| S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E.ing
Your Way To Creativity
Tools to enhance your latent
creative thinking potential
By Daniel Theyagu
In a previous segment, I wrote about the 6 ‘I’
in developing the creative thinking
potential in you. Today we are going to talk about how
you can achieve the process of
thinking creatively by using the S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E technique.
Think for a moment – if
you want to be a carpenter what you will need is a set
of tools. These might include
traditional carpentry tools like, the hammer, saw, chisel,
screwdriver and measuring tape.
With the right tools it would be relatively easy to
get the work done. Of course having
the right tools is not a sure guarantee of succeeding
in what you are doing – but it is a
good start. Ultimately practice makes perfect.
Just like in carpentry work you need a proper set
of tools, to think creatively and
coming up with solutions to seemingly impossible situations
requires you to think
effectively and efficiently with the right mental tools.
There are many effective mental
tools that are available, and here’s one more
that you can use with relative ease and
achieve immeasurable success in your personal and professional
lives.
To think creatively and come up with workable solutions,
you can use a set of
attention-directing tools called S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E. I
chose this word because it is an easy
word to remember and just like you wanting some fuss
free scramble eggs for breakfast,
you can use S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E. in an easy non-complicated
way to become a good
decision maker, problem-solver and solution finder.
Each letter in the word S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E. connotes
a specific action that you need
to engage in to think ‘out of the box’.
Next time you are sitting in your meeting or a
brainstorming session and asking yourself how you might
want to solve a problem or find
a solution you might address your team with “Let’s
S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E this for a minute.”
Then go through the action process that configures with
each word.
SUBSTITUTE
Ask yourself can we substitute the problem with something
else. What can be
taken out; can we substitute emotion; a part of the
problem. Diabetic people aren’t
supposed to take sugar because it is no good for them.
But there are diabetic people who
like sweet things. So using ‘substitution’
for sugar you can keep the sweetness but take
away the other parts of the sugar and you get ‘Equal.’
Likewise, there are people who
cannot agree with dairy produces but like their coffee
white. So what do you have?
Think about it!
COMBINE (with other things)
Sometimes by combining a few problems or things you
might get the solution
that you want. It was someone’s crazy idea of
combining, coffee, sugar and creamer and
putting them in little sachets such that all you have
to do is put the mixture in a cup and
pour hot water. The three-in-one concept revolutionizes
the way we drink coffee and
spread its wings to other forms of beverages as well.
Now there is a whole variety of
‘three-in-one’ or ‘two-in-one’
things. The process of creativity is based on combination.
Arthur Koestler mentioned in his book the ‘Act
of Creation’ that creativity is ‘bringing
together two previously unrelated planes of thoughts’.
Ask yourself questions like: what
can we combine, can we combine ideas, combine different
concepts and even combine
emotions.
REVERSE/REARRANGE
Sometimes you might notice that by reversing a situation
will solve the problem.
At other times you need to rearrange the various parts
that you have and come up with a
plausible situation. Before 1840s if you wanted to send
a letter to someone you write the
letter and send it. The recipient of the letter on receiving
the letter pays for the letter.
This created a massive headache to the mail industry
as sometimes the recipient of the
letter refuses to pay. And went the addressee was not
available or the letter was sent to
the wrong person, that person had to pay which was seemingly
unfair. By a singular act
of reversing the situation a whole new concept of postal
service was founded. Rather
than the recipient paying for the letter let the sender
pay. And how can this be done – the
postage stamp of course! Sir Rowland Hill came up with
this brilliant idea and the first
stamp comprising the Queen’s head and costing
1 penny was born. This relatively
unassuming piece of paper affixed to the letter has
been epitomized and affectionately
referred to as the “Penny Black”.
Rearranging is another way to get things done and
problems solved. I mean think
about it for a minute, the English language consist
of just 26 alphabets. It is through the
rearrangement of these 26 letters that we have today
the works of Dickens, Shakespeare,
Marlow, Hardy and the list goes on. What you are reading
right now is basically the
rearrangement of the 26 letters. But can you figure
the following sentence:
ECVR EIA TG TNHI KISN IOGO DOR FOUY
Obviously the sentence does not make sense at all.
Rearrange the alphabets and you will
see the meaning. It stands for: ‘Creative thinking
is good for you.’
Ask yourself questions like: what can we reverse here,
or rearrange? Can we reverse the
situation? Instead of we seeking out potential customers
can we change our philosophy
or product or service to get the customers come to as
instead?
ADAPT
Thomas Edison, perhaps the greatest creative genius
of the 19th and the early 20th
century once mentioned: “Make it a habit to keep
on the lookout for novel and interesting
ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea
needs to be original only in its
adaptation to the problem you are working on.”
If you think about it most of the things
that we possess today is basically an adaptation of
something else. The mobile phone for
instance it an adaptation of the telephone and radio.
The air-conditioner is an adaptation
of the refrigerator. Ask yourself questions like: what
can we adapt; are there new uses
that we can incorporate; can we put to other uses what
we have; will it be possible to
adapt someone else’s idea without infringing their
intellectual property rights. The
harder you work at it the clearer the solution will
be.
MAGNIFY, MODIFY and/or MINIFY
The first computer was manufactured in the late 1930s
and 40s. They were huge
colossal machines that can compute perhaps a fraction
of what a laptop can do today.
The laptop or notebook computers are getting smaller
and more powerful. The buzzword
in the electronic industry is nano-technology –
it is all about ‘minification’ and
modification. The mobile phone epitomizes this concept
of creative thinking. The
screen has been magnified so that you can view more
information. It has been modified
to be more than a communication device. The so called
3-G phones now are like camera
and phone and a diary combined in one. Also the size
of the phones is getting smaller
and more powerful – they are being minified. Ask
yourself: can we modify the situation
to solve the problem; what will happen if we magnify
the product or perhaps we should
minify. One credit card company decided to modify the
card by making it rounder in one
corner rather than the traditional standard design.
Another credit card company decided
to make the card smaller and call it a mini. Using this
particular tool will help you
challenge your mindset and let you look at situations
from different perspective. Sun
Tzu the Chinese philosopher puts this brilliantly where
he said: “He who can modify his
tactics in relation to his opponent, and thereby succeed
in winning, may be called a
heaven-borne captain.”
BLOW IT OUT OF PROPORTION and BRING IT BACK
INTO PERSPECTIVE
The whole concept of creativity is based on ‘thinking
out of the box’. This phrase
has become such a cliché that sometimes you are
left wondering whether this is possible
at all. Well the answer is – thinking out of the
box is possible if you learn to blow things
out of proportion. But don’t forget to bring it
back into perspective. Ask yourself what is
the worst case scenario; what options are available
to you; what if we decide to take a
drastic step like closing our business. Such questions
may be considered suicidal. But
once you have asked them, you know that the situation
cannot get any worst and you will
start thinking more positively and look things in the
proper perspective. After all,
creativity taps itself from positive mindset.
LIBERATE YOUR LIMITATION
Make it a point to constantly look for new ways of
doing things and to try out
new ideas. Encourage your people to accept new ideas
and challenge old ones. Try out a
new restaurant or new outfit. Richard Feynman who won
the Nobel Prize in physics in
the 70s was known to learn how to crack safes, play
the Brazilian drum, learn to paint
and try out a whole lot of cocky ideas. This kind of
attitude allowed him to see the real
complexity of Physics in a manner that he was able to
impart them with crystal clarity to
his students in the university.
ELIMINATE AND ELABORATE
Once you have an idea that you think might just work,
elaborate on it and see
whether there is a need to eliminate unnecessary details.
Michelangelo famous for
painting the Sistine Chapel and making the statue of
David said that he had a vision of
David entrapped within the marble slab and what he did
was to eliminate the unnecessary
portions of the slab to release David from his marble
prison. Ask yourself: are there too
much things that we are doing right now; can we eliminate
some of them; perhaps we
should outsource; maybe the problem cannot be solved
because we do not have all the
facts, or perhaps there are too many facts such that
we cannot see the solution.
When you keep asking questions the portals in your mind
will start to make
connections with other portals and these will open doors
that you never thought that you
had. The car tire was for a long while made with two
tubes. The inner tube where air is
pumped in which expands and keeps the outer tube in
shape. But when a nail goes
through it punctures the inner tube and the whole vehicle
is immobilize. Tire developers
tried of new ways to make better and stronger tire.
They made tires of thicker rubber, put
steel meshing within the rubber, but to no avail. However
an elimination act made the
tire more efficient. Can you guess what it was? Think
about it!
By using S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E. you will realize that you
have a practical approach to
think creatively and you will also find that you become
a more proficient problem-solver,
and efficient decision-maker and an excellent solution
finder. All the ideal qualities of a
great leader.
If your organization is interested in conducting a
course on proactive thinking,
contact: daniel@lateralsolutionsconsult.com.
The above article is copyrighted to the author. No reproduction
is allowed without the
written permission of the author. If you are interested
in distributing or reproducing this
article in your magazine, journal or newsletter please
contact Lateral Solutions
Consultancy at daniel@lateralsolutionsconsult.com. A
nominal fee will be chargeable.
|
Achieving consistency in life