“Too many people believe that creativity is a talent with which some people are born and the rest can only envy. This is a negative attitude that is completely mistaken.

Creativity is a skill that can be learned, developed and applied.” – de Bono in the introduction to How to Have Creative Ideas

I was asked by David and later Vivien to write a review on How to Have Creative Ideas by Edward de Bono. It seems to be the latest craze among some design circles. The above quote sums up what this book is all about: developing your creative thinking skills. It is not by any means a book exclusively for art-oriented people like painters, musicians, graphic designers or other artists. In fact, it is probably more appropriate for business people.

The Structure

The whole book, except for an introduction in the front, is comprised of 62 games (exercises) designed to help you learn to make connections where none appear on the surface. This is not a book you read through when you’re bored. There is no story. There is no secret sage advice to implement within these pages. It does not provide ideas for that new logo design you just can’t seem to figure out.

Some may be frustrated at the way the book is set up because they are looking for quick fixes for mental roadblocks for their artistic creativity. Don’t approach How to Have Creative Ideas looking for answers or easy steps to follow to get your creative ideas. It’s a bit of work, but it’s fun and exciting to see the results!

What This Book Will Help You Learn

By exercising your mind with the games in the book, you’ll start to see things in a different way. You’ll make connections where you didn’t see any before. You’ll be amazed at the creative ideas that come out of your own mind!

Who’s the Book For?

I do highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to exercise their mind and expand their ability to think differently. I can see that it would be most useful to marketing people, entrepreneurs or anyone seeking to make their business serve their customers better.

De Bono says in the introduction that “creativity is needed for change, improvement and new directions.

In business, creativity has become essential. This is because everything else [quality, information, low price] has become a commodity available to everyone.”

To Play the Games

You’ll need a quite space, a pad of paper and a pen to play the games. I’ve found it helpful to write down initial thoughts, and then expand on those with further thoughts. Keep track of your process and solutions. It’s interesting to do the game again later and see how different your answers are!

The random words are in tables in the back, and sometimes a goal is provided, but you are always welcome to define your own goal. When thinking of links, don’t concentrate on the actual word and its letters, but rather on the idea/object it represents.

Let me show you how my first session with this book went.

Random Input

The object of this game is to have a goal and apply a random word to solving the problem. The example in the book gives the goal of a new idea to make a bank more attractive to its customers. The random word I had was nose.

At first I thought, what could “nose” and a bank have in common??? But I didn’t let it stop me (by the way, you’re not allowed to keep picking random words until you find something you like! You have to go with what you got the first time).
I decided not to throw out any idea, no matter how silly. Watch what happened…

My immediate thoughts were to:

1. serve food
2. offer free nose hair trims
3. have plastic surgery loans

Next, I built up more ideas from each of those immediate thoughts:

1. serve a free breakfast with the bank president on Saturday mornings
2. have grooming services available while standing in line
3. Ah! How about no waiting in line but instead have a comfy lounge area with overstuffed chairs, snacks, drinks, magazines, wi-fi, etc, like at a high-end salon. People could take a ticket or sign in on a paper when they arrive and then use that wait time to do something useful, productive or just to relax a bit.

See how my weirdest idea of offering free nose hair trims turned into a really good idea of having a waiting lounge?

More Practice, You Try

Now it’s your turn. This next game is called Link Back. The goal is make a connection between a random word and five different types of businesses (no link needs to exist between the businesses). The types of businesses are: life insurance, car sales, travel agent, restaurant and private school. The random word is mint.

Take a few minutes to do the exercise and share your results in the comment box! I’ll start things off below. Don’t read others’ answers until you’ve done it yourself or you may not be able to think of anything new yourself!

Oh, and of course, remember to pick up your own copy of How to Have Creative Ideas!

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