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The secret of creativity

How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery, by Kevin Ashton

KEVIN Ashton was an executive director and visiting engineer at MIT, where he led work on computing for the future, and coined the widely used term ‘the internet of things’. He has led three hugely successful technology start–ups.

This book is not about ‘the internet of things,’ but I mention his credentials only to emphasise that the man is highly credible.

This book is about creativity, the characteristic so needed in a fast-changing business environment. Creativity affects every part of our lives. The next time you hear a dog bark, you are hearing a wolf creatively changed by thousands of years of selective breeding by people.

There is no shortage of books on creativity: kalahari.com offers 1 320 books on the subject. Clearly, we cannot know enough about creating, but this book is completely unlike any other I have read, so read on.

The foundation question of creativity has always been: “How do the great people do it?” The classic answer still has hints of medieval Divine Intervention.

Mozart’s extraordinary music appeared to him as a complete piece when he was alone, and in a good mood. He did not use any instruments to create the music. Once Mozart had imagined his masterpieces he only had to write them down, he explained in a letter.

In similar fashion, we learn, all the greats have these moments of creativity: poems come in dreams, symphonies are composed complete.

Even Mozart sometimes got stuck

The problem is that Mozart’s letter is a forgery confirmed by his biographer and scholars ever since. “Even though his talent and a lifetime of practice made him fast and fluent, his work was exactly that: work,” writes Ashton. “He sketched his compositions, revised them, and sometimes got stuck. He could not work without a piano or harpsichord.” Ditto for the rest of the creative lot.

Creativity is work. Work is getting up early and going to bed late. It is giving up weekends, writing and rewriting, reviewing and revising. It is “staring down the doubt of the blank page”, starting even though you are not clear were to begin, and then not stopping.

“There was no magic, and there had been few flashes of inspiration - just tens of thousands of hours of work,” Ashton explains.

How to Fly a Horse is an orderly insight into creating, based on quality research, and enriched by examples of people who have produced remarkable ideas and things. It is full of insights relevant to everyone.

For example, creating is not rare. We are all born to do it. Just as there is no such thing as creative walking, there is no such thing as creative thinking. “Creation is a result - a place thinking may lead us.” Ordinary thinking works. The data currently available shows no particular differences in the processes involved in creative and non-creative thinking.

Behavioural neurologist Richard Caselli reports: “Despite great qualitative and quantitative differences between individuals, the neurobiologic principles of creative behaviour are the same from the least to the most creative among us.” Psychologist Ellis Paul Torrance, developer of the widely respected Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, found no connection between creative ability and general intelligence.

Einstein was stuck for a year developing the special theory of relativity. “I was led to it by steps,” he wrote, and also told people. (Not a forgery!) This step-by-step process is how the best artists, scientists, engineers, inventors, entrepreneurs and other creators work - finding new problems, new solutions, and then new problems again. This has been confirmed by the seminal psychologist, Karl Dunker, who did groundbreaking work in creativity.

“Creating is the result of thinking like walking. Left foot, problem. Right foot, solution. Repeat until you arrive.” All great discoveries, even those that look like leaps, are actually a series of many steps.

Incubation is folk psychology

Much has been made of “sleeping on a problem” or more formally, “incubation”. Solid research finds no evidence that incubation affects creativity under any conditions. Most researchers now regard incubation as folk psychology - a popular belief, but wrong.
The popular brainstorming technique has been widely researched. In every case, people working individually generated between 30% to 40% more ideas than people working in a group. Their results were of a higher quality too, as judged independently.

The general conclusion is that group brainstorming inhibits rather than facilitates creative output.

A standard practice in brainstorming is the suspension of judgement, rather than assessing ideas as they appear. In studies where different groups were told to refrain from criticism, and others told to criticise as they went along, both groups produced the same number of good ideas.

There are no shortcuts to creative output. It is like a maze, easy to enter but hard to exit with success.

“If your idea succeeds, everybody says you’re persistent. If it doesn’t succeed, you’re stubborn,” says Professor Judah Folkman, best known for his breakthrough work on tumour angiogenesis. He could not get published or funded, and was banned from performing surgery. Other scientists called him a charlatan on a hopeless search, walked out of his talks  and told researchers not to work with him. Today he is lauded as a genius.

A critical key to creating is the “delete” key, the ability to review your work and disapprove of it. Author Stephen King published 39 new books between 1980 and 1999, which is more than 5 million words. King says he always writes 2 000 words a day. Over 20 years that is 14 million words, which means King must erase almost two words for every one he keeps.

“Saying ‘no’ has more creative power than ideas, insights, and talent combined,” Ashton points out. This applies to time as well, because time is the raw material of creation. “You have less than you think and need more than you know.” There are few overnight successes and many up-all-night successes.

The book has many more usable insights and deserves a thorough reading.

Readability:    Light --+-- Serious
Insights:        High --+-- Low
Practical:        High --+-- Low

*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. Views expressed are his own.

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