CREATIVE MINDS: How to Find the Profits Hidden in Your Brain (60) pic (need to orient to title) done Put pics in

Creative Minds are particularly attuned to two steps in the creative process:  incubation and insight.  I will give you example after example of creative minds that used these two steps to incubate amazing discoveries–all of which changed the world and created great profits for the person who birthed the insight.

The Five-Step Creative Process

Creative people produce outcomes through a Five Step Creative Process:  Immersion, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration (Csikszentmihalyi 1996).  These steps have often been named differently and executed differently.  In truth, they do not really exist in neat little packages, but instead, they often blend into one another and become recursive, rather than linear.

Though each step is important in the creative process, I will talk primarily about only two of the five:  incubation and insight.  Before I go into detail about these two steps, I will briefly explain the other steps.

Step One:  Immersion

Briefly, immersion is about people being totally immersed in the creative, research, or discovery process.  This often involves reading, researching, talking to people, listening to ideas, practicing, etc.–basically doing anything that the specific activity or field requires and surrounding or immersing themselves in the process.

Step Four:  Evaluation

Evaluation requires that once incubation (Step Two) and insight (Step Three) have occurred, creative people evaluate the results.  Creative people evaluate their creations from both their own minds and external reality.  Creatives are passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective in their evaluations about it as well (Csikszentmihalyi 1996).

Step Five:  Elaboration

This step usually involves the most work and the most time.  It is putting legs on theories, songs, novels, business innovation, etc.  It is the working out, in a very real, practical way the great insight(s) that are caught during the prior stages.  It is simply putting in the time, energy, and dedication to bring one’s insights to fruition where they are useful, observable, and/or marketable.  As Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

(SLIDE 8)  These three steps are just as vital to the creative process as the next two, but for our purposes today, we will explore the middle two steps of the process in depth:  incubation and insight.  Incubation is a process that is supported by many factors, alone time being one of them.  Insight can be explained as creative thinking, creative seeing, and creative knowing.

Incubation

(SLIDE 9)  Incubation:  A Process

Incubation, as the term implies, is a period of process when ideas are in a growth-resting state and are not always conscious or visible to the person incubating them.  The creative person often senses movement, but the outcome is not yet apparent, defined, or containable.  Part of what allows this stage to exist is the creative person’s view of problem-solving.

They very clearly understand the incubation process as process!  In fact, in people whose work was viewed as more creative, one of the primary distinctions that was found was that the most creative did not start with a clear direction, but rather were experimental, open-ended, and discovery-oriented; in contrast, the less creative toiled on a problem they had already visualized (Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi 1968).

Typically, creative people during this stage:

• Don’t rush to define the nature of the problem
• View the situation from various angles
• Leave the formulation undetermined for a long period of time
• Consider different causes and reasons
• Test their hunches (in their own mind, then in reality)
• Try tentative solutions
• Check their success
• Reformulate the problem if they are on the wrong path

(Csikszentmihalyi 1996, p. 365)

(SLIDE 10)  Incubation:  Alone Time

Incubation of ideas and creativity is often done during alone time.  For instance, in one study, researchers (Amabile, Hadley et al. 2002) found that people under time pressure were less likely to think creatively.  Instead, when people are pressured for time, they tend to function on automatic. Author, Natalie Goldberg, agrees:

“If you’re having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up — to know that there’s life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can’t find it anywhere else.”

(SLIDE 11) Einstein said he took a job in the patent office early in his career because the work was so boring and routine it gave him time to think.  Songwriter, Johnny Cash, had this to say about his alone time need:

“I start a lot more songs than I finish because I realize when I get into them, they’re no good. I don’t throw them away, I just put them away, store them, and get them out of sight. When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, I’ll write it. Songwriting is a very strange thing as far as I’m concerned. It’s not something that I can say, “Next Tuesday morning, I’m gonna sit down and write songs.” I can’t do that. No way. If I say, I’m going to the country and take a walk in the woods next Tuesday, then the probability is, next Tuesday night I might write a song. Creative people have to be fed from the divine source I have to get fed. I had to get filled up in order to pour out. Really have to.”

The poet A.E. Housman spoke of the results of allowing this alone, relaxed window of time: “As I went along, thinking of nothing in particular, only looking at things around me and following the progress of the seasons, there would flow into my mind, with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse, sometimes a whole stanza at once (Goldberg 1983, p. 48).”

A contemporary example is that of Nobel laureate Melvin Calvin, who was sitting in a car waiting for his wife to complete an errand when the answer to a perplexing inconsistency in his research on photosynthesis dawned.  Calvin wrote of the discovery, “It occurred just like that quite suddenly- and suddenly also, in a matter of seconds, the path of carbon became apparent to me (Goldberg 1983, p. 46).”

This means two things:  you should be patient while your wife is shopping, and you should allow alone time for yourself.  Seriously, incubation, as the term implies, is a process.  Just like the incubation of an egg, the conditions must be right to allow incubation–growth and maturity—to happen.  Similarly, in creative incubation, one of the conditions that fosters the state of incubation is alone time, downtime, and thinking time.

Insight

(SLIDE 12) Innovative Solutions:  Taking the Risks

Just as incubation needs conditions to be right for its greatest benefit, so too, must conditions be right for insight to occur.  (SLIDE 13) Two researchers (Zuckerman and Lederberg 1986; Zuckerman and Cole 1994) said that “It has been suggested that riskier problems in science are more typically addressed either by established scientists who can afford to do so, or by those not established at all who have very little to lose.”  I remember when I was first starting graduate school many years ago, my mentor/professor said something along the same lines.  He said that great discoveries are made by people who “don’t know it can’t be done” (new in the field) or by people who have been in the field so long that they can make great leaps from the traditional knowledge into a completely new arena.  Regardless, it does seem that insight comes with a willingness to take risks and a willingness to depart from the norm.

Just recently, I was reading about a psychologist who helps people with ADHD through something called Computer-Aided Emotional Restructuring (CAER).  As he says,

“For the first twenty years, I read the books, took courses, and did the therapy as prescribed. As hard as I tried to make it work, the theoretical picture did not seem to fit the children I was seeing, nor did the prescribed therapy approaches prove very useful.

In 1991, I began to develop a radically different approach to psychotherapy for all of my patients. This led to the invention of a computerized psychotherapy machine, Computer Aided Emotional Restructuring (CAER). Computer Aided Emotional Restructuring is a new, patented, treatment that sprang from another new therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.  Unlike traditional therapies, CAER does not depend much on talking. Rather, it taps powerful neurological mechanisms to elicit deep relaxation and vivid mental imagery. When these two effects are juxtaposed, pathology-producing emotions are extinguished through a process called desensitization (Weathers 2004).”

This man’s work illustrates the departure from a domain’s norm that often yields great results.  He has a 94% success rate and a long client waiting list.  This departure from the norm has been experienced by many creative inventors.  Sometimes this new path was stumbled upon, other times it was taken very deliberately.

Choosing an atypical path requires somewhat of an iconoclastic, risk-taking personality and mindset—a trait that I mentioned earlier as being typical of creative people.

Insight:  Creative thinking, creative seeing, and creative knowing

(SLIDE 14) Creative people use many strategies to access ideas, thought patterns, and new approaches.  There are many roads to insight and creative people use all of them, often finding the one that fits their style better than another.  We will talk about insight from three directions:  creative thinking, creative seeing, and creative knowing.

(SLIDE 15)  Creative thinking

Creative people pursue “different, novel, and distinct choices” and in order to do this, they must have great mental flexibility, acute mindfulness, and a high level of abstract thinking.  The mental processes that creative people engage in are too numerous to talk about here, but I will talk about two typical types of thinking that creative people engage in: convergent and divergent thinking or insight.  In the book, Insight, the authors, Sternberg and Davidson (1996) describe the differences in convergent and divergent thinking.  But, more importantly, they take it a step further and describe the differences in convergent and divergent insight.  Since creative people use both, let’s examine these two types of thinking/insight:

Convergent thinking/insight

Convergent thinking “refers to thinking that focuses on a single idea or possibility, given a collection of facts.  Some examples of convergent thinking are realizing that someone is guilty of a crime after taking into account all of the evidence, or discovering that a particular route is the best possible way to get from Point A to point B, considering the traffic, the speed limits, and the road conditions (Sternberg and Davidson 1996 p. 255-256).” Convergent Insight makes sense out of disconnected facts, solves mysteries, and discovers an explanation.

An example of convergent thinking is the telegraph machine.  It was created by pulling together different ideas into a single idea.  Sending coded messages dates back to the ancient Greeks, who sent messages through fire; the American Indians used this system to send smoke signals.  In 1791, Claude Chappe used a series of towers and lights in the tower to transmit messages from one tower to the next.  With 120 towers, Chappe’s system could transmit a message from Paris to the Mediterranean in less than an hour—far less time than the fastest horse and rider.  Both of these systems depended on visible means; however, telegraphy was a major breakthrough because it used electricity, rather than sight to send messages.  All of these ideas—coded messages, relayed messages, and the use of electricity converged into the telegraph machine–an example of convergent thinking.

Divergent thinking/insight 

Divergent thinking refers to “thinking that flows outward from a concept, making contact with other ideas and possibilities that one might not ordinarily consider.  It leads to the discovery of remote associations and insights into unusual uses for common things, such as realizing that a pair of scissors can be used as a weapon, a hole punch, or a weight for a pendulum (Sternberg and Davidson 1996, p. 255).”

Divergent insight occurs when one begins with a structure and then tries to find novel uses for it or novel implications of it.  As shown by studies on problem finding, artists often generate interesting structures without specific goals in mind, simply to explore the possibilities those structures afford (Fetzels & Csikszentmihalyi, 1976:  Perkins, 1981).  Divergent insight takes a function-follows-form approach rather than a form-follows-function approach (Finke, 1990).  “Divergent insight is like an explorer who follows a path just to see what might be discovered.  In divergent insight, one tries to find the meaning in the structure rather than to structure that which is meaningful (Sternberg and Davidson 1996).”

Velcro was invented from divergent thinking.  In 1948, George de Mastral noticed that burrs or burdock seeds had hook-like protrusions that made them adhere to things.  He applied this concept to create a fastening system for clothes that would be easier to use than buttons.  Ala!  Velcro.  Virtual reality was first created in 1985 by Jaron Lanier with movies and games in mind.  However, using divergent thinking/insight, many other uses were created for virtual reality such as simulated flight training and even the creation of a virtual body to help doctors during surgery.

(SLIDE 17, 18, 19, 20)  Creative seeing

Creative seeing is a function of perception.  It could be argued that perception is more a function of one’s mind than one’s eyes, but nevertheless, perception is about seeing.  For instance, in one study, researchers found that policemen see more hostility, aggression, and violence in a social scene than do non-policemen viewing the same social scene.  Obviously, if the viewed social scene is identical, then what is being “read into” the scene comes from the seer, not the seen.  This phenomenon is encapsulated in the saying: “perception is reality.”

If the phrase “perception is reality” is a truism, then it could be said that creative people’s perceptual fields are boundaryless.  Creative people see through different eyes.  They see connections and possibilities that are continually morphing.  They see the invisible, see things differently, see both background and foreground and see more than what readily meets the eye.

(SLIDE 21) In 1793, Volta observed the electrical interaction between two different metals—copper and zinc—when they were submerged next to each other in an acidic solution.  This observation was the beginning of the invention of batteries, with “volt” being from his name—Volta.   In 1727, a German doctor, J. H. Schulz observed that silver chloride was darkened by exposure to light.  This observation—though many steps removed from the final product–was the inception of photography.  Finally, the observation was that the evaporation of brine or salt water absorbed heat, and therefore, a container placed in brine would stay longer.  This observation was one of the basic premises that later resulted in refrigeration.

(SLIDE 22) What to Do With a Bad Idea

Many lucrative inventions have come about very unintentionally, but the “inventor” was able to see or capture possibilities inherent in the “mishap.”  The inventors were often seeking another outcome but were aware enough to recognize different possibilities when they presented themselves.  For instance, sticky notes were created from “bad” glue by inventors who were trying to invent “good glue.”  Rather than throw out the “bad” glue, they asked themselves what purpose the glue they were “stuck with” could be used for.  Ala!  Sticky notes!

Potato chips were a culinary mistake made by an unknown chef at a Saratoga Springs hotel.

Vulcanized rubber was the product of an accidentally spilled mixture onto a hot surface.  Goodyear was perceptive enough to recognize that although vulcanized rubber was not what he was trying to invent, this “bad” product might have some uses.  50 zillion tires later….  All of these examples point to the power of “creative seeing”—perception, observation, and openness.

(SLIDE 23) Creative knowing:  Intuition

If creative thinking and creative seeing are important, so is creative knowing.  One form of creative knowing could also be termed intuition.  One researcher defines intuition as the “vague anticipatory perception that orients creative work in a promising direction (Policastro 1995, p. 99).  Creative knowing is often hard to define, but commonly experienced and highly valued.  Albert Einstein said, “The really valuable thing is intuition.”

And Buckminster Fuller who is best known for the invention of the geodesic dome–the lightest, strongest, and most cost-effective structure ever devised said, “Intuition often turns dreams into demonstrable facts.”  And finally, Henri Poincare had this to say: “It is by logic that we prove.  It is by intuition that we discover (Poincare 1969).”

(SLIDE 24) This intuitive insight or knowing is the reason that Chrysler was saved in the 1990s.  Bob Lutz, then the company’s president, relying on “intuitive insight,” ordered the company to develop a sports car that later became the Dodge Viper and whose sales pulled Chrysler out of financial catastrophe (Hayashi 2001).  This creative knowing is also often used in decision-making by business people:

“It seems that successful decision-making requires the same uncanny sense of direction and the same creative fertility that characterize great science.  Executive suites and laboratories have more in common with artist’s studios than we have realized.  In a widely quoted article in the Harvard Business Review, Henry Mintzberg of the McGill University Faculty of Management reported the results of an extensive study of corporate executives.

He found that the high-ranking manager operating under chaotic and unpredictable conditions is a ‘holistic thinker … constantly relying on hunches to cope with problems far too complex for rational analysis.’  Mintzberg concludes that ‘organizational effectiveness does not lie in that narrow-minded concept called ‘rationality’: it lies in a blend of clear-headed logic and powerful intuition’(Goldberg 1983, p. 23).”

(SLIDE 25) Creative knowing:  Dreams

And finally, another way of “creative knowing” is through dreams.  A sculptor I knew in Santa Fe was commissioned to do a sculpture for the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.  She dreamed the design of five horses jumping over a broken-down wall.  This sculpture of five jumping horses now stands at the Berlin Wall ruins.

Jacquelyn Mitchard, who wrote the book, The Deep End of the Ocean, dreamed the whole story.  She said she dreamed about a three-year-old child who vanished from a hotel lobby, she dreamed the names in the story, and she dreamed what happened in the end.  When it had become a bestseller and then was turned into a movie, her 13-year-old said, “So tough job.  You just dreamed it and wrote it down, right?”  Never mind that she had struggled for 23 years as a writer before that.

Dreams have often aided scientists in their “creative knowing.”  Elias Howe dreamed he was being boiled by cannibals.  Their spears had holes in the points—at the opposite ends.  Howe was working on the invention of the sewing machine at the time but could not figure out the needle part.  His dream revealed his mistake—in his original design, the hole was at the wrong end of the needle and wouldn’t work.  Niels Bohr dreamed about a horse race with chalk lines dividing lanes for the horses.  Strict rules governed the crossing of lanes.  This dream was the basis of Bohr’s model for electron orbits and quantized energy levels in atoms—the famous Bohr atom.

Friedrich August von Kekule, while staring into a fireplace, had a dream of a snake biting its own tail.  He realized this was the unknown, ring-like structure of benzene.  This was the fundamental inspiration for the understanding of hydrocarbon chemistry.

And of course, the most famous example of creative knowing through dreams was Einstein’s dream of sledding down a hill and speeding up to the speed of light.  He had this dream as a teenager but said this: “My entire scientific career was a meditation on that dream.”

And besides lots and lots of anecdotal evidence for dreams, there is also hard research supporting it as well.  In one study, researchers (Root-Bernstein, Bernstein, et al. 1995) found that the most creative scientists interviewed differed from the less creative ones in that they reported more often that their ideas arose while dreaming, or while working on a different but related problem.

Another set of researchers (Pagel and Kwiatkowski 2003) found that greater involvement in the creative process was significantly associated with greater incorporation of dreams into waking behavior.  “Creative knowing” somehow transcends logic—or perhaps is simply a different kind of logic.

Creative knowing happens through intuition, dreams, or what could be termed a “sixth sense.”  No matter how it is defined, it is important, valuable, and an integral part of being creative.  Creative people share ten sets of seemingly opposite traits.

To quote Csikszentmihalyi:

“If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it would be complexity.  By this, I mean that they show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated.  They contain contradictory extremes–instead of being an ‘individual,’ each of them is a ‘multitude.’  Like the color white that includes all the hues  in the spectrum, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves (Csikszentmihalyi 1996, p. 57).”

The creative process has five key steps, though they blend back and forth into each other.  Two of those steps are incubation and insight.

Creativity is a combination of many things:  the personality of the creator, the process the creator engages in, and the synergy of both of these, as well as many other things.  Learning to enhance our creativity can give us, as creators, a sense of satisfaction while we add value and beauty to the world through our creative contributions.

References:

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York, Harper.

Goldberg, P. (1983). The Intuitive Edge, G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Hayashi, A. M. (2001). “When to trust your gut.” Harvard Business Review 79(2): 59-66.

Pagel, J. F. and C. F. Kwiatkowski (2003). “Creativity and dreaming: Correlation of reported dream incorporation into waking behavior with level and type of creative interest.” Creativity Research Journal 15(2/3): 199-125.

Poincare, H. (1969). “Intuition and logic mathematics.” Mathematics Teacher 62(3): 205-212.

Policastro, E. (1995). “Creative intuition:  An integrative review.” Creativity Research Journal 8: 99-113.

Sternberg, R. J. and J. E. Davidson, Eds. (1996). The Nature of insight. MA, Massachutsetts Institute of Technology.

Weathers, L. (2004). ADHD Help, http://www.adhdhelp.com/. 2004.

Zuckerman, H. and J. R. Cole (1994). “Research strategy in science:  A preliminary inquiry.” Creativity Research Journal 7: 391-405.

Zuckerman, H. and J. Lederberg (1986). “Forty years of genetic recombination with bacteria:  A post-nature discovery.” Nature 324: 629-31.