Generating ideas through creative collisions. In today’s conversation Judith Germain speaks to Jeremy Utley about generating ideas through creative collisions. Jeremy defines ideas as brain connections and creativity as seeking unrelated connections. Judith agreed that curiosity precedes innovation and environments foster innovation as normal work.
Jeremy argued creativity deserves wellness attention like physical metrics. Behaving creatively daily through idea generation, experimentation, and reflection ensures creative resilience.
Jeremy revealed top innovators’ willingness to share failures and embrace the many ideas needed to produce hits. Practicing divergent thinking daily develops the adaptive mindset for solving emergent problems.
Key Takeaways
- Idea flow (rate of generating and testing solutions) is the most important business metric.
- Creativity should be considered part of health and wellness.
- Ideas come from “creative collisions” between existing concepts.
- Letting your subconscious work on problems overnight can yield creative solutions.
Topics:
IdeaFlow Book and Innovation Perspectives
- Jeremy recently wrote the book “IdeaFlow”, arguing idea flow is the most important business metric.
- In dynamic environments, past success doesn’t guarantee future success – you need to be resilient and able to generate solutions.
- Idea flow measures your capability to solve problems with novel solutions.
- They discussed perspectives on innovation as a practice/capability, not an event.
- Need to build “creative muscles” through regular exercises like generating many ideas (even bad ones) and running experiments.
- Inputs (inspiration) shape outputs, so consciously seek diverse inspiration.
Neuroscience of Creativity
- Ideas arise from connections between existing concepts in your brain – “creative collisions”.
- Understanding this neuroscience boosts creativity more than just trying to “be creative”.
- Need volume of ideas, including bad ones, not just “good ideas”.
- Can summon your subconscious to work on problems by clearly articulating the problem then doing unrelated activities.
Creative Wellness
- Creativity should be considered part of health and wellness, but currently isn’t.
- We track many physical and mental health metrics, but not creativity.
- Creativity is a core human capacity, but neglected in the wellness field.
- Jeremy suggests metrics like generating alternatives regularly, trying unformed ideas that could fail, and iterating based on learnings.
Jeremy Utley is a Stanford adjunct and world leading expert on innovation and creativity. Shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Award, he’s taught a million students of innovation.
Maverick leadership is all about thinking outside the box and challenging the status quo. It’s about having the courage to take risks and the confidence to lead in a way that is authentic and genuine.
But amplifying your influence as a leader isn’t just about having a strong vision or a big personality. It’s also about having the right leadership capability and being able to execute on your ideas and plans.
The consequences of not having the right level of influence as a leader can be significant. Without the ability to inspire and motivate others, you may struggle to achieve your goals and make a real impact.
How Influential Are you? Take the scorecard at amplifyyourinfluence.scoreapp.com and see.
Jeremy Utley can be found on LinkedIn here. His website can be found here.
You can listen to Episode 375 on any of the popular podcast platforms or apps (including Spotify, and Audible). If you prefer to listen to your browser you can do that below. Enjoy!