101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

• It violates professional standards.


• The board won’t like it.


• It’s outside my scope of responsibility.


• It conflicts with policy.


• The present method is working. Why rock the boat?

You probably could think of many more examples with very little effort. Now, what

would happen if you tried to make a list of positive responses? Try it. Take five minutes

and write down every positive response you can think of to a new idea. Most likely, this

second list will be shorter than the first. It’s much more difficult to think of positive

responses.

Develop Balanced Responses

To break out of the negative thinking groove, try to develop more balanced responses to

new ideas. There are a number of ways to do this. Here are three:

1.Try viewing ideas as raw material; that is, initial ideas are the fragile creatures we often

transform into more workable solutions. So be gentle. Support and cradle all new

ideas—they frequently can be modified or can help stimulate improved versions.

2.Every time you hear a new idea, train yourself to think or say, “What’s good about it?What is

at least one positive feature of that idea?” If you can think of one positive aspect, then

you will benefit from what may initially have appeared useless. Moreover, the posi-

tive feature may stimulate a better idea.

3.Use a balanced response to evaluating new ideas.Say (or think) what you like about the

idea, what you find interesting about it, and then what you dislike. This might help

prevent the negative climate in individuals and groups that often accompanies

responses to ideas.

6. Take Prudent Risks

A failure is an opportunity to start over again, but more intelligently.

—Henry Ford

You can’t be a creative thinker unless you are a failure. No one ever truly succeeds with-

out failing first. For instance, novelist John Creasey supposedly got 743 rejection slips

before he published 562 books. Sports fans know that Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times—

a pretty poor record. Fortunately, he also hit 714 home runs. And R.H. Macy failed seven

times before his New York store caught on.

Creative thinking involves a certain amount of risk taking. Many people fear risks,

however, because risks can lead to failure. And who wants to be branded a failure? Yet we

must take risks to have any chance to succeed. An old quotation describes this philosophy

perfectly:

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