Generating Ideas by Convergent Thinking

The secret to problem-solving and creativity is curiosity. Generating ideas to find the best of the best. By generating ideas you start by asking lots of questions. By being curious. By thinking widely and not discarding ideas too soon. By convergent thinking.

creative thinking — Spark your convergent thinking.

We often forget to encourage our employees to be curious. An employee who has no perceived customer skills, or ability to communicate well or the inability to be a good team player gets immediate and escalating attention. The employee with no curiosity, on the other hand, is no problem at all. Lumps are easily managed.

The same thing is true for following instructions. We usually like employees who don’t ask a lot of questions and do not question the status quo.

Yet, without the question “why?” there can be no here’s how to make it better.

So we want to share a story to illustrate the value of why you need to ask why.

We are always on the lookout for good stories. Stories to illustrate points we are emphasizing. So we read a lot. Today’s story is about generating ideas. Ideas from convergent thinking.

The story is about why you should ask why. It comes from Ideas Champions. A consulting company like ours (but bigger and more well-known), specializes in creativity, innovation, team building, and leadership. All favorite topics of ours. So we keep up with this team.

The story is about a big problem at one of our favorite monuments – the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC.

Simply put, birds — in huge numbers — were pooping all over it, which made visiting the place a very unpleasant experience.

Attempts to remedy the situation caused even bigger problems since the harsh cleaning detergents being used were damaging the memorial.

Fortunately, some of the National Parks managers assigned to the case began asking WHY — as in “Why was the Jefferson Memorial so much more of a target for birds than any of the other memorials?”

A little bit of investigation revealed the following:

The birds were attracted to the Jefferson Memorial because of the abundance of spiders — a gourmet treat for birds.

The spiders were attracted to the Memorial because of the abundance of midges (insects) that were nesting there.

And the midges were attracted to the Memorial because of the light.

Midges, it turns out like to procreate in places where the light is just so — and because the lights were turned on, at the Jefferson Memorial, one hour before dark, it created the kind of mood lighting that midges went crazy for.

So there you have it: The midges were attracted to the light. The spiders were attracted to the midges. The birds were attracted to the spiders. And the National Parks workers, though not necessarily attracted to the bird poop, were attracted to getting paid — so they spent a lot of their time (and taxpayer money) cleaning the Memorial.

How did the situation resolve? Very simply.

After reviewing the curious chain of events that led up to the problem, the decision was made to wait until dark before turning the lights on at the Jefferson Memorial. About as simple a solution as you could get. Right?

That one-hour delay was enough to ruin the mood lighting for the midges, who then decided to have midge sex somewhere else.

No midges, no spiders. No spiders, no birds. No birds, no poop. No poop, no need to clean the Jefferson Memorial so often. Case closed.

Now, consider what “solutions” might have been forthcoming if those curious National Parks managers did not stop and asked WHY:

Hire more workers to clean the Memorial

Ask existing workers to work overtime

Experiment with different kinds of cleaning materials

Put bird poison all around the memorial

Hire hunters to shoot the birds

Encase the entire Jefferson Memorial in Plexiglas

Move the Memorial to another part of Washington

Close the site to the general public

Technically speaking, each of the above “solutions” was a possible approach — but at great cost, inconvenience, and with questionable results. Not great solutions.

Key takeaways

Now, think about YOUR business… YOUR life.

What problems are you facing that could be approached differently simply by asking WHY…. and then WHY again… and then WHY again … until you get to the real definition of the problem?

If you don’t, you may just end up not correctly defining the problem. Not good. Nothing worse than solving the wrong problem. So put in enough time to understand and define your problem. Don’t leap to problem-solving before you do. Lots of whys help us explore and thoroughly define the problem.

Remember to practice these problem-solving skills as well as ask lots of why questions to form new ideas.

Do you have problem-solving, creative learning experiences that are good at generating ideas? A story you would like to share?

Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s teamwork, collaboration, and learning? Creative ideas in running or facilitating teamwork or continuous learning workshop?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Lessons in Learning and Creativity From Da Vinci

No doubt. We are big fans of great thinkers. Our top thinker of all time? It has to be Da Vinci. Why do you ask? For his abilities in learning and creativity, without a doubt. A mathematician. A scientist. An engineer. An anatomist. A creative learner. Always learning and creating.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when shown, and those that do not see.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Do you see? Maybe the lessons from Da Vinci will help. So what would be the lessons in learning and creativity derived from Da Vinci? Here are the ones we continually come back to:

Sketching and note-taking

Over his lifetime Da Vinci created 13,000 pages of sketches and notes. 13,000 pages. By hand, on individual sheets of paper. A sketch in the center, simple and done quickly, the label on top, annotations along the sides, arrows pointing to key content. Sometimes a short summary is at the bottom.

Divergent thinking first

Alone for the first few iterations divergent thinking. Time to generate lots of ideas, and to reflect. Incubate ideas. Ask himself lots of questions. Always observing and studying. Think about the age of Da Vinci … no computers, few books, and few experts in fields of his interests. Just his ability to see and observe using notes to record for further study.

Convergent thinking later

Da Vinci often reviewed his work with respected peers after he had finished incubating his ideas. It was an opportunity to refine his ideas. Time to collaborate. He was way ahead of his time in most topics, so many of his good ideas were rejected. He didn’t lose his desire or his persistence by the rejections. But remember … 13,000 sketches led to at least 3 masterpieces. Persistence is a key, isn’t it? Perhaps this is the most important reason we have less creative people.

Save and revisit later

Most of Da Vinci’s sketches were done on individual sheets of paper. Not in a constrained notebook. He understood the value of multiple revisits and connecting, reconnecting, and grouping related facts and observations. An analogy expert. And an uncanny ability to connect several different observations and ideas to create new ideas.

Defer judgment

His basis of the study was simple observation and notes/questions on his observations. He withheld judgments, either positive or negative, for as long as possible. Particularly his own. He appreciated that judgment would be a block to creativity and new ideas.

“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions”

Curiosity and questions

Perhaps Da Vinci’s greatest asset was his insatiable curiosity. The more observations and connections of ideas, the more questions, and curiosity. And creative ideas.

Stimulate imagination

Da Vinci used divergent thinking to create lots of ideas. Lots of ideas, questions, and curiosity to stimulate his imagination. He minimized the limitations and constraints when using his imagination to think of the solution space to his many questions.

Do you see? Very, very few of Da Vinci’s abilities are in the populace. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to be creative … it can be learned. Can you use these lessons to learn to see or see better? Give it a try. Practice and be persistent. Stick with it and over the long haul, you will see some good dividends.

Have you found additional ways for learning and creativity? Have a story about your experiences to share with this community?

Learning Activities: Familiar with These 7 Lessons From Da Vinci?

No doubt. We are big fans of the great thinkers. Our top thinker of all time? It has to be Da Vinci. Why do you ask? For his abilities in learning activities, without a doubt. A mathematician. A scientist. An engineer. An anatomist. A creative and learner. Always giving lessons in creativity and learning.

Check out our thoughts on team leverage.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when shown, and those that do not see.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Imagine you could go back in time and give your 20-year-old self a bit of advice on investing in the creative process, coming up with new ideas, and producing good, fun work.

What would you say?

Do you see? Maybe the lessons from Da Vinci will help. So what would be the lessons in learning and creativity derived from Da Vinci?

In General Stanley McChrystal’s efforts to transform the Special Forces in Iraq, he ran into challenges trying to get diverse teams to work together. Yet he saw that by building connections between units he could build a “team of teams” that was able to effectively coordinate action. In One Mission, his aide-de-camp, Chris Fussell, describes two strategies used to achieve this effect.

The first was to leverage high-performing liaison officers to build personal connections among disparate units. The second, called the “O&I” forum, was a daily video conference that was designed to create informal connections between officers at an “operational cadence.” Since leaving the military, McChrystal and Fussell have had similar success implementing these strategies in civilian organizations at their consulting group.

Here are the ones we continually come back to:

Learning activities … sketching and note taking

Over his lifetime Da Vinci created 13,000 pages of sketches and notes. 13,000 pages. By hand, on individual sheets of paper. Design in the center, simple and done quickly, a label on top, annotations along the sides, arrows pointing to key content. Sometimes a summary on the bottom.

Types of learning activities … divergent thinking first

Alone for the first few iterations different thought. Time to generate lots of ideas, and to reflect. Incubate ideas. Ask himself lots of questions. Always observing and studying. Think about the age of Da Vinci … no computers, few books, and few experts in fields of his interests. Just his ability to see and observe using notes to record for further study.

Related: How Good Is your Learning from Failure?

Creative learning methodology … convergent thinking later

Da Vinci often reviewed his work with respected peers after he had finished incubating his ideas. It was an opportunity to refine his thoughts. Time to collaborate. He was way ahead of his day in most topics, so many of his good ideas were rejected. He didn’t lose his desire or his persistence by the rejections. But remember … 13,000 sketches led to at least three masterpieces. Persistence is a key, isn’t it? Perhaps this is the most important reason we have less creative people.

Related post: 10 Extraordinary Ways for Learning to Learn

Save and revisit later

Most of Da Vinci’s sketches were done on individual sheets of paper. Not in a constrained notebook. He understood the value of multiple revisits and connecting, reconnecting, and grouping related facts and observations. An analogy expert. And an uncanny ability to connect several different views and ideas to create new ideas.

Learning and creativity will defer judgment

His basis of the study was simple observation and notes/questions on his views. He withheld judgments, either positive or negative, for as long as possible. Particularly his own. He appreciated that judgment would be a block to creativity and new ideas.

“The greatest deception men suffer is from their opinions”

Curiosity and questions

Perhaps Da Vinci’s greatest asset was his insatiable curiosity. The more observations and connection of ideas, the more questions and interest. And creative ideas.

Stimulate imagination

Da Vinci used divergent thinking to create lots of ideas. Lots of ideas, questions, and curiosity to stimulate his imagination. He minimized the limitations and constraints when using his imagination to think of the solution space to his many questions.

The bottom line

Do you see? Very, very few of Da Vinci’s learning activities and abilities are in the populace. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to be creative … it can be learned. Can you use these lessons to learn to see or see better? Give it a try. Practice and be persistent. Stick with it, and over the long haul, you will see some real dividends.

Have you found additional ways for learning and creativity? Have a story on your experiences to share with this community?

Like this story? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn or Google+ for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.

Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s teamwork, collaboration, and learning? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a collaboration or continuous learning workshop?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.

More reading on learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

The Nine Most Valuable Secrets of Writing Effective Copy

10 Extraordinary Ways for Learning to Learn

Continuous Learning Holds the Keys to Your Future Success

Lessons in Learning and Creativity From Da Vinci

No doubt. We are big fans of great thinkers. Our top thinker of all time? It has to be Da Vinci. Why do you ask? For his abilities in learning and creativity, without a doubt. A mathematician. A scientist. An engineer. An anatomist. A creative and learner. Always learning and creating.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when shown, and those that do not see.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Do you see? Maybe the lessons from Da Vinci will help. So what would be the lessons in learning and creativity derived from Da Vinci? Here are the ones we continually come back to:

Sketching and note taking

Over his lifetime Da Vinci created 13,000 pages of sketches and notes. 13,000 pages. By hand, on individual sheets of paper. A sketch in the center, simple and done quickly, the label on top, annotations along the sides, arrows pointing to key content. Sometimes a short summary on the bottom.

Divergent thinking first

Alone for the first few iterations divergent thinking. Time to generate lots of ideas, and to reflect. Incubate ideas. Ask himself lots of questions. Always observing and studying. Think about the age of Da Vinci … no computers, few books, and few experts in fields of his interests. Just his ability to see and observe using notes to record for further study.

Convergent thinking later

Da Vinci often reviewed his work with respected peers after he had finished incubating his ideas. It was an opportunity to refine his ideas. Time to collaborate. He was way ahead of his time in most topics, so many of his good ideas were rejected. He didn’t lose his desire or his persistence by the rejections. But remember … 13,000 sketches led to at least 3 masterpieces. Persistence is a key, isn’t it? Perhaps this is the most important reason we have less creative people.

Save and revisit later

Most of Da Vinci’s sketches were done on individual sheets of paper. Not in a constrained notebook. He understood the value of multiple revisits and connecting, reconnecting, and grouping related facts and observations. An analogy expert. And an uncanny ability to connect several different observations and ideas to create new ideas.

Defer judgment

His basis of study was simple observation and notes/questions on his observations. He withheld judgments, either positive or negative, for as long as possible. Particularly his own. He appreciated that judgment would be a block to creativity and new ideas.

“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions”

Curiosity and questions

Perhaps Da Vinci’s greatest asset was his insatiable curiosity. The more observations and connections of ideas, the more questions, and curiosity. And creative ideas.

Stimulate imagination

Da Vinci used divergent thinking to create lots of ideas. Lots of ideas, questions, and curiosity to stimulate his imagination. He minimized the limitations and constraints when using his imagination to think of the solution space to his many questions.

Do you see? Very, very few of Da Vinci’s abilities are in the populace. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to be creative … it can be learned. Can you use these lessons to learn to see or see better? Give it a try. Practice and be persistent. Stick with it and over the long haul, you will see some good dividends.

The secret to problem-solving and creativity is curiosity. Generating ideas to find the best of the best. By generating ideas you start by asking lots of questions. By being curious. By thinking widely and not discarding ideas too soon. By convergent thinking.

The same thing is true for following instructions. We usually like employees who don’t ask a lot of questions and do not question the status quo.

Yet, without the question “why?” there can be no here’s how to make it better.

So we want to share a story to illustrate the value of why you need to ask why.

We are always on the lookout for good stories. Stories to illustrate points we are emphasizing. So we read a lot. Today’s story is about generating ideas. Ideas from convergent thinking.

The story is about why you should ask why. It comes from Ideas Champions. A consulting company like ours (but bigger and more well-known), specializes in creativity, innovation, team building, and leadership. All favorite topics of ours. So we keep up with this team.

The story is about a big problem at one of our favorite monuments – the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC.

Simply put, birds — in huge numbers — were pooping all over it, which made visiting the place a very unpleasant experience.

Attempts to remedy the situation caused even bigger problems since the harsh cleaning detergents being used were damaging the memorial.

Fortunately, some of the National Parks managers assigned to the case began asking WHY — as in “Why was the Jefferson Memorial so much more of a target for birds than any of the other memorials?”

A little bit of investigation revealed the following:

The birds were attracted to the Jefferson Memorial because of the abundance of spiders — a gourmet treat for birds.

The spiders were attracted to the Memorial because of the abundance of midges (insects) that were nesting there.

And the midges were attracted to the Memorial because of the light.

Midges, it turns out like to procreate in places where the light is just so — and because the lights were turned on, at the Jefferson Memorial, one hour before dark, it created the kind of mood lighting that midges went crazy for.

How did the situation resolve? Very simply.

After reviewing the curious chain of events that led up to the problem, the decision was made to wait until dark before turning the lights on at the Jefferson Memorial. About as simple a solution as you could get. Right?

That one-hour delay was enough to ruin the mood lighting for the midges, who then decided to have midge sex somewhere else.

No midges, no spiders. No spiders, no birds. No birds, no poop. No poop, no need to clean the Jefferson Memorial so often. Case closed.

Now, consider what “solutions” might have been forthcoming if those curious National Parks managers did not stop and asked WHY:

Hire more workers to clean the Memorial

Ask existing workers to work overtime

Experiment with different kinds of cleaning materials

Put bird poison all around the memorial

Hire hunters to shoot the birds

Encase the entire Jefferson Memorial in Plexiglas

Move the Memorial to another part of Washington

Close the site to the general public

Technically speaking, each of the above “solutions” was a possible approach — but at great cost, inconvenience, and with questionable results. Not great solutions.

Key takeaways

Now, think about YOUR business… YOUR life.

What problems are you facing that could be approached differently simply by asking WHY…. and then WHY again… and then WHY again … until you get to the real definition of the problem?

If you don’t, you may just end up not correctly defining the problem. Not good. Nothing worse than solving the wrong problem. So put in enough time to understand and define your problem. Don’t leap to problem-solving before you do. Lots of whys help us explore and thoroughly define the problem.

Remember to practice these problem-solving skills as well as ask lots of why questions to form new ideas.

Do you have problem-solving, creative learning experiences that are good at generating ideas? A story you would like to share?

Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s teamwork, collaboration, and learning? Creative ideas in running or facilitating teamwork or continuous learning workshop?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

More reading on continuous learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Is Learning a Significant Teaching Product of our Schools?

Why Questioning is Critical to Learning and Problem Solving

10 Things Wrong with Today’s Education Curriculum

Embracing Change is Key to Improving Continuous Learning

No doubt. We are big fans of great thinkers. Our top thinker of all time? It has to be Da Vinci. Why do you ask? For his abilities in learning and creativity, without a doubt. A mathematician. A scientist. An engineer. An anatomist. A creative learner. Always learning and creating.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when shown, and those that do not see.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Do you see? Maybe the lessons from Da Vinci will help. So what would be the lessons in learning and creativity derived from Da Vinci? Here are the ones we continually come back to:

Sketching and note-taking

Over his lifetime Da Vinci created 13,000 pages of sketches and notes. 13,000 pages. By hand, on individual sheets of paper. A sketch in the center, simple and done quickly, the label on top, annotations along the sides, arrows pointing to key content. Sometimes a short summary is at the bottom.

Divergent thinking first

Convergent thinking later

Save and revisit later

Defer judgment

His basis of the study was simple observation and notes/questions on his observations. He withheld judgments, either positive or negative, for as long as possible. Particularly his own. He appreciated that judgment would be a block to creativity and new ideas.

“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions”

Curiosity and questions

Perhaps Da Vinci’s greatest asset was his insatiable curiosity. The more observations and connections of ideas, the more questions, and curiosity. And creative ideas.

Stimulate imagination

Da Vinci used divergent thinking to create lots of ideas. Lots of ideas, questions, and curiosity to stimulate his imagination. He minimized the limitations and constraints when using his imagination to think of the solution space to his many questions.

Have you found additional ways for learning and creativity? Have a story about your experiences to share with this community?

More reading from Digital Spark Marketing’s blog library:

Improve Creative Thinking Skills by Adding Constraints to Problem

10 Ways to a Sustainable Creativity/Innovation Culture

Do You Practice These Habits of the Highly Creatives

Learning activities … sketching and note taking

Types of learning activities … divergent thinking first

Creative learning methodology … convergent thinking later

Save and revisit later

Learning and creativity will defer judgment

Curiosity and questions

Stimulate imagination

The bottom line

No doubt. We are big fans of great thinkers. Our top thinker of all time? It has to be Da Vinci. Why do you ask? For his abilities in learning and creativity, without a doubt. A mathematician. A scientist. An engineer. An anatomist. A creative and learner. Always learning and creating.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when shown, and those that do not see.

Do you see? Maybe the lessons from Da Vinci will help. So what would be the lessons in learning and creativity derived from Da Vinci? Here are the ones we continually come back to:

Sketching and note taking