Excelsior Learning

…was born to run fast and exemplifies that Imagination will Prevail.  She has the unique Powers to rain and select novel and feasible ideas.  Being a prolific idea rainmaker, she significantly increases the odds of producing novel and feasible ideas because she generates an abundance of them.  She is cut from the cloth that more, novel and feasible is better – and not that less is more.  She consistently works from a bountiful harvest of ideas, options and alternatives…and then converges and whittles them down to the best, most valuable ones.

Her Powers are:

• Be Fluent
• Be Novel
• Stay Open

Take actions this week to leverage your Powers to generate more novel and feasible ideas, strengthen your creativity muscle and anchor the creative habit to be repeatable.

1. Be Fluent:  The Power to Be Fluent is interchangeable with the ability to produce quantity, so the key action is to generate many ideas against an open-ended, well-defined challenge, problem or opportunity.  There is a long history in the creativity literature (and practical application) to support the premise that the more ideas a person generates, the higher the likelihood the ideas they develop will be robust and viable.  This association has been coined the equal-odds rule which states that the relationship between the number of ideas and the total number of works produced in a given time period is positive, linear and stable.  Yes, quantity matters so give yourself an idea quota of at least twenty-five this week to solve your well-defined challenge, problem or opportunity.
2. Be Novel:  The Power to Be Novel is as it sounds – the ability to resist conformity, be independent in thought and action…to seek originality, break away from the obvious, habit-bound and automatic responses.  This requires breaking some existing thinking and perceiving patterns – and allowing new patterns and combinations to emerge.  One technique to employ is to search for boring things and discover something interesting about them – to observe and look deeper.  Most times, our initial reaction to something we perceive as boring is to ignore it.  Prove yourself wrong and find some hidden uniqueness.  For example, take a boring building and find something aesthetically interesting about it – i.e., the shadows on the surfaces, the features, or what you imagine is occurring or could be occurring in the building.  Or take an everyday boring item in the kitchen and make it more interesting – find new and improved uses for it.  Pretend it’s alive, what new uses might you discover?  Exercise those thinking and perceiving connections in your brain to be more versatile!
3. Stay Open:  The Power to Stay Open is the ability to take adequate time to fully understand a challenge, problem or opportunity and consider key factors about them.  It means keeping various problem statements, ideas and options open for as long as possible and resisting the strong knee-jerk temptation to reach a conclusion prematurely.  One technique is to use the sheer power of questions to assist here.  For example:  “What does the data tell me?”  “What does the data not tell me?”  “What are the most dominant, compelling facts?”  What is the real underlying problem here?”  “Why is this?”  Why isn’t it…?”  “What if…?”   “How could the problem solve itself?”  Additionally, take the time and seek out varied perspectives, points of view and opinions to gain an appreciate understanding of differing or competing ideas, options and alternatives.