The Best Way to Refresh Creativity

My way is to stop telling yourself myths on creativity.

The problem is never how to get new ideas into your mind, but how to eliminate the old ideas.

How do organizations come up with new ideas? And how do they use those ideas to create successful new products, services, businesses, and solutions?

To answer these questions, a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York spent time observing radical innovation projects such as IBM’s silicon-germanium devices, GE’s digital X-ray, and DuPont’s biodegradable plastics. Their key finding? Most of the ideas behind these projects came from “happy accidents” rather than some ongoing process to generate ideas.

In more than a few cases, individuals or small groups were simply “freelancing,” working on ideas on their own initiative rather than being directed by some “new venture” board or other idea management system.

Given these results, let’s examine myths of generating new ideas:

People love change

Myth

Many people believe everybody loves to change and be changed.

Fact

The simple fact is that there is a ton of people who resist any kind of change. They are very risk-averse and change makes them very uncomfortable.

Foster autonomy

Myth