Be Sparkable

One of the greatest compliments we can give a creative collaborate at the d.school is if we call them “sparkable.”

When seeking to generate ideas, the natural longing to settle upon the right answer as quickly as possible is incredibly powerful. The phenomenon is so well-established that there are many names for the underlying cognitive bias: the Einstellung Effect, satisficing, cognitive fixation, and functional fixedness, to name just a few.

In design work, we encourage folks to deliberately separate the task of idea generation from the task of idea evaluation — invoking the mantra, “defer judgment” — to protect themselves from the overwhelming tendency to settle on a sub-optimal idea too quickly (among other dangers of premature judgment). To stick with the task of diverging, and put off judgment, for as long as possible takes determination.

Such folks, who’ve committed themselves to non-judgmental engagement with a team, we dub “sparkable.”

Edward de Bono describes a key difference in the mindset of a sparkable collaborator. In his classic, Lateral Thinking, he says, "In lateral thinking, one uses information not for its own sake but for its effect... The natural inclination is to search for alternatives (or more broadly, generate ideas) in order to find the best one. In lateral thinking however the purpose of the search is to loosen up rigid patterns and to provoke new patterns... Even if the search for alternatives proves to be a waste of time in a particular case it helps develop the habit of looking for alternatives instead of blindly accepting the most obvious approach."

One simple flip I've employed to help folks who are stuck in evaluation mode is to say, "Instead of asking, 'What do I think of this idea?' ask yourself, 'What does this idea make me think of?'"

We default into an evaluative state because we forget that the purpose of the divergent mode is to provoke our thinking; the value of bad ideas (either from diverse collaborators or from my own unfiltered subconscious) is not in their own merits (ie “is it a good idea to strap a jetpack to a baby?”), but in what other ideas they trigger, that we wouldn't have thought of before, had the seemingly-bad idea not been shared (ie building on the bad idea above, “what if we could provide a motorized boost to a stroller, like a self-propelled lawn mower?”). (For the record I just thought of both of those random things while writing this, and I actually do quite like the idea of a self-propelled stroller!)

There's lots of interesting data that suggests that random inputs (see The Medici Effect) and even erroneous information (see Range) can lead to greater idea volume and variety. If you’re unwilling to admit random or erroneous information into your problem solving process, at the very least, dare to be obvious. Even what’s obvious to one collaborator may be wildly creative to another, and may result in an unexpected output to both parties.

But this is only true in that sparkable state, where the value of an input is the effect it has on the thoughts that follow.

Such “sparkable” folks find they hardly ever meet a bad idea. They’re just fuel for the creative fire.

Related: Censoring Self-Censorship
Related: Be Obvious
Related: Resist the Need for Closure
Related: Hack Your Creative Block

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