Good thinking: knock down the barriers to creativity - and discover a whole world of new ideas - small business management

Entrepreneur, May, 1996 by Mark Henricks

Knock down the barriers to creativity-and discover a whole world of new ideas.

When Janet Harris-Lange needs a novel and catchy theme for an event she's planning, she may put on a funny hat. She may talk to a child. She may take a walk through a secondhand thrift shop.

"I go crazy places for ideas," explains the founder and president of Agenda Dynamics Inc., a Lake Park, Florida, meeting and event managing company. "I can walk through a dime store and think of a thousand things I can do with whatever is there."

The idea behind Harris-Lange's idea-finding exercise is to expose her mind to unfamiliar stimulation in hopes of building an unexpected connection. The concept is straight from the literature of creative thinking, a craft and science that's an increasing focus of attention for companies large and small.

In Harris-Lange's line of work, for instance, she is constantly trying to generate excitement about meetings and events. She goes through ideas like tissue paper. Creativity is her work's and life's blood.

"I can't imagine life without it, not only as an entrepreneur but in everyday life," says Harris-Lange. "To be better than the competition, I have to employ creative thinking."

But creative thinking is not always easy. The pressures of time, cultural limitations, personal biases and even past successes can all combine to produce thinking that is rigid, overly analytical and uninspired.

Fortunately for entrepreneurs, creative thinking has been relentlessly studied by business and management theorists. Today, there are countless books, videos, seminars and programs on creativity. Each promises to unleash the creative genius inside every entrepreneur. And the good news is, it's not all that difficult to release a flood--or at least a moderate trickle--of creativity.

"Everybody's creative," says Deanna Berg, president of Atlanta creativity consulting and training firm Innovation Strategies International. "All you have to do is remove the barriers you put in your life."

Ways Of Thinking

Thinking is generally broken down into two kinds: analytical and creative. Analytical thinking trims away irrelevant information, using past experience or proven rules to arrive at a final answer. Creative thinking, on the other hand, is all about putting things together in unexpected ways.

"Creative thinking takes into account what we already know and combines it into new relationships and therefore into new images, ideas or solutions," says creativity consultant Grace McGartland, president of GM Consultants in Pittsburgh and author of Thunderbolt Thinking (Bernard-Davis).

Creative thinking is critical to entrepreneurs trying to invent or improve products, services or business concepts. It's also useful when trying to solve more mundane business problems, such as how to motivate employees to show up for work on time. It's not so useful when you're trying to pinpoint the cause of a problem. In those situations, analytical thinking is more effective.

Entrepreneurs need to know that creative thinking isn't the only kind of thinking, says Berg, because misplaced creativity can actually be harmful. For instance, after generating a lot of ideas, you need to be more analytical during the implementation phase. Staying in a creative mode may mean nothing ever gets done.

Most people's formal education stresses analytical-style thinking over creativity. But entrepreneurs who don't think effectively in both modes are missing a chance to build a competitive advantage. "As we move forward, it's brain power, not machine power, that's going to make a difference in our companies," says McGartland. "That's where small business has always had the edge."

Creativity Tools

The obstacles to creativity include experience, success, rigidity and conformity. To be creative you may have to ignore what you know, what has worked in the past, what feels comfortable and what everybody else is doing. Not surprisingly, then, most creativity tools and techniques are all about breaking rules.

The best-known creativity tool is brainstorming. This can be done in a group or by a lone entrepreneur and requires only a sharp pencil, a piece of paper and a stream of consciousness. The idea is to rapidly generate new ideas without stopping to criticize or evaluate them. Only after the brainstorming is over, usually within a matter of minutes, does the evaluation and analysis phase begin.

Brainstorming has gotten a bad reputation as a useless exercise, says McGartland, because too many people brainstorm without ever selecting and implementing any of the ideas. "Don't think of all these ideas and then wait [to put them into action]," she says. "That's one of the biggest faults with brainstorming."

Some entrepreneurs prefer a more studied style. Harris-Lange, for instance, is trying to inject unfamiliar images and ideas into her thoughts when she strolls through a theater costume department or novelty store, but she chooses these places on purpose, knowing they are likely to be inspirational. There's another reason Harris-Lange visits thrift stores--she knows any ideas there will be affordable for her many nonprofit clients.