The 10 mental blocks to Creativity

Creative thinking and innovation seem to be the latest sexy management terms. Its what every business now wants to do - Innovate!
And they all like to call this - “thinking outside of the box,” which, according to Brian Clark over at Copyblogger, is the wrong way to look at it. Just like Neo needed to understand that “there is no spoon” in the film The Matrix, you need to realize “there is no box” to step outside of.

You create your own imaginary boxes simply by living life and accepting certain things as “real” when they are just as illusory as the beliefs of a paranoid delusional.

Brian, in his post asks if you recognize these 10 mental blocks to creative thinking:

1. Trying To Find The “Right” Answer
2. Logical Thinking
3. Following Rules
4. Being Practical
5. Play Is Not Work
6. That’s Not My Job
7. Being A “Serious” Person
8. Avoiding Ambiguity
9. Being Wrong Is Bad
10. I’m Not Creative

Click here to read 10 mental blocks to creative thinking.

Make it bite sized and delicious

Here’s a food related question.

What is easier to eat and faster to digest:

A. one SLICE of pepperoni pizza or

B. one ENTIRE pepperoni pizza.

For those who answered A, congratulations for a healthier choice. For those who answered B …well...enjoy the pizza!

But why in the whole wide world are we talking about pizzas!

Here's why.

When it comes to training and development of future leaders—even those new hires coming right out of the top B schools—we are inclined to follow the 'shove-the-entire-pizza-down-my-throat-approach'. Even when presented with a bouquet of tools equipped with the latest technology, we are reluctant to modify existing training methods.

The fact remains that most training is still characterized by standard lectures, information download, and standard memorization.
The current and the next generation of leaders has grown up on instant cash, short messaging, fast food, one touch access, push button publishing and speedy travel. We have access to several sources of information and entertainment at the click of a mouse. We are wired - 24 hours a day!

As a result, we now expect information in short, truncated doses - one slice at a time! Our training techniques need to be aligned with the way we learn new information and stay engaged.
We need to serve information in easy to digest CHUNKS, which need to be DELICIOUS and good to eat! Its needs to be fast and ACCELERATED.

In fact ‘Accelerated Learning’ is the new-sexy-buzz worthy-sticky learning technique that claims to multiply the effectiveness of training several times over!

Though it may not be possible to make too many changes to our T&D programs in a click, training leaders can take some bold steps to change conventional learning practices.

As observed in a recent training workshop for high school students invited to take a tour of a corporate - People especially the young ones, learn best by practically doing something. Long boring lectures, seminars and Powerpoints switched them off, unless made interactive.

So how delicious is your training?