创新天才自我进阶5步走
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每个人都有创意吗？那当然，不过每个人创新的方法不同，创新的程度也各不相同。 大学时你献给恋人的民间小调和贝多芬的交响乐可有着天壤之别。 我们渴望人人平等、事事平等，这种民主意识使我们将伟大的创造与表达自我的个人行为混为一谈。现在缺少的是有意义的鉴赏，去欣赏不同水平的创造性，同时利用这些创意逐步提升我们自身的潜力。 以下创新，按掌握的难易程度区分，由最简单到最困难可分为五个水平。 模仿型创新 模仿是古希腊流传下来的一个词，它的意思是仿效或者模拟。这是最基本的创新形式。古苏格兰的乌鸦和猩猩都有一种本领，只要观察别的生物，它们就能创造相仿的工具。如果将一对母子放在一起看看就一目了然了，我们做的正是这种传承。它是学习过程的基础。 有种创新的形式常被大家忽视，那就是从一个领域或者学科学到一种见解，然后将它用到另一个领域。比如全美第二大医院梅奥医院（Mayo Clinic）的一名外科医生希望改善病人的就诊体验，他可以向丽思-卡尔顿（Ritz-Carlton）酒店取经，因为这家酒店一向以优质的客户服务闻名。 对于这种跨领域改造适用创意的能力，已故的苹果（Apple）联合创始人、前任首席执行官史蒂夫•乔布斯将这种跨领域改造适用创意的能力视为实用创新的关键：“创新就是将事物联系在一起。你问有创造力的人是怎样做事的，他们会觉得有点不好意思，因为他们其实并不是在创造，只是自然而然地看到了一些东西。似乎对于他们来说，观察一会，这些东西就会变得显而易见。因为他们能联系到自己从前的经历，进而合成新的事物。” 双联想创新 双联想（Bisociative）这个词由小说家阿瑟•库斯勒首创。库斯勒在自己的传世名著《创造的艺术》（The Act of Creation）里用双联想一词来描述人类有意识的思想怎样运转，将直觉的想法与理性思维联系在一起，产生了灵光闪现的所谓“尤里卡”（Eureka）时刻。禅宗将这种沟通行为称为“顿悟”（Satori），意思是突然之间觉悟。当人们将自己熟悉的创意与不熟悉的创意结合时会形成一种新奇的综合体，如此便出现了双联想创新。联系创意通常会采取一些更偏于冥想的方式，但也可以用另一类方式刺激创意，那就是用许多随性的想法密集轰炸大脑，以此搜寻捕捉灵感。人们通常将这类活动称为头脑风暴（brainstorming）。比如1994年，鉴于拍摄《玩具总动员》（Toy Story）几乎濒临破产的经历，四位原属皮克斯动画工作室（Pixar）的导演组织了一次晚宴聚会，就自己希望制作怎样的电影发起了头脑风暴。导演们交换了彼此的理念，在此基础之上，这次非正式会议之后诞生了《虫虫特工队》（A Bug's Life）、《怪兽电力公司》（Monsters Inc）、《海底总动员》（Finding Nemo）和《机器人总动员》（WALL-E）。一群好莱坞的局外人在一个下午共同交流了创意，改变了整个动画产业的面貌。 双联想式创新建立在以下三个F带来的惊人动力基础上： • 流畅性：拥有许多未经雕琢的创意比仅有少数“好”创意更有生产力，因为前者的创意类型更多样，解决方法的选择范围更广。 • 灵活性：我们常常是将“对”的创意用“错”了地方，为了迎接我们的挑战，我们必须四处尝试这些创意，看它们用在何处最适合。 • 流动性：我们在需求方面没有创造性。我们需要刺激，这样能产生创新所需的能量，还需要自由汲取这样的能量。一旦我们习惯适应之后，创意就能顺畅地喷薄而出。 |
Is everyone creative? Sure they are, but in very different ways and to varying degrees. There is a big difference between the folksong you wrote for your college sweetheart and a Beethoven symphony. Our democratic longing to make everyone and everything equal has lead us to make creative greatness indistinguishable from an act of personal expression. What is lacking is meaningful appreciation of the different levels of creativity and how we can use them as steps for increasing our own potential. Here are five levels and types of creativity, from the easiest to the most difficult to master. Mimetic Creativity Mimesis is a term passed d own to us from the Ancient Greeks meaning to imitate or mimic. This is the most rudimentary form of creativity. Animals from Caledonian crows to orangutans have the ability to create tools simply by observing other creatures. Watch a mother and child together and it becomes clear that we do the same. It is the foundation of the learning process. An often-overlooked form of creativity is simply taking an idea from one area or discipline and applying it to another. For example, a physician at the Mayo Clinic who wants to improve the patient experience may pay a visit to a Ritz-Carlton, which is known for its customer service. The late Apple (AAPL) co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs saw this a bility to move across boundaries to adapt ideas as the key to useful creativity: "Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things." Bisociative Creativity "Bisociative" is a term coined by the novelist Arthur Koestler in his celebrated book The Act of Creation to describe how our conscious mind can connect rational with intuitive thoughts to produce so-called Eureka moments. In the Zen tradition, this act of communion is called Satori, meaning sudden enlightenment. Bisociative creativity occurs when a familiar idea is connected to an unfamiliar one to produce a novel hybrid. Though connecting ideas is often done through more contemplative means, it can be stimulated by bombarding the mind with a barrage of random thoughts to see what catches. The general description for this type of activity is called brainstorming. For example, in 1994, while coming out of a near bankruptcy experience and working on Toy Story, four of the original Pixar directors had lunch at a diner and brainstormed ideas about movies they wanted make. Building on each other's concepts, from this one informal meeting came A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo,and WALL-E. Hollywood outsiders changed the motion picture industry in an afternoon of throwing ideas together. Bisociative creativity builds on the electrifying dynamics of the three F's: • Fluency – It is more productive to have lots of unpolished ideas than a few "good" ones because the greater the diversity of ideas, the wider the range of possible solutions • Flexibility – Often we have the "right" idea but we've put it in the "wrong" place so we have to move them around to see where they best fit to meet our challenges • Flow – We aren't creative on demand. We need to be both simulated and relaxed to draw out the energy required to create. Ideas pour out smoothly when we get into a groove |
