Edward de Bono's work helped shatter the theory that creativity is a talent possessed only by a gifted few who can see beyond current paradigms. His seminal work in The Mechanism of the Mind and later in Lateral Thinking established the theory that creativity is a skill that can be developed and enhanced through structured training and teaching. The editors of QMHC invited Dr. de Bono to share his thoughts on the relationship between creativity and quality. In this essay he presents his views on possible limitations of traditional quality improvement thinking and demonstrates the importance that creativity plays in enhancing quality improvement efforts.

Conformists are good at playing the game. At school they quickly learn how to pass tests, how to please the teacher, and how to copy when necessary. Later in life they are also good at assessing the game that is in play and then good at playing that game.

So we have tended to leave creativity to the rebels. These are the people who cannot play the game, do not want to play the game, and even want to be different for the sake of being different.

We have been satisfied with that image of creativity. We have supposed that creativity is a combination of 'rebellious' motivation and inborn talent.

Suppose that image of creativity is not only wrong but dangerous.Suppose that it is dangerous because it prevents us from advancing the serious use of creativity.

We can, I believe, move away from this old fashioned view of creativity.We can move away from the notion that creativity is just messing around with brainstorming and hoping new ideas will happen.

Consider an ordinary person who is bound up tightly with a rope. Obviously that person is not able to play the violin. If the tied-up person cannot play the violin then surely cutting the rope and freeing that person makes the person a violinist? This is an absurd leap of logic. Freeing the person may be a necessary step toward violin playing but does not, by itself, provide violin playing skills. Why then do we apply this absurd logic to creativity?

We have observed that inhibited people are not creative. We then suppose that "liberating" people will suddenly make them creative. It does not follow at all. Yet almost the entire effort toward encouraging creative thinking has been concerned with freeing people up and liberating them from their inhibitions. It is supposed to be enough to be crazy. No wonder creativity is not taken seriously and is not as effective as it might be.

Today, for the first time in history, we can understand the 'game' or creativity. This means that the conformists can now learn to play this game. Because conformists are better at learning and playing games, there is now a strong possibility that conformists will actually become more creative than the rebels - if the conformists have the motivation.

How are the conformists going to get the creative motivation which is so natural to the rebels? There are two approaches.

1. Conformists can be shown the "logic" of creativity. We now know that there is an absolute mathematical need for creativity in any self-organizing information system such as human perception. I have found that mathematicians, highly technical people, and accountants, for example, suddenly see the logical basis of creativity. One time I was teaching lateral thinking methods to a group of Nobel prize-winning physicists. At first they were skeptical, but once they could see the logic behind the techniques, they tried them out and were surprised to find they worked.
2. Exhorting people to be creative has only a very limited effect on motivation and even that limited effect wears off pretty quickly. It is far better to teach some lateral thinking techniques. Once people find that they can use such techniques systematically and that they produce results, then motivation follows. If you find that you can be creative, then you want to be.

THE GAME OF CREATIVITY

My research work in medicine covered many of the complicated interactive systems in the human body: respiration, circulation, kidneys, endocrine glands, and so on. I was forced to develop concepts to deal with self-organizing information systems.

In 1969, I wrote the Mechanism of Mind, in which I described how nerve networks allowed information to organize itself into sequences or routine patterns. At that time, those ideas were unusual. Today they are mainstream thinking. In fact, the leading physicist in the world (Murray Gell Mann) read that book and observed that I was writing about these things 10 years before mathematicians stated looking at chaos and nonlinear, unstable systems.

With just 11 items of clothing to put on in the morning, there are 39,916,800 ways of getting dressed - though not all these are feasible. If the brain was not so excellent at forming the routine patterns of perception and action, life would be impossible. It is the excellence of the brain as a self-organizing information system that allows experience to organize itself into routine patterns. This is the basis of perception. In fact, the brain is even better than that because it can center patterns, which computers find very hard to do.

In such systems, there is no access to the side branches from the main track, but there is access to the main track, but there is access to the main track from the side tracks. This basic asymmetry of patterns gives rise to both humor and creativity. That is why humor is the most significant behavior of the human brain because it indicates the existence of a self-organizing system.

With creativity we somehow jump across to the side track from the main track. That is why all valued creative ideas are always logical in hindsight. Unfortunately, we have believed that because creative ideas are logical in hindsight, then logic should be enough in foresight. This is totally untrue in a patterning system but quite true in a passive system. It is this recent "universe" switch from passive information systems to self-organizing systems that has allowed us to understand the nature of creativity.

As a direct result of this understanding, we can design deliberate and formal lateral thinking tools such as random entry and provocation. These formal tools can be learned, practiced, and used systematically. They can be used by individuals on their own. There is no need for a brainstorming tool.

We deliberate use of such systematic tools is very different from just messing around and hoping thins happen. For example, there are the formal methods of "movement', which is an active mental operation and not just a suspension of judgment.

QUALITY IN THINKING

While we have sought to improve quality in most places, the one area we have neglected has been our thinking. We may have sought to do better what we are already doing, but we have not sought better ways of doing things.

In the first part of this article, I sought to show what happens when we apply quality to creativity itself. We get a very different and much more powerful process. But we can also apply quality to other aspects of thinking.

For example, the traditional Western method of argument is time consuming, wasteful, inefficient, and subject to political abuse. We can replace this adversarial method with parallel thinking in which all those present think cooperatively. The directions for the parallel effort are set by the Six Thinking Hats. The white hat indicates a focus on information. The red hat legitimized an expression of felling and intuition.

The black hat is for caution. The yellow hat asks for benefits and values. The green hat is for creative effort. The blue hat is for control of the thinking process itself.

The Six Hat method is now being widely used by many major corporations such as DuPont, Prudential, and IBM. One IBM lab found that the method reduced thinking time by 75 percent. The method allows all the "intellectual horsepower" of those attending a meeting to be used productively. It also prevents politics. The green hat provides a specific place for creativity, and the black hat ensures that criticism is only used in its proper place.

Our basic thinking habits were set 2,500 years ago by the Greek gang of three (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle). It is a system based on analysis, judgment, and argument. It is a system that is lacking in creative, constructive and design energy.

QUALITY IN THINKING

There is a reason why this article may appear to have been written backwards. Why have I written about creativity first and about the need for creativity in quality programs second? The reason is that unless the reader has a clear understanding of what I mean by creativity (serious creativity), there is no point in setting the place of creativity in quality programs.

REMOVAL OF FAULTS

This is a basic habit of Western thinking. If you can only get rid of faults everything else will be fine. There are two obvious dangers:
1. We only focus our thinking on what is wrong.
2. Getting rid of the faults in a poorly designed system does not result in a better-designed system.

Nevertheless, the early successes of quality programs often arise from the removal of faults, inefficiencies, wastage, and problems. This part is intellectually easy, even if implementation is not quite so easy.

When this easy part has been done, TQM programs often run out of steam. Even within this problem-solving phase, there may be a need for serious creativity to help solve some of the problems.

LOCKED IN BY SUCCESS

If we are too successful in improving the current way of doing things, then we can get locked into that current way - just as we have become locked into our traditional thinking habits.

The goal of quality programs should not be just to improve present methods but also to seek alternative methods of reaching the agreed objectives.

Creativity is needed to generate the alternatives. Often there is a need for new concepts. When the alternatives have been generated, then they can be measured against each other and against the current method.

Success in improving the quality of the existing method may lock us into continuing that particular operation when a creative challenge would have shown that the whole operation did not need doing at all.

CHANCE OF OBJECTIVES

We can improve the current way of reaching the current objective.

We can find a different way to reach the current objective.

We can change the objective itself.

Creativity can be helpful in getting us to think freely about what we are trying to do. Creativity opens up possibilities. Creativity provokes our thinking about objectives.

VALUES AND EXPECTATIONS

Particularly in the health field, values and expectations are complex and change every day. For example, a severely ill patient may prefer the surveillance of a general ward because fear is uppermost. A convalescing patient may prefer the comfort of privacy. One patient may value charm but another prefer brusque efficiency. Some people like the freedom of choice. Others do not want to be burdened by having to make decisions. Some value full information, others do not want to be confused by information.

Creativity helps in the exploration of values and the design of new values.

Changes in expectations can dramatically lower costs. How can we get such changes in expectations?

CREATIVE FOCUS

It is easy to focus on problems and defects. It is difficult to focus on things that are going well. It is even more difficult to focus on things we do not even notice. Yet a little creativity applied to an area that no one has bothered to thin

Source: http://www.debono.com/quality.htm