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Editor's note: This article first appeared in this Journal in September of 1988. Many of our present readers may well have missed this timeless treasure, so we are reprinting it.
It is precisely this misconception about creativity that has done so much damage and has held back the development of creativity for at least two decades. There are far too many practitioners out there who believe that creativity is just brainstorming and being free to suggest crazy ideas. I intend to show that this is inadequate.
Let's just brainstorm! Not! Brainstorming was originated by Alex Osborne and it was designed for use in the advertising industry. This is a key point. In the advertising world, novelty, as such, can be a value. Suppose there was a discussion of ways of getting people to buy more wool. Someone suggests that sheep ought to be purple because purple is an expensive color and that would give a prestige value to wool. You could indeed run an advertisement showing purple sheep. Such an advertisement would attract attention and might sell more wool. Novelty and gimmickry does attract attention and does have an advertising value. But in almost every other field novelty by itself is insufficient: the creative idea must make sense and must work.
In my courses I find that people who have a brainstorming background tend to perform rather poorly. This is because they are always looking for the way out and exotic idea and often miss the simple and practical idea which is at hand. It is as if during a brainstorming session each participant is trying to make the other participants laugh due to the craziness of an idea.
I would also like to point out that creativity does not have to be a group activity. Creative techniques can be used in a powerful way by individuals working entirely on their own.
Judgement, patterns and creativity
Everyone knows that instant judgement is the enemy of creativity. That is certainly true because judgement will force us back to our present position. The brain is not designed to think but to set up routine patterns of perception and behavior and to make sure we do not deviate from these. Judgement is the powerful tool we have for...