Bizstartup.ie - Start Up Kit

“Being creative is to be curious. You need to start questioning things in order to be able to change them. Creative thinking, however, needs some sort of system or structure. Being creative for the sake of it doesn’t lead to positive results.

“You have to be clear on what problem you’re trying to solve in the first place. In a business context this could be the need to generate revenue or reduce costs. You need to use tools and techniques to generate ideas to solve that specific problem. This should be channeled so it’s used in a productive way. There’s no point just sitting there brainstorming.”

The Edward de Bono approach

Kumar is trained in leading authority Edward de Bono’s creative-thinking approach. One of the systems of his she teaches is ‘Six Thinking Hats’, which has been used in the Northern Ireland Peace Process and by the US Supreme Court when the jury can’t come to a verdict.

With this system, Dr de Bono identifies distinct states in which the brain can be “sensitised”. In each of these states the brain will identify and bring into conscious thought certain aspects of issues being considered (e.g. gut instinct, pessimistic judgment, neutral facts).

Each state is assigned a colour, so, for example, when you’re wearing your red hat, this represents gut instinct and you only deal with the problem being posed from that perspective.

“It is such a powerful and effective way to come to a solution as every avenue is thought about. I use it in companies to help them generate ideas. Innovation is an over-used word at the moment. I try to break it right down and define it as ‘using creativity to add value or generate benefits’,” says Kumar.

Photo: Damini Kumar

This is an extract from an article which first appeared in Owner Manager magazine