I basically extract what I find most useful from the book and share it. I try to leave the authors voice intact as he is the writer. I am the reader.
If you have ever wondered if you are creative or somebody else is. Or "if you only had more time". Or "if you only hope the Greek gods would show up for the Aha! moment!". Or if you don't necessarily volunteer your ideas as they would be stolen.... Or disregard the opinions of those who are not SME. Or you if you think you can achieve the top creative idea by yourself. Or if you think you have a great idea, yet the world thinks otherwise.
The Eureka Myth
"It came just to me"
What he found was that almost all of the people he studied shared a similar creative process that consisted of five stages: preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation , and elaboration.
Incubation is the stage where people briefly step back from their work. Many creative people intentionally set a project aside and take a physical break from their work .
However, just as in the case of the Post-it note, these flashes of genius are actually part of a larger process of creative work. Each stage in the process is vital to innovation. Without preparation our mind doesn't have much material to work with. Without incubation ,we can become fixated on solutions that don't work and never generate the insight we need.
The lesson of incubation is to work hard on a creative task or difficult problem, but to shift tasks whenever we get stuck, giving ourselves permission to let our minds wander to something else for a little while.
The Breed Myth
"He/She is a natural"
...it can still seem as through creative individuals are a select group. It feels as if the people we view as outstandingly creative are just a certain breed- that they are cut from different cloth than the rest of us.
The distinction goes beyond individuals in organizations. ... they still demonstrate the belief that certain occupations are filled with people who are creative and presumably others hosue their non-creative counterparts. It is easy to look at the output from design firms and entertainment companies and find creativity. It is a lot harder to recognize the creativity in a place like Walmart, despite its drastic innovations in areas like product pricing and supply chain management.
After Einstein's death his brain was removed and preserved. Psychologists and medical doctors alike subjected the brain to close examination in hopes of finding a biological explanation for his creativity and genius. In the case of Einstein, none of the studies revealed any significant difference between his brain and the brain of most humans - except for the surprising find that his brain was significantly smaller in mass than the average male brain. Instead of hierarchy, Gore is structured as what it calls a lattice. This lattice is a horizontal structure in which everyone is connected to everyone else.
Our current understanding of genetics leaves us eager to explain away creative ability as coded into someone's genes and thus downplay the creative potential of others.
Creative ability isn't limited to a particular personality type, and it isn't controlled by our genetic code.
The Originality Myth
We want to believe that seemingly unique inventions and creations are the product of a sole creator. When we have a creative idea, we want the world to recognize us as the genius we are, so we , in turn recognize others as sole geniuses behind their great ideas.
Gray matter is literally what we think about when we think. White matter, in contrast , is the connective tissue that transfers electrical signals across the brain like the wire of a telescope.
As Isacc Newton said "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants". Indeed , Newton was standing on the shoulders of another giant when he derived that saying from Bernard of Cahrters, who originally said "We are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they"
The theory that new creations are combinations of existing ideas isn't itself a new idea either. .... creative thinking was simply "the forming of associative elements into new combinations which either meet specific requirements or are in some way useful"
...every person is also trapped within his or her own adjacent possible. In their creative endeavors, people can only borrow from ideas and materials to which they have been exposed. The more environments and influences they open themselves up to, the wider their adjacent possible is and the more likely they are to stumble across the creative finish line first. The more they can develop their brain's white matter to make connections across gray matter, the greater their potential for a creative insight.In fact, keeping an idea to yourself may be what keeps it from being developed.
The Expert myth
..the belief that a correlation exists between the depth of a person's knowledge and the quality of the work that person can produce.
..the correlation between a person's level of expertise and his or her creative output isn't what one might expect. As expertise grows, creativity sometimes diminishes.
Erdo's strategy on a larger scale.... is regularly seeking outsiders for new insights without regard to their education or specific expertise.
The Incentive Myth
These organizations have found little correlation between creative work and the size of an incentive.
When we are naturally interested in our work, engrossed in it while we do it and thinking bout it even when we're not, we are intrinsically motivated. ... intrinsic motivation results in far more creative work than extrinsic motivation.
..Edwar Deci, who found that the presence of certain extrinsic rewards could actually remove the intrinsic motivation that was already present in an individual. In certain conditions, incentives can actually block the motivation we need to do creative work.
We all need a level of compensation substantial enough to avoid being distracted by our financial situation and to allow us instead to focus on being creative.
Incentives or rewards that are used as a for of recognition for quality performance seem to increase intrinsic interest in creative work. Moreover, rewards that enable people to work on something they are naturally interested in have an even greater effect.
These traditions are rationalized through the assumption that the higher the incentive, the better the work.
These organizations believe the the opposite approach, wasting money on incentive programs to produce artificial motivation and poorer-quality work, is even riskier.
The Lone Creator Myth
Too often , however, we prefer to recognize only one person for an outstanding creative work. This isn't just a selective revision; it is fabrication. Uzzi and Spiro's findings recognize the strength and fragility of team collaboration. The creativity of a production is enhanced when diverse people work together. In addition, the closeness of a team affects its performance, as total strangers forced to work together can have problems exchanging ideas. But people who are overly familiar with each other aren't that good for creativity either.
Creativity is a team sport.
Those teams operate best when they are a healthy mix of preexisting and new connections -shred experiences and totally new perspectives. Teams with a wide knowledge of creative ideas and an efficient means of sharing them are best suited to produce, new innovative work.
The Constraints Myth
We assume creativity needs total freedom to grow and develop.
At the same time, we constantly affirm the need to "think outside the box", often without having fully explored the inside of it.
There is no support for the idea that constraints hinder creativity. In fact, the research supports the opposite, and many innovative teams will you that creativity loves constraints.
Amabile's point is that some constraints often aid the creative process and increase the quality of work produced. Constraints provide a starting point and a problem to solve. This is a hard truth for some to accept: that a lack of resources may not be their true constraint, just a lack of resourcefulness. That's because of all of us have a self-imposed that the future will evolve neatly from the present. We actually constrain ourselves to think linearly and don't consider what disruptive innovations will occur. The envisioned future is just one example of a fundamental tendency of human cognition: we imagine from within the comfortable constraints of our own experience. If we're given free rein to be creative or to solve a problem, we typically end up focusing on what we know or what has worked in the past.
Stokes' research has revealed four constraints that promote creativity: domain constraints, cognitive constraints, variability constraints , and talent constraints.
Domain : Regardless of the field, everyone requires a certain level of understanding before he or she can contribute novel and original ideas.
Cognitive constraints come from the limitations of the mind both the creator's and that of the audience. Creative ideas have to be novel and useful, and that usefulness is judged against the cognitive constrains of the beholder.
Variability constraints consider how much a given piece of work or creative process needs to vary from the existing standards. Exact copies aren't recognized as creative, though copies with unique modifications can be. Variability constraints differ greatly across industries and creative genres, just as the tolerance for mimicry differs across fields.
Talent constraints refer to the abilities that Stokes believes are genetic. Tone-deaf individuals will have a significant disadvantage in musical composition.
Stokve problems.
"Cones believes that these four constraints aid creativity by providing a structure that helps solve problems. Creative constraints are advantages in disguise"... Fried and Hansson write. "Limited resources force you to make do with wat you've got. There is no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative"
"Stop whining. Less is a good thing."
The Mousetrap Myth
...assumption that once you have a creative idea or innovative new product, getting others to see its value is the easy part, and that if you develop a great idea, the world will willingly embrace it.
Creative ideas, by their very nature, invite judgement. People need to know if the value promised by the new is worth the abandonment of the old.
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
It is not enough to merely generate great ideas. .... our organizations need innovative solutions, we also live in a world biased against creative ideas.
It is not enough for an organization to have creative people it has to develop a culture that doesn't reject great ideas. It is not enough for people to learn how to be more creative; they also need to be persistent through the rejection they might face.
