POINTS TO PONDER: ENHANCING PERCEPTUAL SENSITIVITY

I remember the first time I encountered the book, 'Thinkertoys', it was actually the first edition released during the early 90's. 

That was also about the time I began to explore the various options with regard to my mid-life transition. 

In fact, I had initially spotted a brief but interesting review of the book in the Entrepreneur magazine.

I managed to trace the publisher and had even immediately ordered the first 100 copies for my debut bookstore. It became the best seller in my store for many years. 

Next, came 'Cracking Creativity' a few years later, as well as the accompanying brainstorming card deck, 'Thinkpak', to 'Thinkertoys'.

What impressed as well as benefited me most is not so much the creativity tools outlined in both books. In fact, the most productive learning experiences I got out of both books are a few very important things, which I would like to share with readers.

Let's take a look at the book, ‘Thinkertoys’, first. 

In the Introduction, the author started off with a visual puzzle: 'Can you identify the figure below?'

Only by shifting your focus, you can then see the hidden word within the figure.

In the author's own words, "...by changing your perspectives, you can expand your possibilities..."

Let's move to second book, 'Cracking Creativity'. 

In the Introduction, the author prefaced it with a simple arithmetic equation: What is half of thirteen?

The subsequent passages as outlined in ‘Part I: Seeing What No One else is Seeing’, and ‘Strategy I: Knowing How to See’, by the author, revealed the secrets to getting many possible answers (or perspectives) to the above equation.

No creativity tool outlined in the above two books (or elsewhere in the world, for that matter) can help you to become more creative until you fully understand - & appreciate - what the author is trying to drive home in his two books.

In a nut shell, it basically boils down to one important thing: Use - and  enhance - your perceptual sensitivity to the environment!

The author may not be the first person to postulate this crucial aspect of creativity.

I would consider Leonardo da Vinci to be the first person to have understood and  practised it religiously. 

He said, in order to have a complete mind, one must use all our senses, especially, the sense of sight, among a few other things. 

In other words, one must LEARN TO SEE the world.

Edward de Bono had also broached this valuable concept in his groundbreaking series of lateral thinking books, starting with 'Mechanism of Mind' in the 70's.

I have always believed that you can't do things differently until you can see things differently.

Learning to see the world anew and from different perspectives is imperative if one wants to be more creative.

According to de Bono, creativity starts at the perceptual stage of thinking. He terms it, ‘First Order Thinking’. 

He added very beautifully:

"This is where our perceptions & concepts are formed, and this is where they have to be changed. Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic."

The creativity tools, whether they are from the author's mentioned books or elsewhere, will then automatically fall into place and make more sense when you have first exercised your perceptual sensitivity.

Using any tool is a piece of cake, but changing one's perception - and  maintaining fluidity of perception as well as having multiple perceptions - takes concerted efforts.

It is also important to take note that when things (or tactics) don't seem to work out as planned, always remember to check out your observations of the world first. Simply ask:

- what do you CHOOSE to see?

- where do you DIRECT your attention?

The second most productive learning experience I got from the above two books is realising that all thoughts are simply feats of association and/or juxtapositions - and the crux of creativity (in fact, also learning) are making associations and/or juxtapositions.

Tom Peters, in his wonderful book, ‘Liberation Management’, drives home with this insightful nugget:

"The essence of creation - in all endeavours - is chance connections between ideas & facts that are previously segregated. 

Entrepreneurship is the direct by-product of chance, of convoluted connections among ideas, needs and people."

Jay Abraham, high-powered marketing whiz, once shares these very interesting observations:

- ice cream was invented in 2000BC. Yet it was 3900 years later before someone figured out the ice cream cone;
- meat was on this planet before humans. Bread was baked in 2600 BC. Nevertheless it took another 4900 years for somebody to put together & create the sandwich;
- The modern flush toilet was invented in 1775, but it wasn't until 1857 that somebody thought up toilet paper;

According to him, "once these obvious connections have been made, they seem so obvious. So evident. We can't believe we didn't see them sooner. The endless number of these unmade connections exist to this day, especially in the business world." 

He adds further:

"You are surrounded by simple, obvious solutions that can dramatically uncover your income, power, influence, & success, the problem is you just don't see them."

Leonardo da vinci once said, “everything is connected to everything else”.

The recurring question is therefore: CAN YOU SEE IT? 

The creativity exercises outlined by the author are specifically designed for this purpose.

The third most productive learning experience for me is the understanding of the differential between productive and reproductive thinking.

To paraphrase the author:

"...in productive thinking, one generates as many alternative approaches as one can, considering the least as well as the most likely approaches ... in contrast, reproductive thinking fosters rigidity of thought..."

More relevant aspects about the significance of and more specific strategies to develop productive thinking are excellently covered by the author in 'Cracking Creativity'.

In the light of what I have written, I would consider the author's two books as the dynamic duo...to be among the best in the genre! It will be really worth your while to get and carry the ‘Thinkpak’ in your pocket at all times.

[In reality, ‘Thinkpak’ is just an extension of one of the oldest creativity tools (SCAMPER) outlined in 'Thinkertoys'. It's designed as a pack of cards, but they are very powerful triggers for generating multiple perspectives.]

MAKING THOUGHTS VISIBLE, A LESSON FROM ALBERT EINTSEIN

According to creativity expert, Michael Michalko, writing about his 'A Theory about Genius' in the wonderful book, 'Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius', creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history often relied on their visual thinking approaches to make important breakthroughs.

One great example came from Albert Einstein.

"One of the most complete descriptions of Einstein's philosophy of science, was found in a letter to his friend, Maurice Solovine. In the letter, Einstein explained the difficulty of attempting to use words to explain his philosophy of science because, as he said, he thinks about such things schematically.

The letter started with a simple drawing consisting of (1) a straight line representing E (experiences), which are given to us, and (2) A (axioms), which are situated above the line but not directly linked to the line.


[Note: This is an approximation. Einstein's original sketch is in the Albert Einstein Archives, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.]

Einstein explained that psychologically the A rests upon the E.

There exists, however, no logical path from E to A, but only an intuitive connection, which is always subject to revocation. From axioms, one can make certain deductions (S), which may lay claim to being correct.

In essence, Einstein was saying that it is the theory that determines what we observe. Einstein argued that scientific thinking is speculative, and only in its end product does it lead to a system that is characterized as "logical simplicity."

Unable to satisfactorily describe his thoughts in words, Einstein made his thought visible by diagraming his philosophy's main features and characteristics."

What intrigues most about the Einstein Sketch is the "intuitive connection" from 'E' to 'A'. That's the fuzzy part, which I like to know more about. Dilip Mukerjea likes to call it, 'Junction Dynamics'.

8 THINKING STRATEGIES OF GENIUSES, by Michael Michalko

Michael Michalko, author of the two classics, 'Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Business Creativity' & 'Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Geniuses', & creator of 'ThinkPak: A Brainstorming Card Set', shares the following 8 thinking strategies of geniuses: [Please read my review in earlier post of this weblog.]

1. Geniuses look at problems in many different ways.

Genius often comes from finding a new perspective that no one else has taken.

Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways.

He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased toward his usual way of seeing things. He would restructure his problem by looking at it from one perspective and move to another perspective and still another.

With each move, his understanding would deepen and he would begin to understand the essence of the problem.

Einstein's theory of relativity is, in essence, a description of the interaction between different perspectives.

Freud's analytical methods were designed to find details that did not fit with traditional perspectives in order to find a completely new point of view.

In order to solve a problem creatively, the thinker must abandon the initial approach, which stems from past experience, and reconceptualize the problem.

By not settling for one perspective, geniuses do not merely solve existing problems, such as inventing an environment-friendly fuel. They identify new ones.

2. Geniuses make their thought visible.

The explosion of creativity in the Renaissance was intimately tied to the recording and conveying of vast knowledge in drawings, graphs, and diagrams, as in the renowned diagrams of da Vinci and Galileo.

Galileo revolutionized science by making his thought graphically visible while his contemporaries used only conventional mathematical and verbal approaches.

Once geniuses obtain a certain minimal verbal facility, they seem to develop a skill in visual and spatial abilities that gives them the flexibility to display information in different ways.

When Einstein had thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways as possible, including using diagrams.

He had a very visual mind; he thought in terms of visual and spatial forms, rather than thinking along purely mathematical or verbal lines of reasoning.

In fact, Einstein believed that words and numbers, as they are written or spoken, did not play a significant role in his thinking process.

3. Geniuses produce.

A distinguishing characteristic of genius is immense productivity.

Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents, still the record. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. His own personal quota was one minor invention every 10 days and a major invention every six months.

Bach wrote a cantata every week, even when he was sick or exhausted.

Mozart produced more than 600 pieces of music.

Einstein is best known for his paper on relativity, but he published 248 other papers.

T.S. Eliot's numerous drafts of 'The Waste Land' constitute a jumble of good and bad passages that eventually was turned into a masterpiece.

In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also more "bad" ones. Out of their massive quantity of work came quality.

4. Geniuses make novel combinations.

In his 1989 book 'Scientific Genius', Simonton suggests that geniuses form more novel combinations than do the merely talented.

Like the highly playful child with a bucket of building blocks, a genius is constantly combining and recombining ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations in their conscious and subconscious minds.

Consider Einstein's equation, E = [mc.sup.2].

Einstein did not invent the concepts of energy, mass, or speed of light. Rather, by combining these concepts in a novel way, he was able to look at the same world as everyone else and see something different.

The laws of heredity on which the modern science of genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel, who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science.

5. Geniuses force relationships.

If one particular style of thought stands out about creative genius, it is the ability to make juxtapositions between dissimilar subjects. This facility to connect the unconnected enables them to see things others do not.

Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves.

In 1865, EA. Kekule intuited the shape of the ringlike benzene molecule by dreaming of a snake biting its tail.

Samuel Morse was stumped trying to figure out how to produce a telegraphic signal strong enough to transmit coast to coast.

One day he saw tied horses being exchanged at a relay station and forced a connection between relay stations for horses and strong signals. The solution was to give the traveling signal periodic boosts of power.

6. Geniuses think in opposites.

Physicist and philosopher David Bohm believed geniuses were able to think different thoughts because they could tolerate ambivalence between opposites or two incompatible subjects.

Albert Rothenberg, a noted researcher on the creative process, identified this ability in a wide variety of geniuses - including Einstein, Mozart, Edison, Pasteur, Conrad, and Picasso - in his 1990 book 'The Emerging Goddess: The Creative Process in Art, Science, and Other Fields'.

Physicist Niels Bohr believed, that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought and your mind moves to a new level. The suspension of thought allows an intelligence beyond thought to act and create a new form.

The swirling of opposites creates the conditions for a new point of view to bubble freely from your mind.

Bohr's ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity.

Thomas Edison's invention of a practical system of lighting involved combining wiring in parallel circuits with high-resistance filaments in his bulbs two things that were not considered possible by conventional thinkers (in fact, were not considered at all because of an assumed incompatibility).

Because Edison could tolerate the ambivalence between two incompatible things, he could see the relationship that led to his breakthrough.

7. Geniuses think metaphorically.

Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, believing that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts.

If unlike things are really alike in some ways, perhaps they are so in others.

Alexander Graham Bell compared the inner workings of the ear to a stout piece of membrane moving steel - and conceived the telephone.

Einstein derived and explained many of his abstract principles by drawing analogies with everyday occurrences such as rowing a boat or standing on a platform while a train passed by.

8. Geniuses prepare themselves for chance.

Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. We may ask ourselves why we have failed to do what we intended, which is a reasonable question.

But the creative accident provokes a different question: What have we done? Answering that question in a novel, unexpected way is the essential creative act. It is not luck, but creative insight of the highest order.

Alexander Fleming was not the first physician studying deadly bacteria to notice that mold formed on an exposed culture. A less gifted physician would have trashed this seemingly irrelevant event, but Fleming noted it as "interesting" and wondered if it had potential. This "interesting" observation led to penicillin.

Edison, while pondering how to make a carbon filament, was mindlessly toying with a piece of putty, turning and twisting it in his fingers, when he looked down at his hands and the answer hit him between the eyes: Twist the carbon like rope.

B.F. Skinner emphasized a first principle of scientific methodologists:

When you find something interesting, drop everything else and study it. Too many fail to answer opportunity's knock at the door because they have to finish some preconceived plan.

Creative geniuses do not wait for the gifts of chance; instead, they actively seek the accidental discovery.

[Extracted from an article entitled 'Thinking like a Genius: Eight Strategies used by the Supercreative, from Aristotle and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison', which originally appeared in May 1998 issue of 'The Futurist', a journal of The World Future Society.]

A REVIEW OF MICHAEL MICHALKO'S CREATIVITY STUFF

I consider Michael Michalko's creativity stuff among the best of the genre!

The first time I had encountered 'Thinkertoys', it was actually the first edition released during the early 90's, when it was also about the time I had begun to explore the various options with regard to my mid-life transition.

In fact, I had initially spotted an interesting review in the Entrepreneur magazine. I managed to trace the publisher & had immediately ordered the first 100 copies for my debut bookstore. It became the best seller in my store for many years.

Then came 'Cracking Creativity' a few years later as well as the accompanying brainstorming card deck, 'Thinkpak', to 'Thinkertoys'.

What impressed me most is not so much the creativity tools outlined in both books. In fact, the most productive learning experiences I got out of both books are a few very important things, which I would like to share with readers.

Let's take a look at 'Thinkertoys' first.

In the Introduction, the author started off with a visual puzzle: 'Can you identify the figure below?' Only by shifting your focus, you can then see the hidden word within the figure.

In the author's own words,

"...by changing your perspectives, you can expand your possibilities..."

Let's now move to 'Cracking Creativity'.

In the Introduction, the author introduced a simple arithmetic equation: What is half of thirteen?

The subsequent passages as outlined in Part I: Seeing What No One else in Seeing, & Strategy I: Knowing How to See, by the author revealed the secrets to getting many possible answers (or perspectives) to the above equation.

No creativity tool outlined in the above two books (or elsewhere in the world, for that matter) can help you to become more creative until you fully understand - & appreciate - what the author is trying to drive home in his two books.

In a nut shell, it basically boils down to one important thing: Use - & enhance - your power of vision! or power of observation!

The author may not be the first person to postulate this crucial aspect of creativity.

I would consider Leonardo da Vinci to be the first person to have understood & practised it religiously more than five centuries ago. He said, among a few other things,

"All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions."

". . . if you wish to gain knowledge of the form of problems, begin to see it in many different ways."

In fact, he put a lot of emphasis on using your senses, especially your sense of sight.

Creativity guru Edward de Bono had also broached this valuable concept in his ground-breaking series of lateral thinking books, starting with his now classic, 'Mechanism of Mind', in the 70's.

I have always believed that you can't do things differently until you can see things differently.

Learning to see the world anew & from different perspectives is imperative if one wants to be more creative.

According to Edward de Bono, creativity starts at the perceptual stage of thinking. He terms it, First Order Thinking. He added very beautifully:

"This is where our perceptions & concepts are formed, & this is where they have to be changed. Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic."

The creativity tools, whether they are from the author's books or elsewhere, will then automaticlaly fall into place & make more sense when you have first exercised your power of vision or observation.

Using any tool is a piece of cake, but changing one's perception - & maintaining fluidity of perception as well as having multiple perceptions - takes concerted efforts.

It is also important to take note that when things (or tactics) don't seem to work out as planned, always remember to check out your observations of the world first. Simply ask:

- what do you CHOOSE to see?

- where do you DIRECT your attention?

The second most productive learning experience I got from the above two books is realising that all thoughts are simply feats of association &/or juxtapositions - & the crux of creativity (in fact, also learning) are making associations &/or juxtapositions.

Business change/innovation strategist Tom Peters, in his wonderful book, 'Liberation Management', drives home with this insightful nugget:

"The essence of creation - in all endeavours - is chance connections between ideas and facts that are previously segregated. Entrepreneurship is the direct by-product of chance, of convoluted connections among ideas, needs and people."

According to Leonardo da vinci, everything is connected to everything else. My question: CAN YOU SEE IT?

The creativity tools outlined by the author are specifically designed for this purpose.

The third most productive learning experience for me is understanding the differential between productive & reproductive thinking.

To paraphrase the author:

"...in productive thinking, one generates as many alternative approaches as one can, considering the least as well as the most likely approaches...in contrast, reproductive thinking fosters rigidity of thought..."

More relevant aspects about the significance of & more specific strategies to develop productive thinking are excellently covered by the author in 'Cracking Creativity'.

To end this review, & in the light of what I have written, I would consider the author's two books as the dynamic duo . . . to be among the best in the genre!

[More information about the author & his work can be found at this link.]