Creative Thinkering: Putting Your Imagination to Work

216 Pages·2011·4.86 MB·English

by  Michael Michalko

MORE PRAISE FOR CREATIVE THINKERING

“Creative Thinkering is a wonderfully entertaining ‘operator’s manual’ for your
creative brain. Turn to any page, and the idea machine in your head can’t help
but start manufacturing new ideas!”

— Bryan Mattimore, author of

The Idea Engine and president of the Growth Engine Company “A real gem …
Thought-provoking and interactive, Creative Thinkering bridges the perception
gap and opens up creative vistas — even for those who don’t believe they have

the creative gene. Packed with information about the nature of creativity and

absolutely loaded with germane and fun visuals, it’s access to creativity served

up on a silver platter.”

— Gregg Fraley, author of Jack’s Notebook

“Creative Thinkering offers a fresh look at creativity, from spontaneous to
deliberate. Based upon his extensive study of and professional work in creativity
and creative-thinking tools, Michael Michalko has once again written an
excellent book to help people discover their creativity — including how to better
understand it and how to expand and deepen it too.”

— Robert Alan Black, PhD, CSP, author of

Broken Crayons: Break Your Crayons and Draw Outside the Lines

“As much as I totally immerse myself in reading more about creativity, I always
learn something new, fascinating, and very valuable from Michael Michalko. His
newest book’s focus on powerful conceptual blending techniques and his mind-
expanding illustrations and experiments for the reader make this book a new
standard of discovery and thinking excellence for the aspiring creative genius in
all of us.”

— Ray Anthony, innovation consultant and author of

F-A-S-T Forward — and Step on It!

“A superb book! Read Creative Thinkering and begin to apply it immediately.
Your professional and personal life will be opened to new and unimagined
possibilities.”

— Connie Harryman,

President of the American Creativity Association–Austin Global

PRAISE FOR MICHAEL MICHALKO’S BOOK THINKERTOYS

“Will change the way you think.”

— Wall Street Journal

“Shows you how to expand your imagination.”

— Newsweek

“A special find. Period.”

— Executive Edge

“A must-have book in any business setting.”

— Women in Business

“Believe it or not, this wonderful book will have you challenging the
impossible.”

— Nonprofit News

“This book is a creative-thinking workshop in a book that will have your
imagination soaring.”

— Chicago Tribune

“This book shows you how to do what you think can’t be done.”

— The Futurist

ALSO BY MICHAEL MICHALKO

Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius Thinkertoys: A

Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card

Deck

Putting your imagination to Work

MICHAEL MICHALKO

New World Library

Novato, California

Copyright © 2011 by Michael Michalko

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic,
mechanical, or other — without written permission from the publisher, except by
a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Michalko, Michael, date.
Creative thinkering : putting your imagination to work / Michael Michalko.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60868-024-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Creative thinking. 2. Creative
ability. 3. Imagination. I. Title.
BF408.M485 2011
153.3'5—dc23 2011024369

First printing, September 2011
ISBN 978-1-60868-024-5
Printed
in
Canada
on
100%
postconsumer-waste
recycled
paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my wife, Anne, whom I married not because she is someone I could live

with, but because she is the one person I cannot live without.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction

PART 1. CREATIVE THINKING

1. Once We Were Creative
2. The Same Old Ideas
3. How to Think Like a Genius
4. The First Idea
5. Why Didn’t I Think of That?
6. Leonardo da Vinci’s Secret
7. Change the Way You Look at Things, and the Things You Look at Change
8. Ticktock or Tocktick
9. Thinking the Unthinkable
10. Ideas from God

PART 2. THE CREATIVE THINKER

11. Intention Is the Seed of Creative Thinking
12. Change the Way You Speak, and You Change the Way You Think
13. You Become What You Pretend to Be

Conclusion: Dancing in the Rain
Appendix: Random Words
Notes
Index
About the Author

In Hanau, Germany, I met Franz, a Dutchman who had read my book
Thinkertoys. He told me he worked for years as a middle manager for a major
corporation. He was well paid and had an impressive title. Basically, he saw his
job as little more than making workers into loyal company-team players. Each
day, he felt his job becoming more and more meaningless, but he had difficulty
imagining how he might earn a living otherwise.

My book Thinkertoys inspired him to learn as much as he could about

creative thinking, and so he took a course on creative thinking at the University
of Copenhagen. He began having all kinds of new ideas and creating innovative
ways to do things in furniture design, even new ways to design stools and tables.
Making furniture was his passion. And it was his awareness of his ability to
think creatively that made him realize for the first time that he could change his
life.

His professor at the university became excited about Franz’s ideas for

designing innovative, environmentally friendly furniture. The professor pushed
him and pushed him until Franz quit his job and opened his own furniture design
business, which has been hugely successful. Franz gave me a poem by
Guillaume Apollinaire that he said reminds him of the professor who pushed him
to live his dream.

“Come to the edge.”
“We can’t. We’re afraid.”
“Come to the edge.”
“We can’t. We will fall!”
“Come to the edge.”
And they came.

And he pushed them.
And they flew.

I wish to acknowledge Franz’s professor and all the people who teach

others to become more creative in their business and personal lives. Among the
best creative-thinking experts, teachers, trainers, and consultants in the world are
Kelvin Fung (Hong Kong), Charles Prather, Terry Stickels, Peter Lloyd, Roger
von Oech, Andre de Zanger, Bryan Mattimore, Edward de Bono, Joyce Wykoff,
James Adams, Ray Anthony, Winston J. Brill, PhD, Robert Alan Black, PhD,
Michael Gelb, Win Wenger, and Tony Buzan. These are among my heroes who
teach people how to overcome their fears and doubts about their abilities, show
them how to become creative thinkers, and push them over the edge to soar.

Why are some people creative and others not?

The key question isn’t “Why are some people creative and others not?” It is
why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where and how was our potential
lost? How was it crippled? Why does education inhibit creativity? Why can’t
educators foster more creativity instead of less? Why is it that the more expert
people become in their fields, the less creative and innovative they become?
Why is it that people who know more create less, and people who know less
create more? Why are people amazed when someone creates something new, as
if it were a miracle?

We’ve been educated to process information based on what has happened in

the past, what past thinkers thought, and what exists now. Once we think we
know how to get the answer, based on what we have been taught, we stop
thinking. The Spanish word for an “answer” is respuesta, and it has the same
etymological root as responso (responsory), the song people sing to the dead. It’s
about what has no life anymore. In other words, when you think you know the
answers, based on what has happened in the past, your thinking dies.

This is why, when most people use their imaginations to develop new ideas,

those ideas are heavily structured in predictable ways by the properties of
existing categories and concepts. Creative thinking requires the ability to
generate a host of associations and connections between two or more dissimilar
subjects, creating new categories and concepts. We have not been taught to
process information this way.

CONCEPTUAL BLENDING

The key to creatively generating associations and connections between
dissimilar subjects is conceptual blending. This is a creative-thinking process
that involves blending two or more concepts in the same mental space to form
new ideas.

Imagine, for a moment, that thought is water. When you are born, your

mind is like a glass of water. Your thinking is inclusive, clear, and fluid. All
thoughts intermingle and combine with each other and make all kinds of
connections and associations. This is why children are spontaneously creative.

In school you are taught to define, label, and segregate what you learn into

separate categories. The various categories are kept separate and not allowed to
touch each other, much like ice cubes in a tray. Once something is learned and
categorized, your thoughts about it become frozen. For example, once you learn
what a can opener is, whenever someone mentions “can opener” you know
exactly what it is.

You are taught, when confronted with a problem, to examine the ice cube

tray and select the appropriate cube. Then you take the cube and put it in a glass,
where your thinking heats and melts it. For example, if the problem is to
“improve the can opener,” the glass will contain all you have learned about can
openers, and nothing more. You are thinking exclusively, which is to say you are
thinking only about what you have learned about the can opener. No matter how
many times the water is stirred, you end up creating, at best, a marginal
improvement.

Now if you take another cube (for example, vegetables) and put it in the

same glass with the can-opener cube, your thinking will heat and melt both
together into one fluid. Now when you stir the water, more associations and
connections are made and the creative possibilities become immensely greater.
The vegetable cube, once blended with the can-opener cube, might inspire you to