Creativity & Creative Thinking: Creativity techniques

Creativity &
Creative Thinking:
Creativity Techniques
Dr. Subhash Sharma
Director,

Keys to Competitive Advantage
Prior to 90s
Cost
TCM:
Total Cost
Management
Cost Control &
Cost Management
2000 & Beyond
Knowledge
TKM:
Total
Knowledge
Management
Creativity
Cost Comparisons Benchmarking Anti-
benchmarking
90s
Quality
TQM:
Total Quality
Management
Kaizen

Anti-benchmarking
(Path of innovation/
Thought leaders)
Anti-Benchmarking
Organization B/
Nation B
Organization A/
Nation A
Benchmarking
(Path of replication/Thought followers)
Road to Creativity:
From Rat Race to Cat Race
(New Mantras in Corporate Corridors, Subha

Techniques
of
Creativity /
Anti-Benchmarking

Technique No.1: Dialectical
Approach/ Binary Thinking / Devil’s
Advocate / Think Opposite
b) Position - Opposition - Proposition
a) Thesis - Antithesis - Synthesis
c) Action - Reaction - Interaction
d) Point - Counterpoint - Newpoint
e) View - Counterview - New View
f) Idea - Counter idea - New idea
© www.wwedsubhashsharma.com

Dialectical Integration Leads to New Ideas
1) Survival of the Fittest
Examples of “think opposite”
Idea Think Opposite
New Idea Through
Dialectical Integration
2) Videshi
3) Classical Music
4) Elite Knowledge
5) Colonization through
English
6) Open-Book Mgmt.
7) “For every action,
there is equal &
opposite reaction”

Discourse Dynamics
Arrival of the best
Survival of the Uniquest
Survival
of the
Fittest
Concern
for the
Weakest

1) Inverting History
Alexander the Great …………………….
(invert)
Inversion - Subversion - New Version
Illustrative Applications
(Intellectual Inversion & Subversion):
2) India’s Freedom Movement as Inversion of
British Authority
3) Feminism as Inversion of Male Dominance
Technique No.2: Inversion Method
Contd…
4) Hegel’s Inversion by Marx & Marx’s Inversion
by Gandhi (Means & Ends)

5) Inversion of ‘Globalization’
6) Inversion of ‘Nehruvian Secularism’
7) ‘Religion is Opium of Masses’
……………………………………………… (invert)
8) ‘I Think, Therefore I am’
…………………………………………….. (invert)
9) Every Rose has a Thorn
…………………………………………….. (invert)
10) Survival of the Fittest
…………………………………………….. (invert)

Overcoming Cognitive Dominance
through Cognitive Liberation
Mind Colonization - Mind Liberation -
Mind Extension
Technique No.3:
Mind Liberation & Cognitive Liberation
Cognitive Dominance – Cognitive
Liberation- Cognitive Extension
SS/CSD Contd…© www.wwedsubhashsharma.com

1) Pussy cat, Pussy cat
Where have you been?
…………………………….
…………………………….
Examples
2) I went to Delhi to meet the President
…………………………………………………
3) BIMARU States
………………………………… (Give a New
Interpretation)
4) ‘Workload’. Why should work be ‘load’?
……………………………………… (Give a New
Phrase)

* Vedic era: Vedika period
* Bhakti era: Hindika period
* Freedom Movement era:
Indika period
* The IT/ Knowledge era:
India and Indipuras period
Periods of Creativity:
Creativity View of Indian
History

Technique No.4:
Radial Visioning or Direct
Perception / Darshan
Approach

Application
Envisioning
1) Visualize Your Organization after
10-15 Years and Prepare a VISA
(VIsion-Strategic & Action plan)
document
2) Articulate your ‘Vision of the World’
3) Articulate your ‘Vision of India’

Technique No. 5: Mind Travel / Mind
Walk / Expanding the Circle of
Consciousness
Application / Exercise
1) Cosmic Cruise
2) Rebirth Exercise
3) Imagine Self as Cloud & Describe the Places
4) Imagine Self as Eagle & Describe the Places
5) Redraw the Well-known Diagrammes,
symbols & pictures

Technique No.6: Converting Mistakes into
New Ideas & Asking Questions That Have
Not Been Asked Before
2) Newton: Fall of Apple
1) Buddha : “Accept nothing on my authority.
Think and be a lamp unto thyself”.
Examples:
3) Einstein:
a) Moving with Velocity of Light
b) Impact of Ball on the Fabric
Contd…
4) Paradigm shifts in history as examples of
questions that were not asked before

Examples:
5) “Science is Masculine”
6) Marx was a Colonialist
7) Monkeys are ‘Manufacturing Defects’ of nature and
human beings are ‘perfect products’ of cosmic
factories
8) ‘Modernity’ was born through three routes viz.
Groeco-Roman route, Indian route (through the
number system) and Chinese route through gun-
power. Hence, modernity is as much a product of
East as it is of West.
9) Who is referred to, in ‘Bharat Bhagya Vidhata’?

Example:
Someone said to Buddha, “The things you
teach, Sir, are not to be found in Scriptures”.
Buddha said, “Then put them there”.
“May I dare to suggest, Sir, that some of the
things you teach actually contradict the
Scriptures”.
“Then Scriptures need amending”.
“Scriptures are for Human beings, not Human
beings for Scriptures”.

Mistakes Create New Ideas!
Original Statement Typographical Error
1) God of Small Things God is a Small thing !
2) Story That Inspired You
Most
Story that injured you
most
3) Reach-out Programmes Re-search out programmes
4) Transcendental Meditation Transcendental Medication
5) Talk On Ethics Talk No Ethics (Practice them)
6) Word Talk Work Talks
SS/CSD© www.wwedsubhashsharma.com

Mistakes Create New Ideas!
Original Statement Typographical Error
7) United States and India-
Pakistan & Bangladesh
should come closer
United States of India,
Pakistan & Bangladesh
should come closer
8) Chinnaswamy Stadium China-Swamy Stadium
9) Buy American
Buy America (As written
by Japanese)
10) 24 Carot Gold, Rs. 6,000 24 Carot God, Rs. 6,000
Mutation is nature’s mistake. As nature makes mistake, it creates
beauty and creativity. Similarly, human mistakes also create new
ideas

Technique No.7:
Sabdh - Yoga - Word Talk
Illustrations:
V : Vision
VEDA
E : Enlightenment
D : Devotion
A : Action

“MBA”
M : Manas
B : Buddhi
A : Ahamkar
(Management in New Age: Western Windows Eastern Doors,
Subhash Sharma, 1996)

Yearning for Oneness
& Gaining
Achievement
YOGA

O : Oneness
OSHA
S : Spiritual
H : Humanistic
A : ‘Animalistic’

… etc, etc.
(extended transcendental
consciousness)
‘Syadvad’ Technique:
Developing Multiple
Perspectives

Further Readings
• Subhash Sharma, Management in New Age: Western
Windows Eastern Doors, New Age Interanational
Publishers, New Delhi, 1996 & 2006
• Subhash Sharma, New Mantras in Corporate Corridors:
From Ancient Roots to Global Routes, New Age
International Publishers, New Delhi, 2007
• Subhash Sharma, New Earth Sastra: Towards Holistic
Development & Management (HDM), IBA Publications,
Bangalore, 2012

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