Divergent Thinking
In kindergarten, this would be a typical question. Five plus five equals what? What's the answer? Ten. You guys are so great. You must go to Stanford. OK, why do we all know this is ten? We know this is ten because this problem has one right answer. This requires convergent thinking. We all converge on that one right answer - a five plus five equals ten. But what if I ask the question in a slightly different way, what if I ask X plus Y or two question marks, what two numbers add up to ten? How many answers are there to that? Infinite. And I'm so delighted you say that, because I'm often in rooms where people were going, "Well, one plus nine, two plus eight, three plus seven." And I go, "Whoa, Whoa, whoa, what about negative numbers? What about fractions? What about decimals?" The fact is there is infinite number of answers to this question. Why? Because this requires divergent thinking - we ask the question that doesn't have one right answer. Now, think about it. It's the same type of math, right? The same principles. And yet when we ask the question one way, we got one answer. When we ask it in a slightly different way, we got an infinite number of answers. This isn't just true in kindergarten. Let's go off to college. Maybe somebody can tell me recognize this place. Anyone know what school this is? It's in the UK. It's very old. Oxford, yes. Here we are Oxford. And at Oxford, they do something that is totally brilliant. In order to get in to one of the colleges, All Souls College, you have to answer the one word exam. Now, this doesn't mean that the answer is yes or no or black or white. The question is one word. It will be a word like 'integrity', or 'water' or 'bias' or 'innocence' and you were given three hours to write using that one word as a prompt. Now, first of all, how many of you would like to take that type of exam? Great. I actually love that, because most people find that kind of scary and intimidating. What does this type of exam teach the people who read your answer? What does it tell them? It tells them how you think, how you connect and combine ideas, how you can sort of draw a line through all of your experiences and your knowledge to create some integrated story. It's about seeing how creative you are. Connect and Combine
The second rule or tool is to connect and combine things. Now, what do I mean? Well, let's see. Do we have any scientist in the room? Trade is to creativity as sex as to biology. What the heck I am talking about? Well, let's look at this picture. What do we have here? Some chromosomes - what are these chromosomes doing here? They're having sex. OK. You guys are all grown-ups. They're replicating here, right? And what's happening over here? What is it called at this place? Crossing over, right? Look what has happened, the blue chromosome and the red chromosomes are actually swapping information. And this is some of the most interesting things that happen in biology. Because you got this amazing re-combination of the information from the different chromosomes and they combine with each other. Now think about it. This is like crossing over in the real world. Imagine that you're walking on this path and you're being incredibly observant, paying attention to everything. And then, you come across someone walking down this path. If you talk to them, engage with them, learn what they've seen, learn what they know, all of a sudden, the breath of your knowledge expands exponentially, right? This is why places in the world like ancient Alexandria or San Francisco or London or New York-or pick any major metropolitan area where people come together from all over the world- that's where you see amazing innovation. Because you're getting this incredible connecting and combining of ideas and cultures and thoughts and foods and language, and that's where interesting things take place. Now, how do we teach ourselves to do this in our everyday life? How do we teach it? It's very simple actually. One of my favorite ways is to use metaphors. I am a huge believer that metaphors are the key, a key, to creativity. Let's think about it. If I ask you, if I say something like, "Ideas are like something." Anything, pick anything. Ideas are like shoes. Why are ideas like shoes? They carry you. They take you places, right? Fabulous. Where else? Another reason? Ideas are like shoes because... What's that? You can own them. OK, cool. Or maybe you can have too many. OK. Maybe you have to walk in them for awhile before you get comfortable. OK, there are lots of other ways. And it gives you some interesting... OK, we could say, well, ideas are like candy. Or ideas are like light bulbs. Or ideas are like a walk in the park. You can do anything. And that's a wonderful way to get all sorts of new ways of looking at something from a different perspective, is by using metaphors. In fact, there was an article that was in just this week's Stanford Report about some research that was being done in the Psychology Department about using metaphors. Did anyone read it? It was very interesting. It's about how, when you describe something like crime, you say "crime is a beast" or "crime is a virus". What ends up happening is people come up with very, very different solutions. If then you say, "Crime is a beast" and you describe it that way, then you start thinking you want to have more police, you want to have more jails, you want to basically keep this beastie criminals contained. But you when you say that crime is a virus, all of the sudden, people come up with all sorts of social reforms. So the answers you come up with are very dependent upon the metaphors you used in the beginning.
Challenge Assumptions
To challenge assumptions. So what I want to do is a little exercise here. I normally would do it with a room even with this many people but I think anyone would think I was crazy if I did this. So I would like the folks in the first few rows here - stand up. You're going to be... Put everything down. Perfect, that's great. First couple of rows, stand up. Great. Good. You're good. Just good. Now, you have to follow my instructions very carefully. You're going to do this? Can you follow instructions? I want you to line up according to your birthdays. That means from January 1st to December 31st. I don't care how old you are, OK? From January 1st to December 31st and you have to do it without talking. Ready, set go. You have one minute. Twenty seconds. Ten seconds. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. OK, great. OK. Let's see. Let's not clap yet. Let's see what happened. Where's January? OK, let's see. Was there a January over here? No, OK. What is it? January what? I'm 31st so... Oh, that's a little problem right? OK. Where's February? Where's February? Just one? OK, March. OK, March's in order. March? Twenty-sixth. Twenty-sixth. Thirty. Are you guys twins? No OK. March, April. Jan, February, March, April. Thirty. May. June. July. OK, what dates July? Twenty-one. Twenty-nine. Now, OK, so that's out of order. OK. Thirty-second. Thirty-second? OK. OK. Yes. August, good. The 32nd of August. September. October. Oh-oh, November. Oh-oh, December. OK. Why don't you sit down? We're going to talk about what happened here. Thank you for our volunteer. So let's talk about what happened. What's the first thing you thought when I asked you to line up according to your birthdays without talking? What's the first thing you thought? Oh, no. Right? Oh no, that can't be done, right? Then what was the next thing that happened? What happened? What happened? Somebody made a number. Somebody started making numbers with their fingers, right? And everyone thought they had cracked the code, right? Everyone's started doing that? How effective was that. It was pretty effective. It was pretty effective. But are there any other ways it could have been done? What could you have done? Write it down. You could have written it down. That would have been smart. OK, what else? Pull out the driver license. Put out your driver's license. Fabulous. Anything else? Any other thoughts? Sung it. What's that? We could have sung. The sun... Sing it. Oh, you could sing it. You're saying we didn't talk but we sang. OK. You could have mouth it, right? You could have sound it and so it may look like read lips. Or somebody could have gotten up on stage and direct it, right? Someone could have managed the whole process. Someone could have written down the dates and then put on the floor. So many different solutions. But what happened is, people went-always. I am very confident; I've done this in many groups. It always happens the same way. Because people go with the first right answer. That is a huge, huge problem if you want to be creative -if you go with the first right answer. My favorite concept, is that of the third third, You need to get past the first wave of answers. Even pass the second wave of answers and move on to the third wave of answers- possible solutions- before you start getting to the ones that are truly innovative. If we stayed here all day and kept thinking how to line up according to your birthday without talking, we could probably come up with a zillion solutions. But the fact is, most people come up with the first right answer. And what happens is, this is why you end up with incremental improvement of things. That's why we have cars. There was a talk here right before about cars. You end up with cars with 15 cup holders, right? If one cup holder was good, 15 are better. OK? But if you end up with say, how we really going to be able to improve this, you end up pushing beyond the obvious answers.
Reframing Problems
To reframe problems. Now, what am I talking about? Well, let me tell you a story. I hate name tags. I hate name tags. How many of you wear name tags? You wear name tag, right? These lovely Stanford name tags - how many people are wearing your Stanford? Oh, yeah, you got these love name tags. Here is why I hate your name tag. I'm sorry, I do like you, it's just your name tag. A, they're way too small for small for me to read; B, they're usually hanging around your belt, kind of awkward. They're often flipped over so I can't read it. And they certainly don't have the information I really want to know about you. Now we could, together, decide that we're going to design a brand new name tag, right? We could do that. But instead of designing a brand new name tag, we could broaden the discussion and say what our name tags for in the first place. What do we use name tags for? Ice breaker. For what? An icebreaker. An icebreaker, to kind of get conversations going. Anything else? What's that? Oh, sort of like a ticket to get in - like an entrance ticket. Did they make you do that? Wow. Really? That's interesting. To identify as part of a group. To identify you in a group? Great. So instead of asking you to design new name tag, what if we decided that we are going to design a brand new introduction devise? Oh, all of a sudden, the frame of possibilities opens up. What kind of ideas would you come up with if you were going to design an introduction devise? Hats. A hat, the great idea. Well, in fact you solve the problem, it's not hanging around your neck. Maybe even a hat that has some sort of marquee on it with information - kind of about you and it sort of like go up and I can get kind of this ever changing display of information. What else? iPhone app. An iPhone app. I can have an iPhone app that when I get near you, it tells you... Do you have something? Does something do that? Not yet. But... Now do. OK, who's going to do that? We got how many Stanford students? OK, will you go up and it actually maybe tells you who you know, who's in the same social network, who went to school with you. That'll be pretty cool. Any other ideas? I kind of like the idea, I kind of want a T-shirt or shirt that is the name tag and it's got printed with all sort of information about someone. So you know, you got instead of why having a name tag in one little place. Your whole outfit could be your name tag, with all different information. So the fact is, this is a big problem. People frame problems way too narrowly. For example, if I ask you to design a bridge - any engineers here? Architects? Engineers? Fabulous. If I ask you to design a bridge, you'd design a bridge for me. But you could turn around and say, "Why do you need a bridge in the first place?" Right? And I'll say, "Well, I got to get to the other side." You go, "Oh, you want to get to the other side?" What other ways are there to get to the other side of a body of water besides a bridge? Through a cannon. A cannon, that's a good idea. Right. You can take a boat, you can have a tunnel, you can have a hot air balloon. You can even have a cannon. The fact is, that's a perfect example, where if you don't ask a broader question, you'll end up with a very limited set of options. So let me tell you an example of this. The United States spends zillions of dollars designing a pen to write in space. Right? They figured these astronauts are going to be in space; there's no gravity. How are we going to write if we don't design a pen that can write when it's upside down in zero gravity? They spent millions of dollars designing this pen. You can buy this. I bought one online and got this picture. I did not make it up. You can go buy the Fisher Space Pen. The Russian ask the question differently. They said, "Instead of how do I design a pen to write in space? ", they asked, "How do I write in space?" And what did they come up with? A pencil. The fact is, the solutions do not have to be complicated. It's not about making it complicated, it's opening up the frame to come up with appropriate and interesting and creative solutions to the problems.
