Creative Think

Letter from a Frustrated Taiwanese Student

A recent article in the New York Times bemoans test scores by American students in mathematics. One country whose students typically do a lot better in standardized math exams is Taiwan. What kind of thinking is cultivated there?

Let's take a quick look (a sample of one). I received the following email from a Taiwanese high school student earlier in the week.

Hi,

I'm a student who just read the book A Whack On The Side Of The Head. I'm really impressed about book and admire the writer, so here I e-mail you!

I'm a 17-year-old-high-school-boy, who likes to think and be creative (I don't memorize then recite). I used to invent things, the most memorable one was Nano High Technology Manual Air Conditioner. I'm not the "GEEnius" you imagine. NHTMWC is nothing but a plastic paper holding on a long ruler with a long yarn. It was a hot summer, and my arm was tired of swinging plastic paper to cool me down, so there's the WHACK, after that I only have to move my finger that tie the line, and the wind was even stronger than swinging it by hand.

Sounds cool huh? Wanna buy one for your children? But here comes a BUT. BUT, I'm a 17-year-old-high-school-boy WHO LIVING IN TAIWAN. Have you heard of Taiwan? Normal students here only memorize the texts, then take the exam, and memorize texts for next exam, guess what, later my poor NHTMWC was removed by my teacher. . . . This country IS sooo serious,

That's why I e-mail you, as your book says, I am explorer, artist, judge, but no warrior (I'm not sure if it is right 'cause mine is Chinese version).

I wanna be but i CANT be! I believe I'm creative and have been given the talent to create, but I'm afraid. . . . It's big pressure because designers have hard time to live in this country, especially when they are young.

It's midnight here now, so I guess this is the end of letter, I hope I can share more next time, there might be some mistake in my letter, but....... who care? Rules are born to be break, isn't it?

Sincerely,

Joey T.

I think Joey is probably experiencing what a lot of East Asian students experience: the frustration of competing for university slots that are awarded on the basis of how well they do on the standardized tests. Whatever creativity you have can be easily snuffed out if you spend most of your time memorizing facts and spitting them back out on exams.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not advocating abandonment of basic skills; it is, after all, difficult to become an effective mechanical engineer if you don't master mathematics, physics, etc. But if you want to be innovative, it's important to cultivate a type of thinking in which you imagine unorthodox uses and applications for the facts you do know -- and then turning these into practical new ideas.

This is Big Picture stuff:
in a world that is
continually changing,
being creative gives one an
important competitive advantage.

My advice to Joey is:

• Do what you can to keep your imaginative side alive.
• Take on creative projects.
  
• Seek out the odd teacher or two at your school who can help you keep your creative fire burning.
• Contact people (as you did me) who can inspire you and give you different perspectives (you are fortunate that you have a great command of English -- you can contact many people around the world on the Internet).
• Continue to look for the second right answer.
• Keep your offbeat sense of humor

What advice would you give to Joey?

Also, I know a number of you reading this have some experience with the east Asian educational system: what comments do you have to help them generate more creative people?

Think Like A Kid

David Armano of Logic+Emotion interviewed me recently (interview is HERE). One of his questions was, "What has surprised you about blogging?" And I said, "It's been really nice to have 'beginner's mind' again. There are just a lot of new things to learn. But it's a lot of fun. I feel like a big kid."

What an amazing coincidence! Because today's card from the Creative Whack Pack is #17: "Think Like A Kid." As you read this, think about how this creative strategy applies to a current problem or issue.

A high school teacher drew a dot on the blackboard and asked the class what it was. "A chalk dot on the blackboard," was the only response. "I'm surprised at you," the teacher said. "I did this exercise with a group of kindergartners and they thought of fifty different things it could be: an owl's eye, a squashed bug, a cow's head. They had their imaginations in high gear." As Picasso put it, "Every child is an artist. The challenge is to remain an artist after you grow up." What are the first things a kid would say about your problem?

If a kid were looking at your problem, and asked you the following questions, how would you (thinking like a kid) respond?

• What's really fun about your problem? What's not fun?
• What doesn't make sense?
• How can you be more playful in how you think about it?
• What's hard to understand?
• What new rules you can make up?
• What imaginary friend you should have to help you with this problem?
• If your problem or issue were a game, how do you score points? What rules do you need to follow? What constitutes a brilliant play? What puts you in the record books?
• What gets you kicked out? What receives a standing ovation from the fans?
• What do you have to do to get booed? Do you care?

What opportunities do you have to "think like a kid" today?

Roger's Video Hello

Video Hello and Thanks from Roger von Oech. (runs 90 seconds.)

(Thanks to Matt Jaunich of Sharkride.com for his video skills!)

World Masters Swimming Championships

As we get closer to the end of the year, I've been thinking about my 2006 personal highlights. In my "Top Five" would certainly be the FINA World Masters Swimming Championships this past August. This meet is held every two years and moves around the world (recently it's been in Italy, Morocco, and Montreal). This year it was held in my home pool at the Avery Aquatic Center at Stanford, California.

Over 7,000 swimmers, divers, and water polo players from over 80 countries came. It was the fastest World Championships in history: over 150 former Olympians participated including Americans Gary Hall, Rowdy Gaines, Jim Montgomery, and Dara Torres. I think everyone felt like a "12 & under" again. The meet ran for a week, and was a very festive time.

My main race was the 800 free (long course meters). I swam it in 10:48 and finished 17th in the world in my age group (55-59). (I guess a fair comparison to running is that it's like running 2 miles in 10:48.) I was really happy with my swim because the 800 is an "energy management" race. Since I'm more of a 200-400 swimmer, I have a tendency to go out a bit too fast and then have less left for the end.

My mantra for this race was "do not get sucked in in the first 200." And that's the way I trained. In fact, I "negative split" the race: out in 5:24 and back in 5:23. (I was delighted because I don't have a long history of doing that.)

I was very fortunate to be on the Stanford Masters 55-64 200 medley and freestyle relays (with Tim Broderick, Dave Gildea, and Ed Cazalet) and we finished 6th and 8th in the world. This is what the medals look like. (FINA is the world swimming governing body.)

I've been swimming all my life, and I'd have to say that this meet ranked in my all-time top seven or eight swimming experiences. I'm even thinking about going to the World Championships in Perth in 2008 (when I "age up" to 60)!

Tom Hirshfield's Rules of Thumb

Some years back, I received an unusual letter in the mail. The envelope was wrinkled and the name scribbled in the upper left hand corner was one I didn't recognize: T. Hirshfield.

I opened it, and it turned out to be from a research physicist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory by the name of Tom Hirshfield. In his friendly, breezy way, Tom told me, among other things, that he enjoyed my writing, and that he also was a "student of how to solve problems effectively."

Tom went on to say, "Here are some rules of thumb that I've personally found useful in my work. Use them as you wish."

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Tom Hirshfield's Rules of Thumb

1. If you hit every time, the target's too near -- or too big.

2. Never learn details before deciding on a first approach.

3. Never state a problem to yourself in the same terms as it was brought to you.

4. The second assault on the same problem should come from a totally different direction.

5. If you don't understand a problem, then explain it to an audience and listen to yourself.

6. Don't mind approaches that transform one problem into another, that's a new chance.

7. If it's surprising, it's useful.

8. Studying the inverse problem always helps.

9. Spend a proportion of your time analyzing your work methods.

10. If you don't ask "Why this?" often enough, someone else will ask, "Why you?"

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As you can see, these simple and straight-forward "heuristics" show a keen observant mind at work. I've tried to incorporate them into how I approach problems, and feel that I've benefited from their application. Do they ring true for you? Do you have any of your own that you would add to the list?

(I never met Tom, but some months later, I found out from one of his colleagues that Tom was a relatively young man, had contracted a rare form of cancer, and had died shortly thereafter.)

Escape From Obsolete Ideas

Heraclitus and I made the current issue of BusinessWeek. BusinessWeek had a recent article on the the growing acceptance by the business community of the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient book of Indian spiritual teachings. I sent them my comments about this subject, and they ran them as the lead letter in their magazine (you can see it HERE in the digital version).

In honor of this occasion, let's crack open another of Heraclitus' enigmatic epigrams. Today's is one of his most famous: "You can't step into the same river twice."

I believe there's a creative strategy in this insight: "Escape from obsolete ideas." Follow along, and see if this applies to anything you are currently doing.

Like a river, the world is constantly changing. New laws are enacted and others are no longer enforced. New styles of behavior and expression become fashionable and others are relegated to the dust-heap.
Thus, the strategies we employ need to be appropriate to the problems and opportunities before us.

For example, it's said that the Prussian King Frederick the Great (1712-1786) lost the Battle of Jena even though it was fought in 1806. This means that for twenty years after his death, the Prussian army perpetuated his successful organization instead of adapting to meet the changes in the art of war. Had his generals questioned Frederick's military tenets, they might have fared better against Napoleon.

Remember: every right idea is eventually the wrong idea.

Innovation means not only generating new ideas, but escaping from obsolete ones as well.

As you think about a current problem or issue, you might ask yourself these questions: "What assumptions should I update? What is no longer true and should be discarded? What's now possible?"

Zen Rock Gardens

Looking for a way to energize your mind?

This past spring my wife, Wendy, and I were in Kyoto, Japan and had the opportunity to visit five different "Zen Rock Gardens." If you're unfamiliar with "Zen Rock Gardens," here's a little background. A typical one is a simple rectangular area comprised of several groups of rocks (and perhaps a few plants) which are surrounded by rake-lined sand (or fine gravel).

The garden works on two levels: a meditative one and an imaginative one. First, it provides the visitor with a place to quiet his mind and get away from the distractions of the everyday world. No cars, no commercials, no Internet!

And second, the garden can be a source of mental stimulation: the visitor is invited to look at the garden's simple shapes and objects and use his imagination. Do the rocks look like islands rising from the sea? Puffs of smoke? Clouds?

Of the five Zen Rock Gardens we visited, the highlight was the one at Ryoan Ji Temple. It consists of 15 rocks arranged in 5 different groups. It was laid out by the Buddhist painter Soami in about the year 1500.

It's rectangular and measures about 30 meters by 10 meters. There are no trees. Shown above is the central grouping of 3 rocks at Ryoan Ji. This is probably the most famous of the five groups. I liked this one a lot, and spent quite a few minutes contemplating it. What story does it tell? How does it fit into the other four groups? People have been asking these questions and others for five hundred years.

Wendy and I liked the Ryoan Ji Temple so much that we came back another day so that we could spend more time there. On our second visit, we arrived when it opened at nine, and had the whole place to ourselves for nearly forty-five minutes. And, course, the light was much different in the morning.

I have purposefully not shown you a photo of the entire garden with all 15 rocks. That's so you'll be motivated to go there yourself and experience its wonder first-hand.

Here's a little fun. At a different rock garden, I couldn't resist "entering into the frame" and posing the amazing Ball of Whacks on one of the rocks for a few moments. The rock garden smiled when I did this.

Fun Metaphors of "My Company"

"Doing research here is like playing stud poker. The company will put money into your project just as long as your hand shows promise or the next card doesn't cost too much to buy." —Creative Think seminar participant.

I love metaphors! When they're fresh, they ignite our imaginations and stimulate our creativity. One exercise I do with my workshop participants is have them make metaphors for their companies. I've found that the metaphors this exercise produces give me a lot of insight into the nature and morale of each company. They also provide me with a pretty good sense of how well that company will do in the near term. Here are a few of them. You might even be able to guess their names. As you read along, ask yourself, "What's a good metaphor for my organization?"

• Our company is like a supertanker. It's large and powerful, but moves slowly. Also, once the course is set, it's tough to change.

• Our company is like a winery. We have different products and some vintages are better than others. We also have two kinds of users: on the one hand we have connoisseurs who greatly appreciate what we've done; on the other hand, there are "Ripple drinkers" who take our software and manipulate to their own ends.

• Our company is like the sun shedding light on the computer world.

• Working here is like a nightmare. You'd like to get out of it but you need the sleep.

• Our company is like Peter Pan. It's childlike and wishes to retain the good parts of being a small company even as its grows larger. Being able to fly is a kind of fantasy as is making the best product. Our president is like Tinkerbell -- the spirit and imaginative force of the company. Our chief financial officer is like Wendy -- he's practical, has both feet on the ground, but he's also pulled along in the magic. Our chief competitor is like Captain Hook -- but we'll overcome him with imagination rather than "guns and knives."

• Our company is like a galley ship without a drummer. We've got some people rowing at full beat, some at one-half beat, some at one-quarter beat, and some dead beats. Also, the captain is steering by the wake.

• Our company is like a three-ring circus with marketing, R&D, and manufacturing each trying to occupy the center ring. The president is the ring master. Marketing has the high wire act, R&D has the magic act, and manufacturing are the elephants. Advertising is in charge of tickets sales; customer support are the peanut vendors; the customers are the audience; the field engineers are the clowns between the rings; and the grand finale is when we successfully install a system that works!

• Working here is like urinating in a dark suit. It's warm and it feels good, but it doesn't show.

• Our company is like a maze looking for a mouse.

• Our company is like a giant human body. Administration is the guts. Sales and marketing are the mouth. Corporate management is the mind making decisions. R&D is the reproductive system. And the secretaries and technicians are the skeleton that supports the body.

Here's a challenge to you: What is your company like? What metaphors would you use to describe your organization? By all means, please share!

You Are Not God

Feeling good about some recent successes?
If so, this might be a good time to pay heed to Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher who lived around 500 BC. Today's Heraclitus insight (from the Innovative Whack Pack) is: "There is a greater need to extinguish arrogance than a blazing fire."

There's a creativity strategy in this epigram, and I believe it is: "You are not God."

The ancient Greek word for arrogance is hubris, and it was seen as a precursor to one's downfall. Anyone proud enough to challenge the gods would be burned by the gods.

If you're repeatedly successful, there's a tendency to believe that you have found the formula for success and are no longer subject to human fallibility. This is devastating to the creative process. In a world that is continually changing, every right idea or strategy eventually becomes the wrong one.

With an arrogant attitude, you cease paying attention to differing viewpoints. You screen out the "boos" and amplify the "hurrahs." You believe that you aren't subject to the same constraints as others.

For example, shortly before the Chernobyl nuclear reactor melted down and exploded, its engineering team (comprised of respected experts) won a distinguished award for operations productivity. The team felt that the safety rules they were asked to follow were designed much too narrowly for such an experienced group, and so they disregarded them during their reactor experiments. The result was a great catastrophe, with considerable loss of human life and potential genetic damage to future generations.

Think of all the businesses that were so sure of their products and methods that they stopped listening to their customers, and soon found themselves without any.

Similarly, the history of warfare is filled with military leaders who became intoxicated with their successes and then over-reached in subsequent campaigns:

• Napoleon in Russia;
• Hitler in Russia;
• The French in Indochina;
• The Americans in Vietnam; and,
• The Soviets in Afghanistan.

Indeed, arrogance can infect entire cultures. The Chinese were extremely confident of their ways shortly before they were conquered by the Mongols. The same could be said about the Aztecs and the Incas prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Do you have a current problem or issue you're dealing with? Then ask yourself these three questions: "How is ego adversely affecting my judgment? Where have I been successful in the past when dealing with a similar issue? Has this success made me less receptive to alternative approaches?