Genius is defined by creativity. Albert Einstein is often
regarded as the epitome of genius. Nobody seems to understand his genius other
than to say that it bubbled up like uncorked champagne. But the story of his
work paints a different picture. His discovery of Special Relativity, for example, came as a
stepwise series of small insights spread over many years of incubation.
Einstein used systematic ways of thinking to unleash his
creativity. His success was not magic. There was method to his genius. First,
Einstein relied heavily on thinking with visual images rather than words. Many
famous scientists claim that their best thinking occurs in the form of visual
images, even at the level of fantasy. Words and language, according to
Einstein, had no role in his creative thought and math was used mainly to
express the ideas quantitatively. Einstein, for example, in one of his
fantasies visualized himself riding on a beam of light, holding a mirror in front
of him. Since the light and the mirror were traveling at the same speed in the
same direction, and since the mirror was a little ahead of the light's front,
the light could never catch up to the mirror to reflect an image. Thus Einstein
could not see himself. Another example of his use of imagery is his thought
experiments visualizing train movements. Although fantasy, such thinking is not
the product of a hallucinating mind; there is clear logic and order embedded in
the fantasy.
A second reason for Einstein's creativity is that he was
unafraid, even as an unimpressive student and a patent clerk without
recognition as a scientist, to challenge no less an authority than James Clerk
Maxwell when the thought experiment could not be explained by current
electrodynamic dogma.
Third, Einstein thought long and hard on this problem for
over seven years when he published his seminal paper in1905 at the age of
25. Actually, he said in his
autobiography that he started pondering the problem when he was 16. The point
is that the revelation did not happen in an instant—it was the product of
incubation. Actually, his ideas were fermenting for years, where he repeatedly
thought about alternative possibilities and eliminated those that didn't add
up. By the process of elimination incubated over a long time of thinking, the
final solution became accessible.
This view of creativity is consistent with the view of Linus
Pauling, who won two Nobel Prizes and came within a hair of decoding DNA
structure that would have won him a third. He said, "To have a good idea,
you have to have lots of ideas." All exceptional scientists generate lots
of ideas, and then winnow out the ones that are practical for testing by
experiment. In other words, Einstein and Pauling are proof that creativity is
not as inaccessible for ordinary people as it seems. There are systematic ways
for everyone to become more creative.
These ways of thinking can be taught and used by anyone.
Young scientists aspire to have an early experience of working for a time in
the lab of a famous scientist, in the hope of learning how to make discoveries.
Many Nobel Prize winners have been students of other Nobel Prize winners.
Consider the case of Hans Krebs, who discovered the energy-production process
in cells. His "family tree" of scientists shows the following
relationships of science teachers and mentors:
Berthollet (1748-1822)
Gay-Lussac (1778-1850)
Liebig (1803-1873)
Kekule (1829-1896)
von
Baeyer (1835-1917)
Fischer
(1852-1919)
Warburg
(1883-1970)
Krebs (1900- 1981)
All of these men were famous and each of the last four
received Nobel Prizes, which began in 1901. A role model for Hans was Otto
Myeroff, who worked in the same institute and who received the Nobel Prize in
1922. This tree is cultural, not biological. There was only one scientist in
Hans' biological family tree, a distant cousin, who was a physical chemist.
In the years (1926-1930) Hans studied with Otto Warburg,
where he learned the value of inventing new tools and techniques for conducting
experiments to test ideas about energy transformation in living tissue. Another
important lesson was the value of hard work on ideas. Warburg worked long and
hard hours all his life; he was working in his lab eight days before he died,
at the age of 81.
* * *
Creativity is a subset of a
general learning competency that entails correct analysis, understanding,
insight, and remembering. Here, I stress the importance of insight, often
referred to as "thinking outside the box." Moreover, I make the claim
that this competency can be taught and mastered through practice.
This mode of thinking goes by other names, such as lateral
thinking or "thinking outside the box." Whatever you call it, such
thinking requires breaking the constraints of predispositions, limiting
assumptions, bias, mental habit, and rigid past learning.
See if you can solve the problem below, which is a simple
illustration of the common problem of self-imposed limitation of thinking:
Problem: draw four straight lines
that connect all dots without lifting the pencil off the paper. Each line
starts where the other finishes. Can you do it?
In case you didn't figure it out, here is one
solution:
Many people can't do this task. Reasons for failure here and
with other creativity challenges include:
- Improper
understanding of the problem. Failure to recognize what is allowed and
what is not.
- Failure
to look beyond the ideas that first emerge.
- Being
so close to a solution that you keep working with the same flawed
approach.
Frame the Issue Properly
The sample dot-connection task above illustrates the
problems you get into by the way you have framed the problem. When faced with
any problem, it is natural to make certain assumptions about facets of the
problem that were not explicitly stated. In the above, case, I didn't say that
the lines had to stay within the borders of the dots, but many of you probably
made that assumption. You were actually free to make the assumption that it was
o.k. to do that.
The way we classify things creates a logjam to new ideas.
For example, something in Newton's sensory or cognitive world caused him to see
the similarity between an apple and the moon in a new way; of course they were
both round, solid bodies. But it is not clear what caused him to perceive what
is now obvious, namely that both are subject to the effect of gravity. Even
seeing the apple fall from a tree would not be a meaningful mental cue for
explaining moon motion to most people, because they are not used to thinking of
the moon as "falling." Creative thought is affected by the ways in
which we classify things. We put apples and moons into categories; but by
insisting on describing and naming them, we restrict the categories to which
they belong. Apples are supposed to be round, red, and sweet, while moons are
large, yellow, rocky, and far away. The names themselves get in the way of
thinking of either as a classless object that is subject to gravity. A lesser
order of creativity is commonly seen in the simple realization of the
significance of obvious associations. The associations may even be negative (e.g.,
if penicillin is present on a bacteriological plate, the organisms will NOT
grow).
A question calls for an answer: a problem, its solution. The
trick is not only to ask questions, but to ask questions or pose problems in
the most effective ways. A question can easily limit creative thinking if it
restricts the space of potential answers. It therefore is important to pose
questions in open-ended ways and ways that do not make too many assumptions
about an acceptable answer. A major part of the creativity task is proper
formulation of the problem itself.
Improving Creative Thinking Ability
People who have looked carefully at the creative process
have learned that everyone of ordinary intelligence has latent creative
abilities that can be enhanced by training and by a favorable environment. But
many of us have not developed our creative capacity. Our brains seem frozen in
cognitive catalepsy, boxed in by rigid thinking.
One book that is dedicated to improving creativity is by D.
N. Perkins, The Mind's Best Work. He
finds that after-the-fact anecdotes about well-known examples of great leaps of
creative thought have generally received little or no close scrutiny of the
mental processes that led to them. There are too many opportunities for the
real mental correlates of creativity to be lost through excitement and
distraction (as part of the "eureka" phenomenon), lack of need or
desire to reconstruct the thought processes, and faulty skill and memory in
reconstructing the process. Experiments where people have been asked to think
aloud or report their thoughts during an episode of invention led Perkins to
conclude that creativity arises naturally and comprehensibly from certain
everyday abilities of perception, understanding, logic, memory, and thinking
style.
Generating Insight
As an indication that creativity can be taught and learned,
I offer the following personal anecdote.
"Grade = C. Klemm:
Your work shows a lot of industriousness.
Strive for INSIGHT!"
That note was scrawled across an
assignment paper I had turned in to my professor, C. S. Bachofer, at Notre
Dame. I had worked very hard on that paper, was quite proud of it, and had
expected an A. Decades years later, I could still see that message, seared into
my memory like a brand on cow hide. It was as if he meant that I was not smart
enough. If true, how was I supposed to make myself smarter? Isn't that a born capacity? You either have
it or you don't.
As the years went by, and I became a professor myself, I
gradually came to realize that Professor Bachofer was really saying something
else. He was telling me to discover in
my own terms and learning style the tactics and techniques that can develop
insight capability. I now know that it
IS possible to learn how to become more insightful. Some of this may be teachable to others.
Idea generation has little to do with intelligence. I
remember a graduate student of mine who had great test
scores and all As from six years of
college work. As was my practice, I tried helping this student develop a thesis
project by giving him a published research paper and asking him what ideas
occurred to him? After the first paper, he said nothing particular came to mind
other than what was reported in the paper. So, figuring I had just picked a
paper that was too mundane, I gave him another paper. Again, the same result
occurred. After about four or five tries
with the same result, I said, “I’m afraid this is not going to work. You really
should not go into this line of work. In any case, if you persist in this
ill-advised quest, you will have to find another major professor.”
So how could this student have generated ideas? First, he
should have been looking for alternatives. In reading, for example, I focus on
what the author did not say. This
not only stimulates me to think of other possibilities but also improves my
ability to remember what was written. Thinking about something is the best way
to rehearse the memory of it.
Thinking of alternatives requires imagination. Young children
have lots of imagination. Unfortunately, school tends to stamp that out in the
first few years. This is one reason I like to use mnemonic devices to promote
memory. All these devices require imagination, and the more you exercise this
capability, the better you can get at it.
Idea generation needs to be valued. School tends to devalue
creativity. Expectations are to learn what is dished out and pass a high-stakes
test on it. What educators value most is understanding and remembering accepted
knowledge. Do we believe students are too dumb for higher level thinking? Do we
believe that these higher skills are innate and cannot be taught? Do we believe
that maybe they could be taught if we only knew how?
The Creative Process
The literature on the creative process is vast, and I can
only summarize it here. Have you seen the advertisement from IBM Corporation,
in which there was a long alphabetized list of "old English" words?
The ad's caption read, "Anyone could have used these 4,178 words. In the
hands of William Shakespeare, they became King Lear." King Lear epitomizes
the essence of creativity: to take commonly used and understood ideas and
recombine them in elegant new ways.
Some practical advice on how to think innovatively is
provided by Beth Comstock, the CMO at General Electric. She was inspired by a
brilliant boss who wasn't afraid to offer an idea before its time. Even though
many of his ideas were absurd, many were also gems. None of these would have
been born had he not been willing to "put it out there." As Einstein
said, "If at first the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it."
The point is that creative ideas often come of the oven half-baked. Typically,
the recipe has to be modified.
Comstock's advice includes:
1. Nurture the newborn idea. Absurd ideas are all too easy
to dismiss. Be patient with them and protect them from early-stage critical
analysis. This accepting attitude lies at the heart of effective brainstorming.
Get the ideas out on the table. They often will grow or transform into better
ideas. Sit on them. Let them incubate.
2. Commit to a
promising idea. Successful ideas are nurtured by passion. If you believe in the
promise of an idea, noodle it to fit a meaningful problem. Do your homework.
Smooth the rough patches. Ask others to help make the idea better.
3. Tell others, even when you feel embarrassed about how
flakey the idea might be. This clarifies your own thinking and at least a few
of your listeners may get intrigued and help you improve the idea.
4. Hang in there. Don't be intimidated by negative feedback.
Use such feedback to improve the idea. If necessary, put the idea in storage
until improvements come to mind, or new technology or resources become
available or others people are more accepting. If you believe in your idea,
don't give up.
A fundamental aspect of creative thinking is to be flexible
in interpreting what you see or hear. Powers of observation include of course
the ability to notice things. But just registering a visual or thought input is
not enough. Creative brains see what others only look at. That is, creative
brains look for implications.
A basic condition for a creative act is to combine known
elements into new combinations or perspectives that have never before been
considered. Perkins writes of the utility of deliberately searching for many
alternatives so that many combinations and perspectives can be considered. Creativity
is much more likely to emerge when a person considers many options and invests
the time and effort to keep searching rather than settling for mediocre
solutions.
The first and fundamental step in the creative process is to
have a clear notion of what the problem is and to be able to frame it appropriately.
Recall in the opening example how you framed the dot problem determined whether
or not you could solve it. The effective thinker begins by first focusing on
the structure of the problem rather than its technical detail.
Creative operations require conceiving alternative solutions.
These come from each person's permanent memory store, his or her lifetime data
base of knowledge and experience. Memorizing does not impair thinking ― it can
empower thinking. Other potential alternatives are brought in from such
external sources of input as reading, ideas from colleagues, data bases, and
other sources. Next, these alternatives can be processed logically (by
associating, sorting, and aligning into new or unusual categories and contexts)
or more powerfully by the use of images, abstractions, models, metaphors and
analogies.
Thus, knowledge is not the enemy of creativity. One's
capacity for creativity depends on the store of knowledge. Einstein, for
example, would not have discovered relativity if he had not known basic physics
in general and Maxwell's ideas and equations in particular. As my friend, Ann
Kellet has said, "To think outside the box, you have to know what is
inside the box." The trick is to take a fresh look at what is inside the
box.
The next stages involve noticing clues and potential leads,
realizing permutations of alternatives that are significant, and finally
selecting those thoughts that lead to a new idea. There are dozens of thinking
tools that stimulate idea. Check out these tools at the Web sites
ideaconnection.com, mindtools.com, and myucoted.com.
The process of considering and choosing among alternative
approaches involves a progressive narrowing of options in the early stages of
creation and a readiness to revise and reconsider earlier decisions in the
later stages. Einstein ran into several blind alleys in his discovery journey.
This narrowing process requires the creator to break down and reformulate the
categories and relationships of thoughts and facts that are commonly applied to
the problems and its usual solutions. The creative thinker examines all
reasonable alternatives, including many which at first may not seem
"reasonable." Each alternative needs to be examined, not only in
isolation, but in relation to other alternatives—and in relation to the initial
problem expressed in different ways. The practical problem then becomes one of
reducing the size of the problem and alternative solution space to workable
dimensions. That may well be why one has to be immersed in the problem for long
periods, with subconscious "incubation" operating to help sort
through various alternatives and combinations thereof.
Note that all of these operations must occur in the working
memory, which unfortunately has very limited capacity. That is probably the
reason why insight and creativity are so hard to come by. Researchers of the
subject of creativity would do well to look for ways to create more capacity
for our working memory and to make it more efficient. The most manipulatible
factor would seem to be the mechanics of supplying information input from
external sources.
The final stages of creativity are more straightforward.
They involve critical and logical analysis, which typically forces a refinement
of the emerging ideas. Analysis should force the refinement of premature ideas
and re-initiation of the search and selection processes. Sometimes, analysis
will force the realization that the wrong problem is being worked or that it
needs to be reformulated.
If you have but one wish, let it be for an
idea
― Percy Sutton
Further Reading
DeBono, Edward. (2009) Think! Before It's To Late.
Vermilion. London.
Klemm, W. R. (1990).Leadership: Creativity and innovation,
p. 426-439.Concepts for Air Force Leadership, ed. by R. I. Lester and A. Glenn
Morton. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University.
Klemm, W. R. (2001)
Hans' Nobel Prize family. http://peer.tamu.edu/curriculum_modules/Cell_Biology/module_3/storytime3.htmAccessed
Augst 15, 2014.
Michalko, Michaeal (2001) Cracking Creativity: The Secrets
of Creative Genius. Ten Speed Press. New York.
Norton, John D. Einsteins pathway to special relativity. http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters_2013_Jan_1/origins_pathway/index.html.
Accessed Aug. 14, 2014.
Perkins, D. N. (1981). The Mind's Best Work. Harvard Univ.
Press, Cambridge.
