How Creativity Can Spark Ideas

We have all been there on a work project. You have been tasked with coming up with solutions to solve a process inefficiency and the team is looking for you to lead the brainstorming session. You stand up and say “Alright, who has an idea?”…then there is silence and everyone looks around hoping someone else has an idea. By asking that question you are hoping someone comes up with a spark.

Instead of forcing that spark there is another avenue to produce it…making art.

When you engage in a creative activity; whether it be drawing, painting, pottery you are activating systems of the brain that drive idea generation and critically evaluate them. Additionally, those systems spark memory systems to recall the past and also imagine the future. Talk about a super effective way to generate idea on your process quandary. Instead of asking the question of “who has an idea”, you could pivot to a simple creative exercise to warm everyone up for that eventual brainstorm.

Not only are the right systems activated but there is another important idea generator at your disposal…curiosity. Lets say you asked everyone to sketch “what symbol represents efficiency to you?” There will be silence in the room and during that silence your entire team is thinking deeply “what does efficiency mean and look like to me?” There curiosity is in over-drive as they rummage through their past and current experiences to decide upon a symbol. Then once they decide they sketch it down.

Now you go around the room and ask everyone to share what they sketched. People will start listening to each other, finding similarities and hearing new ones. There even might be some “ooooo” and “ahhhhh” (or some other vocal reaction). Now internal curiosity has shifted to external and the idea generation is in full swing.

By warming everyone up through a creative exercise you have now sparked the right systems to solve your work problem!