Beginning To Think Creatively
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You may have heard of Roger von Oech's book, A Whack on
the Side of the Head: How to Unlock Your Mind for
Innovation. It's as much fun to read as its title
suggests. It covers the ten common obstacles to creative
thinking. It's about ways in which you can unlock your mind for
innovation, for change, for more interest, or even for a career
change.
Mr. Von Oech writes about the time when his English teacher in
high school put a small chalk dot on the blackboard and asked
the class to tell him what it was. A few seconds passed, and
then someone said, "It's a chalk dot on the board." The rest of
the class seemed relieved that the obvious had been stated, and
no one else had anything more to say.
"I'm surprised at you," replied the teacher, "Yesterday I did
the same exercise with a group of kindergartners, and they
thought of fifty different things the chalk mark could be:
* a cat's eye, * a cigar butt,
* a star, * a pebble,
* a squashed bug, * a rotten egg,
* a head, * and so on.
The lesson that I wish to share with you is the importance of
looking for more than one right answer. When you look, you will
be surprised to learn how many answers are available.
We have been trained in school to look only for the first right
answer to every problem. The average person does this; the
creative person looks for many.
Looking beyond the first solution to a problem can result in a
whole new set of serendipitous solutions - solutions that can be
a hundred times better than the first one.
Remember: When you maximize your potential, everyone
wins. When you don't, we all lose.