The obstacles of creativity (III)

Whenever we try to be creative, to innovate or to resolve a difficult situation, we always start off with the best of intentions. Very often, we even keep in our back pocket a stock of creativity techniques to help us. But what we very often do not know, what we often ignore or are unaware of, is that, together with the best intentions and creativity techniques, we may also be carrying with us some of the things which usually inhibit creativity. What are they? They are obstacles which we ourselves place along the way, and which, especially if we are not aware of this, will prevent us from being really creative and innovative.

This series of articles we started a few days ago will try, precisely, to enable you to discover these obstacles so that you can overcome them and prevent them from inhibiting your creative potential.

Whenever we try to be creative, to innovate or to resolve a difficult situation, we always start off with the best of intentions. Very often, we even keep in our back pocket a stock of creativity techniques to help us. But what we very often do not know, what we often ignore or are unaware of, is that, together with the best intentions and creativity techniques, we may also be carrying with us some of the things which usually inhibit creativity. What are they? They are obstacles which we ourselves place along the way, and which, especially if we are not aware of this, will prevent us from being really creative and innovative.

This series of articles (of which we already have two: the first and the second) will try, precisely, to enable you to discover these obstacles so that you can overcome them and prevent them from inhibiting your creative potential.

We can discover the third obstacle by way, once again, of a game that you can take a few minutes to solve using only a piece of paper and pencil.

Do you see these nine dots? Well, the task is to connect them using four consecutive straight lines. By all means, give yourself a couple of minutes to do so, remembering that there are four rules that must be respected:

1– You must connect ALL of the dots.

2– You must use FOUR lines, not one more or less.

3– The four lines must be STRAIGHT lines; drawing curved lines is not allowed.

4– The four straight lines must be CONSECUTIVE, that is to say, the ends of the lines must be connected one to the next.

OK, let’s go, take a couple of minutes.

It is very likely that you were able to find the solution, but even so, you have to admit that it was not easy. Here is the answer.

As you can see, the key here for finding the solution is stepping outside of the imaginary limits of the nine dots. No one said that you could not draw lines that went beyond the dots; there were no limits or conditions in that respect. I am sure that at one time or another you have heard the term “think out of the box”, that is to say, to think beyond all limitations. Without that kind of thinking, it is impossible to be an innovator, given that thinking “inside the box” necessarily implies thinking the same way we always have before, which offers us no possibility of innovation.

And we must fundamentally think “out of the box” in order to fight against the inhibiting obstacle against creativity that we want to explore today: that having to do with unnecessary limitations. We are talking about those limitations which, despite the fact that no one has imposed them upon us, we insist on respecting, as if they were a law, as if it was common sense to obey them. Obeying them, in this case, means limiting oneself unnecessarily, constraining our creative abilities, confining them within a space much narrower than it ought to be. Our ability to reach truly innovative solutions depends on the elimination of these invisible walls or not creating them in the first place.

[salto]

Marc Ambit – Consultant and teacher at TBS Barcelona Campus

Tags: creativity|creativity techniques|innovation