through the established thought channel.
The benefit is efficiency. Experience has taught us the best course of action. Repetition of situations validated by predictable results confirms that the response was appropriate.
Einstein observed, “Problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which they were created.”
To conceive a new solution, you must first recognize your thinking pattern - the existing river channel. Then, recategorize the problem. Some techniques for experimentation:
Never accept the obvious. The question can be restated. A question well asked is half answered. But, analyze and ask the question differently, you’ll quickly see different possibilities.
Explore parallel rivers. Visualize yourself in a different location, a different industry or a different culture. How would the problem look from there?
Break the rules. That’s the essence of innovation. Rules keep order. Innovation is about disorder. Go against the grain. Turn thinking inside out. Imagine the inverse of your assumptions to be true and imagine the possibilities from there.
Play the wild card. Bring people into the process who know nothing about the topic. Introduce new perspectives into the analysis or ideation portions of the process. Take your thinking process elsewhere, like a bookstore, library, magazine rack, etc. Introduce information with nothing to do with the problem, and force new associations, assumptions.
These techniques can help alter the outcome. Elevate the quest out of the canyons of habit and back to the original plateau to create new channels.
Take control to create the environment for innovative results. The only habit that you should tolerate is one of questioning why you approach any problem the same as the one before.
Chas Martin
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