THE POWER OF PERSONA

Is Dilip Mukerjea clowning as shown in this amusing snapshot? No, he is not. In fact, he is "demonstrating" to us a new way to see and think about a problem or a challenge or appraise a situation.

I like to call it, the Power of Persona.

Basically, it involves the imagined shift of one's mindset into behaving, or role playing, to be precise - thinking and doing - like another competent person or even another inanimate object in space.

 Indeed, many creativity gurus have formulated it in many different ways.

I believe Roger von Oech is among the first to come up with four stereotype roles or personas, in the creative thinking process, namely:

- Explorer;
- Artist;
- Judge;
- Warrior:

when he wrote his now classic 'A Whack on the side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative', in the early 80's.

You can visit www.creativethink.com to read more about them.

Around the same time in the early 80's, Michael Hewitt-Gleeson from Down Under, and working with Edward de Bono, through their joint School of Thinking initiative in New York, introduced the world to their version of stereotype roles in the creative thinking process, known as 'Six Thinking Caps':

- White;
- Black;
- Yellow;
- Red;
- Green;
- Blue;

It has been alleged that Edward de Bono, after breaking off with his protege, Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, plagiarised the material to write his 'Six Thinking Hats' in the mid-80's.

Since then, Michael Hewiit-Gleeson, has added the seventh cap, Grey Cap, to his original concept.

More information can be found here: www.schoolofthinking.org/

In 2005, Tom Kelley of IDEO, the internationally-renowned global design consulting firm, shared with the world their winning design methodology, a powerful set of learning, organising and building personas, through their book, 'Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organisation.".

Here they are:

- The Anthropologist;
- The Experimentor;
- The Cross Pollinator;
- The Hurdler;
- The Collaborator;
- The Director;
- The Experience Architect;
- The Set Designer;
- The Storyteller;
- The Caregiver;

More information about them can be found here: www.tenfacesofinnovation.com/

Actually, back in the sixties, William J J Gordon and George Prince, had developed a slightly different but unique creative problem solving process of their own, through the brilliant use of metaphors and analogies. They called it, "Synectics".

Within their proprietary methodology, they are designated as:

- Symbolic Analogy;
- Personal Analogy;
- Direct Analogy:
- Fantasy Analogy;

For example, you can imagine yourself being the object under examination and then attempt to uncover the feelings and problems faced by the object.

More information can be found here: //synecticsworld.com/.

In a nut shell, using role playing or the power of persona to explore ideas is an interesting and powerful tactic to see and think more and further.

ONE DEFINITION OF CREATIVITY

"An arbitrary harmony, an expected astonishment, a habitual revelation, a familiar surprise, a generous selfishness, an unexpected certainty, a formable stubbornness, a vital triviality, a disciplined freedom, an intoxicating steadiness, a repeated initiation, a difficult delight, a predictable gamble, an ephemeral solidity, a unifying difference, a demanding satisfier, a miraculous expectation, and accustomed amazement."

~ George Prince, co-progenitor of the famed Synectics group problem solving process, & author of the classic, 'The Practice of Creativity' (1970);

METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING

Metaphors are a way to describe something: they are smart ways of saying what you mean so that other people can see the meaning in what you say. People who are able to use metaphors well are examples of genius in action!

Metaphors enliven language. They transform what is boring into something vivid, visual, and alive!

Creative minds use metaphors to make the ordinary strange and the strange ordinary. In this way, we are able to see the meaning within otherwise complex thoughts.

Ordinary language can force someone to use too many words; metaphors are able to express maximum meaning via minimum words.

Metaphors help you see pictures in your mind so that you can understand something quickly. For example, if you were to say:

“School is Hell!”

your listeners interpret your words in diverse ways: that your school is run by The Devil, or that life in school is burning hot, or that you are perpetually in hot water, or that there’s no fun there, only suffering, and so on.

When you can’t find easy words to describe something, metaphors allow you to create new meanings from new feelings, thoughts, things, experiences, and relationships.

Aristotle (384-322 BC), the great Greek philosopher stated in Poetics:

“The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.”

Children constantly use stories to build up theories…they use metaphor and analogy to make intellectual leaps to explain phenomena in life...

[Excerpted from the 'Thinkerbelles' edition of The Ingenius Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

Say Keng's personal comments:

Readers interested in exploring the power of metaphors should read the now classic, 'Metaphors We Live By', by George Lakoff & Mark Johnson.

In the words of the authors, "Metaphor is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by" - metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them."

The use of metaphors & analogies is the hallmark of the proprietary Synectics group problem solving methodology. Readers can explore it further by reading the following excellent books:

- 'The Metaphorical Way of Learning & Knowing', by William Gordon;

- 'What Colour is Saturday? Using Analogies to Enhance Creative Thinking', by Jane McAuliffe;

[The foregoing two books are most likely to be out-of-print. Readers can try to search for them at abebooks &/or alibris.]