Hello there! Welcome to the Dialogic Learning Weekly. It’s Friday, February 20. I’m Tom, writing to you from Melbourne, Australia. Thanks for spending part of your day with me. Reach out with comments, questions and feedback at tom@dialogiclearning.com or on Twitter at @tombarrett. If someone forwarded you this email, subscribe to get the Dialogic Learning Weekly sent straight to your inbox.
In our last issue, we explored the notion of innate creative thinking. Today, we look at mental models associated with ideas, creativity, and originality.
- Divergent Thinking
- Convergent Thinking
- The Innovation Jolt Model
- The Creative Habit Model
- The Creative Process Model
Regardless of the model, we use to understand creativity, at its heart is a desire and an intention to be creative. Our focus will be: how we can create the right intention to be more creative.
Divergent Thinking
Divergent thinking involves exploring lots of possible solutions to a problem. At the same time, convergent thinking looks for the correct answer to a specific problem.
Culturally, we are trained to think in ‘right or wrong’ terms and that the only way to be creative is to come up with new ‘right’ answers. When we feel like this, it is impossible to be genuinely innovative.
I often describe Divergent Thinking as a mode when we generate lots of different options. It is an expansive and open mode of thinking.
Convergent Thinking
We narrow down the options in convergent thinking, finding a smaller selection of possibilities.
Convergent thinking is often described as a more analytical and closed mode. Usually, this is done by filtering or voting on collections of ideas or datasets.
When we think in convergent thinking mode, we are not open to new ideas because we attempt to make decisions.
Example questions to encourage convergent thinking:
- Which five ideas have the most potential?
- Which of the questions sums up your current challenge?
- Put a sticker on the three words that resonate with you the most?
- Of all the places we could start, what feels like the most appropriate?
Sometimes there can be a clash of people thinking in opposite modes. Which explains much of the conflict and idea squashing that can happen. This is a dynamic to look out for and facilitate with care.
The Innovation Jolt Model
The analogy is that the moment you get a great idea is like getting hit with a large jolt of electricity — your mind becomes excited and can’t wait to get started.
When looking for ideas, this is the feeling you want, so if it doesn’t happen right away, don’t worry. Keep asking questions until the jolt happens.
The more you can get in touch with your feelings of excitement about an idea, the closer you are to being creative.
The Creative Habit Model
According to this model, creativity is a habit that requires dedication and effort. This means while great ideas may come naturally to some people, they can also be developed by anybody who knows how to practice regularly.
By practising our creative thinking every day, we gradually retrain our brains to think in new ways, increasing our ability for originality and increasing the number of ideas we can develop.
A simple exercise you can use every day is to ask "What if…" and to follow with any question you feel inspired to ask. Some examples:
> What if I didn't have to work?
> What if we didn't have to travel?
> What if the students chose when to learn?
> What if we could harness energy from the wind?
> What if we create an app that makes it easy for people to water their gardens?
The Creative Process Model
This model suggests that creativity isn’t only about understanding when and how to be creative and learning the correct type of thinking for a given situation.
Thinking of creativity and idea generation as a process also helps us manage and understand what we are doing and where we want to go.
We need to learn how to apply different types of thinking to different situations.
Your Talking Points
- How can you use these models to bring out greater creativity in yourself and other people you communicate with?
- What specific practices can you do daily to increase creativity in your life/work/studies, etc.?
🕳🐇 Down the Rabbit Hole
Complement this issue with my Atomic Essays: Solution Siren Call, Walt Disney Creative Strategy, Feedback is Oxygen For Your Ideas, Willful Blindness, Counter Wooden Headedness.
Thanks for taking a moment to join me this week — drop me an email at tom@dialogiclearning.com to connect and say hi. Or you can connect with me on Twitter > @tombarrett