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Creativity 299

ANSWER WITHOUT READING ON

This is the classic test of creativity developed by J.P. Guilford in 1967.
It is called the Alternative Uses Task. You can try the task with many
objects: bricks, chairs, even water. How did you do on your first attempt?
8 to 10 uses is about average, 20 is extremely good. It’s possible to teach
most people to get near twenty and I’ll show you how to do this in a
moment.

Another test of idea generation is to draw 30 things in 30 circles.
Thirty is such a large number it forces us to come up with some nutty
ideas and break our natural tendency to self-censor.

For example, I’d like you to create logos or logo ideas, for a new
coffee company in your circles. The test is best done without a time limit
so now is the time to break off reading and make yourself a coffee. Then
come back and draw 30 circles on a piece of paper. Fill in the circles.

MAKE A COFFEE, THEN START DRAWING.

[Graphic: Three diamond shapes]

The aim of brainstorming is to remove our inhibitions and get us
to generate a mass of ideas. In normal life, we tend to suppress ideas
even before we are consciously aware of them. Sir Ken Robinson has
researched creativity in children and found the ability to brainstorm
reduces linearly with age. At five or six, children given one of these
divergent thinking tasks come up with many creative solutions: fold the
paper clip into a dinosaur, and use it to attack your friends, get two and
use them as chop sticks. As adults, we tend to disqualify ideas. You could
never fold a paperclip that tightly or accurately, we said, “a” paper clip
not two. But, you can fold a paper clip tightly, and the room you are
doing the test in has thirty paper clips and thirty people in it so just team
up with a friend. I never said this was a solo task!

Do you see how you impose nonexistent rules on your thinking,
particularly the implied rule of not working with others? I did not say
this test was subject to examination conditions. The first twenty years of
our lives teaches us to work alone on intellectual tasks, yet when we get
to the workplace we can, and indeed must collaborate to succeed. Now
you have an idea how to ace the paper clip test: don’t censor yourself and
don’t imply rules I have not imposed!

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