Breaking the Patterns; Challenging Rules and Sacred Cows

Breaking the patterns of our thinking by challenging the rules of the game and sacred cows is important not only because it limits our thinking, but because as time passes and things change, the original reasons which generated the rules may no longer exist.

Dreaming and Imagining

Dreaming and imagining things which do not directly correlate to our experiences and may not even exist can also result in unusual ideas. This type of thinking can be prompted by asking "off the wall" or "out of the box" questions like "Why are there holes in Swiss cheese?" and "What do you think is the story behind the person who invented safety pins?" It can also be prompted by changing the group or team environment (temperature, lighting, music, aroma, and physical sensations).

Asking "What If" Questions

Asking "what if and finishing the sentence with a con­trary-to-fact condition, idea, or situation will trigger un­usual ideas. For example, what if marijuana were legal? What impact would that have on society? An entire book by Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, explores this subject and has become a leading business reference in some circles.

Utilizing Idea Associations

If you have ever practiced "free association," you know that a given word will trigger multiple associations. That is because your mind typically organizes your thoughts as associative relationships, and can perform cross-refer­ences, similar to the "red," "fire," and "sunset" example above. A software resource based on word associations is Idea Fisher by Idea Fisher Systems (Irvine, CA). One feature is Idea Bank, which provides over 60,000 organized idea words with more than 700,000 associated links.

Utilizing Humor

Laughing enables thinking about somethingin a fresh way. Getting into a humorous frame of mind enhances your creativity, stretches your thinking, and forces you to com­bine ideas that are not usually associated with one another. Sometimes things will strike you as funny; just go with it. For example, in one team building discussion on pain, one man shared a story of how he got out of the shower and bent down to pick something up and his cat "batted" him (you get the picture). Although he was hoping for sympathy, the entire group broke out laughing, and he quickly joined in. The idea generating (brainstorming) session which fol­lowed was exceptionally productive.

Exploring for Ideas

Benchmarking is a common way to explore for ideas. David T. Kearne, while CEO atXerox Corp., defined benchmarking as "the continuous process of measuring products, services, and practices against the toughest competitors or those recognized as industry leaders." This is the significant type of benchmarking used to pursue the Malcolm Baldrige

National Quality Award established in 1987. Benchmarking can also be fairly informal in terms of getting ideas from things you read, see on TV, or hear on the radio. Two books which provide "how to" information include Benchmarking by Robert C. Camp, and The Benchmarking Workbook by Gregory H. Watson.

Illustrating Ideas; Mind Mapping

Converting ideas to diagrams, symbols, key words, and colors, can energize the creative process. Two children's books benchmarked in some business circles on "how to" illustrate thoughts are Tuesday by David Wiesner, and Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young. Another resource is a Graphic Guide to Team Performance by The Grove Con­sultants International (San Francisco, CA). Mind mapping is essentially a brainstorming session on one subject which utilizes illustrations to help separate remembering from organizing. An example exercise where mind mapping is utilized is to draw a circle with "My Job" in the center, and illustratively depict a "Day In The Life Of" (DILO). When done, how one aspect of the business day relates to other aspects is depicted; from there, team members typically share strategies on how they can add more value.

Unleashing Your Creative Thinking

You have experiences, you have conscious and unconscious memory, you have recognition recall, and now you have ten unleashing methods to trigger your unconscious memory and create a lot of unusual ideas: changing the question, different words, thinking metaphorically, breaking the patterns and challenging rules and sacred cows, dreaming and imagining, asking "what if" questions, utilizing idea association, utilizing humor, exploring for ideas, and illus­trating ideas and mind mapping.

If somebody can sell "pet" rocks,- and somebody else can convince millions of men to wear jeans with the size of their body tagged on the outside, just think what you can do! Go for it! Now!