We will look at six major creative thinking principles in this chapter:1. Separate Idea Generation from Evaluation
- Test assumptions.
- Avoid patterned thinking.
- Create new perspectives.
- Minimize negative thinking.
- Take prudent risks.
- Separate Idea Generation from Evaluation
If you don’t remember anything else, remember this: when you generate ideas, separate gen-
eration from evaluation. This is the most important creative thinking principle.You’ll never
achieve your full creative potential until you apply this principle every time you generate
ideas. The reason is simple: creative problem solving requires both divergent and conver-
gent thinking. Idea generation is divergent; you want to get as many ideas as possible.
Idea evaluation is convergent—you want to narrow down the pool of ideas and select the
best ones. If you try to do both activities at once, you won’t do either one well.
Effective problem solvers have learned to separate these two activities; that is, first
they generate ideas and then they evaluate them. Most “average” problem solvers use a
sequential approach instead: generate-evaluate–generate-evaluate-generate, and so forth.
These problem solvers commingle generation and evaluation. They rarely move on to
think about another idea until they have analyzed the previous idea in all possible ways.
The result is a limited number of overanalyzed ideas.
For many people, such mixing may seem natural. They may use this method fre-
quently because it is what they have always done. There is one thing wrong with this sys-
tem, however: it is the worst way to generate ideas! Commingling generation and
evaluation usually yields few ideas. It also creates a negative climate not conducive to
creative thinking.
Before beginning any idea generation session—whether alone or in a group—remem-
ber that the best way to get ideas is to defer judgment.Save the analysis and critical thinking
for later, after all possible ideas have been generated. Then and only then will it be time to
evaluate the ideas. - Test Assumptions
Testing assumptions is probably the second most important creative thinking
principle, because it is the basis for all creative perceptions.We see only
what we think we see. Whenever we look at something, we make
assumptions about reality. Optical illusions, one form of creative per-
ception, depend on this phenomenon.
Most psychology students, for instance, are familiar with the pic-
ture that combines an old woman and a young woman (see Figure 2.1).
Which of the two women we see depends on how we look at the pic-
ture. How we look at the picture depends on the assumptions we make
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