Trust your gut
Trust Your Gut
Where do ideas come from? Well a new idea often arises when two (or more) previously unrelated thoughts combine and produce more than the sum of their parts.
Imagine a master chef creating a new recipe. He adds a little more sugar, a touch more chilli, maybe replaces basil with thyme and voila, a new dish is born.
But how does the chef know what ingredients to add? Is it purely trial and error or is he guided in his decisions by some other force? One might argue that his experience and his education inform his decision making, but if it were just that, other chefs would have produced the same dish as they were inspired by the same education and experience as him.
Most creative people put their best ideas down to "gut feel". And this is true not just in the arts world but in the world of science too.
The French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal said "The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know". The 19th Century mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss admitted his intuition often led him to ideas he could not prove. "I have had my results for a long time; but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them."
Claude Bernard, the founder of modern physiology, wrote that everything purposeful in scientific thinking started with a feeling. "Feeling alone" he wrote, "guides the mind". And Pablo Picasso confessed to a friend "I don't know in advance what I am going to put on canvas any more than I decide beforehand what colours I am going to use...Each time I undertake to paint a picture I have a sensation of leaping in to space. I never know whether I shall fall on my feet. It is only later that I begin to estimate more exactly the effect of my work".
Can gut feel be taught?
I believe it can. The master chef becomes more accurate in his experimentation the more he cooks. He starts to understand his ingredients better and what will happen when they are combined. He draws on chemistry, on the teachings of others and on his own preferences. Sometimes he makes a "mistake" which transforms his dish in to something spectacular. Sometimes he will go against conventions, intentionally doing something "wrong" just to see what will happen. Yes, he is experimenting but from within a framework.
Whether they know it or not, creative people are using processes and systems to spark their ideas. They may not have a name for these processes. But that does not mean they aren't doing something that can be learnt.
Creative Thinking Tool: Contrarianism
One tool used by all creative thinkers is challenging of the status quo, questioning norms. They may not know what the outcome of these questions will be, but they ask them anyway.
In every field certain assumptions become accepted as fact. When we stay at a hotel we check in when we first arrive. We steer a car using a steering wheel. We make phone calls by dialling a number.
Creative people see assumptions everywhere and attempt to turn them on their heads. They ask questions beginning with "What if..."
• What if you didn't check in to your hotel when you arrived? What if you didn't check in at all? What if you checked in when you left?
• What if you didn't steer a car using a wheel? What if you steered a car using a joystick? What if you didn't steer the car at all?
• What if you didn't dial a number but dialled a name? What if you spoke to the phone and it connected you? (Yes, we already have this!) What if you always had an open line to everyone without the need to call?
As creative thinkers ask these questions they begin to get interesting ideas. Many airlines allow you to check in from home rather than lining up at a desk at the airport. Cars already have on-board computers which "make decisions" for the driver about speed and braking. And, of course, with skype technology the days of the telephone number could be, well, numbered.
By asking "What if..." all of us can start accessing fresh, new ideas...on demand.
