YOU FEAR CREATIVITY? JOIN THE HOLODECK.

As a child we don´t hesitate to ask. We play. We try. We fail. We learn. But formal education trains us to give answers instead of asking. To work instead of playing. To engineer instead of trying. To hesitate instead of failing. Do we learn? Well, very slow – in comparison to when we´ve been a child.

Tom and David Kelley, the founder of d.school, know exactly why we stop learning to detect the new. It´s because we fear creativity. To be precise: We fear the messy unknown. We fear being judged. We fear the first step. We fear losing control.

Well, this is creativity: it´s messy, it´s a judgment – you have to take a stand, it´s a step into an area nobody has been before and it´s definitely not under our control. Sounds frightening? Yes, it does.

So how to handle this?

Well, there are many ways to handle this – here is mine: treat ideas like a holodeck. Relax, as the crew of starship “Enterprise” is doing on the holodeck, as long as ideas are “just” ideas, nothing is real and nothing is set in stone. With this attitude the messiness, the “unfamiliar territory” may feel not so frightening. As it is just one out of many territories – and later on you can always go back to the “structured, well organized” world. Ups and surprise: you may take one or two ideas with you.

On the “holodeck” you and your ideas are judged. Yes, you may look completely foolish. Don´t worry, this is not the “real” world. It´s just a brainstorming and everyone agreed into “being foolish”, “playing and trying around” – according to Alex Osborn´s rules.

You take the first step? 

With a Star Trek-Attitude you are asked to seek out into areas where no man has been before. The crew of the Enterprise always follows their own rules but is always forced to face new rules … so if they can do it. You can do it. Brainstormings are roleplay. And at the end you are fully under control which of the ideas to take into real world and which not. Read more about "How to get over the fears that clock your best ideas" by Tom & David Kelley.