Editor’s Note: This work is inspired by Michael Gelb, a man who has studied the Italian
master, Leonardo Da Vinci, in some detail, teaching and training people and corporate
bodies from his learning of the genius of Da Vinci. We would be sharing from his books and trainings further
along in this blog. However Christina DesMarais, a regular contributor to
Inc.com, drew inspiration from one of his books to write this piece. It was
originally published in Inc.com.
 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (Image source: leonardodavinciinventions.com) |
 |
| Christina DesMarais |
I'm going to go out on a limb here
and say that since his death, the world has never really had another Leonardo
da Vinci. While his name might conjure up images of famous works of art such as
the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, or The Vitruvian Man, he
was much more than an artist. In fact, he was an architect, musician,
mathematician, engineer, inventor, expert in anatomy, geologist, mapmaker, and
botanist. In short, he was a genius.
Genius and creativity are closely
linked. How does one make connections that have never been made before? Doing
so is the essence of originality.
Michael Gelb--someone who makes his living
teaching companies how to innovate--has written 13 books on creativity and
innovation. His most famous, How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day, has sold more
than half a million copies and has been translated into 25 languages.
Gelb says the fodder for his book
came from studying Leonardo's notebooks. In addition to all his other talents
Leonardo wrote copiously, putting to paper 13,000 pages of notes and drawings,
much of it in mirror-image cursive.
Here's what Gelb learned from the
Italian master about what you need to be most creative.
Curiosity
Children are curious by nature, but
as we grow up much of our inquisitiveness ebbs.
"Almost all children in their
natural state ask lots of questions. That's how they learn so much in the first
five years of life. But then we send them to school, where they learn that
answers are more important than questions," Gelb says.
Geniuses like da Vinci, however,
maintain a passionate curiosity throughout life.
"When you work with an
organization, you can often tell, especially when you come in from the outside
as I do as a consultant, whether the spirit of curiosity is really alive,
whether people actually have a questing, open mind or whether they're a bunch
of stuffy know-it-alls."
Independent Thinking
Diversity is critical for creativity
and innovation, which is why it's important to seek out points of view
different from your own.
"The problem is, the more
senior someone becomes, the more likely they're going to believe their own
publicity and surround themselves with people who always agree with them. So
the more senior you become, the more concerted effort you must make to seek out
different opinions. Then you have a chance to think independently," Gelb
says.
Sharpen Your Senses
In business, this translates into
listening well and being observant, simple advice that's difficult to heed in
an increasingly distracted world.
"The Italians have la dolce
vita, the sweet, soulful life. The French have joie de vivre, the
joy of living. And in the States, all we have is happy hour," Gelb says.
He's really talking about
mindfulness, paying close attention to what's happening right now. Not only can
it help you be more creative, it's the key to enjoying life, he says.
Gelb helps business people get
better in tune with their senses by training them to appreciate beauty. He does
this by having them listen to music, appreciate art, and thoughtfully taste
wine or chocolate, as well as write poetry.
Embrace Uncertainty
The ability to project confidence in
the face of the unknown is a critical leadership principle because if something
is going to be new, it means you don't know it. You need to get comfortable
with uncertainty and ambiguity in order for a creative idea to emerge. It's not
easy to do, since you've likely been trained to believe that if you don't know
the answer, there's something wrong with you, Gelb says.
"But the essence of creativity
is to be surprised, to come up with something you really didn't know. That's
the nova in innovation. It's the newness. And if you keep doing the same
old thing, you won't do the new thing. But when you suspend the old thing, the
new thing doesn't always automatically emerge," Gelb says. "So
there's a big gap, and the more you're able to embrace that gap of knowing and
uncertainty, the greater the likelihood that you'll be really creative."
Balance Logic and Imagination
You used to be able to get by with
saying you're a right-brain (creative, imaginative, intuitive) or left-brain
(logical, analytical, linear) thinker. Today, you have to be both.
To show people how to use both
hemispheres of their brain in harmony, Gelb teaches them mind mapping, a way of
organizing ideas that integrates logic and imagination and helps people
generate more ideas in less time.
To do it, you start by drawing
something that represents the topic you're thinking about. From there, you use
free association to branch words and more pictures from the center image. For
example, a doodle of an onion might make you think of vegetables, so you draw a
carrot, which makes you draw a rabbit, which leads to you sketch a cat, since
it's another small, furry animal.
What if you can't draw? Gelb says
"fake it 'til you make it" and overcome your adult judgment of your
drawing ability.
"You start to access that more
childlike quality where you just drew without worrying about it. What's
happening when you do that is you're waking up parts of your brain that have
been dormant since you were in nursery school. And those are exactly the parts
of your brain that are going to help you be more creative," he says.
Balance Body and Mind
You might not know that Leonardo was
an exceptional athlete, widely known as the strongest man in Florence and an
accomplished fencer and horseman.
"We think of creativity as an
intellectual exercise, but it requires tremendous energy. Learning to cultivate
your life force, your life energy, is a very important part of this," Gelb
says.
For businesses, this means healthier
organizations are better equipped to innovate.
Make New Connections
Logical and linear-thinking
types--engineers, analysts, and scientists, for example--can have a hard time
looking for patterns and new connections, but doing so is the key to
creativity.
Again, Gelb likes to use mind
mapping, although it take a while to train these kinds of folks, since they're
used to doing things in a formal order.
"At first it feels very
messy...thinking through association and letting the mind go free and
generating lots of key words and other images in different directions," he
says.
Other Tips
Not convinced you can start banging
out killer ideas? While creativity may come more easily to some people than it
does to others, everyone has the potential to be creative.
A couple of things to keep in mind,
though:
It's not uncreative to get ideas
from other people. In fact, that's where most ideas come from.
"It's a myth to think that you
have to spontaneously create something that's entirely original and no one ever
thought of it before. That very rarely, if ever, happens. Almost all ideas are
inspired by somebody else's idea," Gelb says. "One of the big
principles of creativity is you don't have to reinvent the wheel, you just give
it a new spin. So if you can give a new spin to somebody else's idea, you've
done something creative."
Also, some people who have a hard
time with creativity censor themselves too early in the idea generation
process. Your goal should be to come up with lots of ideas, so don't shoot them
down before they make it on your list. Generating a high volume of ideas
stimulates the associative process of your mind, and even if you don't get a
breakthrough right away, it will likely come when you're not expecting it, like
at 4 a.m. or when you're driving or in the shower. And when it does, write it
down, Gelb says. Leonardo certainly did.
Christina
DesMarais is an Inc.com contributor who writes about the tech startup
community, covering innovative ideas, news, and trends.
Originally published in Inc.com
No comments :
Post a Comment