At the TED conference, Peter Skillman of Palm spoke about the power of creativity and quick prototyping. He has given the following test to various groups, including groups of kindergarten students and also MBAs from top U.S. schools. The group is given spaghetti, string and tape and given the instruction to create a free-standing structure to hold a marshmallow on top. Over and over, the kindergarteners aced the game, and the MBAs scored on the lowest end of the spectrum. Why? The kindergarten kids didn’t worry about rules and hierarchy and procedures but just got down to the work. It was messy, and there were more mistakes but the children got it right. We need more experimentation, more just doing things on a small-scale level quickly, learning from mistakes and doing again to make it better. You don’t want too many interations and want to ensure that the team is working together and not in parallel, but it is a great metaphor for solving tough problems.
Peter ended with these words: watch a child discover a flower. The message is that we need to take a child’s approach and be open to life and its possibilities. Developing the kinds of creative solutions the world needs means keeping imagination alive, learning with new eyes and trying new things.
How we think is not how we are taught to think. Usually we are taught critical thinking based on a very old understanding of the world as being one of parts that can be manipulated from one stable state to another.
We could also be taught to think more creatively and more integratively if we applied our current scientific understanding of a world that tends to be self-organising and of human minds that tend to be integrative.
Reply to Graham DouglasThere is a simple fundamental behind life that everyone has forgotten: Situations are and will always be simple. People who think they are too smart and intelligent are outsmarted by this simplicity.
Reply to Abhishek MundraHierarchy is the definition people have given to the level of their smartness and intelligence. People have forgotten to be a child at heart and sharp at mind. In fact, its the other way round.
Kids have the same language to communicate which grown-ups fail to notice. Highly educated people think to use the most complicated words for communication when a simple understanding would make them smarter and thus fail to realise that there is no understanding in the bigger picture!!!
There is an urgent need for gaining understanding at the level of the big picture. Leaders who can make the smart understand the simplicity of life are the need of the day.
As we grow older and experience more we forget the wonder of discovery. We tend to overlook the everyday … but for a child everyday is a source of wonder and a field for a playful imagination.
Reply to Servant of Chaos