The system that all creative geniuses use to generate ideas

Quite often we hear that we should not put a cart before the horse. What about breaking stereotypes and starting a project with only a general idea of ​​what should be the result ? About how do Chris Rock, Frank Gehry and the team Pixar studio, says Peter Sims.

To start something new, be it building a new career or establishing a company, we need only a full-fledged idea and a clear vision of the process. One way or another, the vast majority of people think so, but in reality the situation is different. If you look at the histories of Starbucks, Google, YouTube, or any other organization that has achieved success over the past 10, 15, 20 years, you will find something in common. They began work in one direction, and achieved success and continue to develop in a completely different one.
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The best comedians and the best architects use the same approach.

Chris Rock may take as many as six months to collect material for one hour of comedy presentation, and he does it like this: he puts his ideas on sheets of paper, then informally visits clubs and settles in front of an audience as relaxed and comfortable as possible so that everyone can see: “ Before them is not Chris Rock in prime time. Chris Rock is in front of them in the process. ” He starts to chat merrily with the audience, and then bomb it with jokes. Sometimes this process can be extremely awkward. But the author does this in order to grope for new jokes and, as soon as he finds them, fixing his ideas, continues communication, improving his material until the jokes are so polished that they can be used directly in the show.

Frank Owen Gehry practices a similar approach. He is one of the most respected architects of his generation, but despite this, when he starts something new, he feels that he cannot understand how to design a building. This is very strange for a person who has exchanged eighth decade, but he just changes sheets of paper, uses cardboard and a lot of duct tape, makes preliminary sketches and models to start the process. All this is done together with a team of people who also produce ideas and exchange them. As soon as the architect delves into the work, and the new project is gaining momentum, working on it becomes easier than it seemed initially.

The same is true for most creative processes. The term by which these people can be described is “experimental innovators”. These are the people who learn from each (even a minor) mistake and put together what is becoming grandiose bit by bit. It can be a comedy show, a building or a piece of music. Without losses, failures and hard work there are no great achievements!

But the most surprising is the fact that people working in such different industries and areas have such a similar approach to creating something new. We can talk about those who create comedic films or Frank Gehry with his architecture, about Pixar employees, about the Stanford school of design thinking, or even about the representatives of the armed forces. There is a universal way for everyone to think and act more creatively. This is a kind of philosophy. This is a lifestyle, after all.

How does Pixar make cool ideas from “slop” creative ideas?

The co-founder of the film studio Pixar, Ed Catmall, describes this process as follows: creating a new movie, you have to go all the way “from sludge to NOT sludge”. Team members "summarize" each other's ideas, thereby increasing team productivity . They do not condemn and do not criticize the thoughts voiced during the meetings, even if the ideas are really “stoned”. They use what is called "building". That is, if one team member voices a raw idea, the rest say, “Yes, it sounds good, but what if we do like this?” This is much more effective than just saying that the idea in its current form does not like it and ignore it. The idea of ​​building, borrowed from the rules of improvisation, is the core of the culture of Pixar. The bottom line is to improve someone's idea, take the good elements, and then develop them to a state of perfection.

Creative people do not just solve problems - they look for them

One of the most interesting discoveries made in the course of research of creativity, such as the work of psychology professor Mihai Chiksentmihayi, is that creative individuals tend to try a lot of things before choosing a solution. These people do not just solve problems, they carefully search for them.

• YouTube was originally a dating site. This path did not lead to anything and, ultimately, the creators of the resource found a way to make it a platform for storing and displaying video online.
• eBay at the beginning was by Pez Dispenser.
• Google started as a project for the library at Stanford, in which the creators tried to help users simplify and prioritize the search for books in the library. The task was successfully solved, but at some point Larry Page and Sergey Brin understood: “We are very interested in how you can take a whole bunch of information and use it to prioritize search results!” They realized that they could solve a lot more significant problem.

The sooner you find problems, the sooner you can offer their innovative solutions.

Obviously, Google coped with this task. We can observe the same thing in a study on psychology: people who come up with several solutions to a question, before choosing one, as a rule, give the most creative results of their work.

Spend 10% of your time experimenting.

Set a number of requirements and restrictions for yourself, and then tell yourself: “I am going to try to act in a given direction for a few weeks and see what it will lead to. I will take notes to assess progress. I will look at the situation critically and decide whether to continue to move the same way or better to turn back. ” You can use this basic philosophy every time you start something new or creative: consider the requirements and allowable losses.

At some point, you start looking for qualitative or quantitative evidence that you are on the right track, and this will happen before you enter the big game with the appropriate risks.

The way of thinking is what matters most. Willingness to spend 5 - 10% of your time on experiments will help you (not immediately, of course) to develop a creative and entrepreneurial spirit, and to get new opportunities that we didn’t guess earlier.

PS We recommend another article on the topic - “5 major mistakes or why your rational decisions do not work?”

Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult .