With changing market forces, government policies and the environment constantly challenging organisations across the globe, the need for firms to differentiate themselves through their people has never been as strong. Only those who hire and groom their people with clear and creative thinking will become market leaders, so in a new world which is starved of imagination, how can you find creative people, and is creativity really the key to success?
To get some answers, HR Magazine recently caught up with Tony Buzan, famous creator of the Mind Map—a thinking tool currently used by close to 250 million individuals globally for brainstorming, problem solving and most importantly, unleashing their inner creativity.
Creativity = wealth
When John Sculley stepped into the Apple offices in Silicon Valley on his first day as new CEO back in 1983, he looked at the rows of computer screens, filled with lines of words and lists of numbers all in black and grey, and his brain switched off. As someone who had been trained in art and design as an undergraduate, his mind craved colour, imagination and images and without this he could not understand the information in front of him. So what did he do? He gave Apple a new vision; he introduced colour, imagination and images to the screen—a move that inspired the first giant growth of the company. Sales at Apple increased from USD 800 million to USD 8 billion under Sculley’s management before he handed the reigns over to Steve Jobs.
Buzan—an advocate of the notion that creativity holds the key to positive change and future success—insisted, “Without creativity the brain is bored, people are bored and the solution to the problem is zero, therefore the development of the future is stunted. Creativity generates wealth and when companies go down it is because they haven’t allowed themselves to be creative and imagine solutions to progress, but have rather entered a ‘bankruptcy of thought’.” So how can companies ensure they inject creativity into their organisation and avoid the danger of entering a creativity crisis?
Don’t be a half-wit
The idea that some people are creative and others are not is simply a myth and something we have been conditioned to believe, according to Buzan. He insists that every brain is fundamentally creative; it just needs to be taught how to enable creativity to flourish. He maintains that the idea that the left side of the brain embodies logical, analytical and objective skills; while the right side is said to be more intuitive, thoughtful and subjective, is actually not true and that pertaining to this concept only allows the world to believe we are ‘half-wits’. He argues that creativity is born from allowing both sides of the brain to interact and synergise to a point where they are ‘beautifully balanced’.
Bringing this theory to life, Buzan uses the example of Leonardo Da Vinci, a man widely revered not only as one of the greatest painters of all time, but also for his technological ingenuity and diverse talents in the fields of architecture, science, mathematics and engineering—in essence, someone with a beautifully balanced brain. So how can companies avoid being half-wits and facilitate staff members following in the footsteps of Da Vinci to reach a harmonious balance between science and art, or rather logic and creativity?
Buzan suggested that in order to access all of our inner talents, we must shift our attitude and mindset, which he believes is instilled in us from the early stages of education. “Think back to your days at school”, he asked, “and what colour were you asked to write in? Black or blue. One colour, one monochrome, one monotone, and therein lies the problem. People are conditioned to think in monochrome, which is a monotone to the brain. This causes the brain to switch off and disables its ability to think creatively.” But how does this theory translate to the world of human resources and the search for creative talent?
Digging for diamonds
According to Buzan, when it comes to finding creative talent, organisations and HR must realise that every individual is naturally creative and find ways to release that creativity. Likening the human mind, or the ‘human resource’ as he calls it, to a mine of diamonds, Buzan asserts that the job of any good company is to dig down deep into the candidate’s mind to discover the hidden gems and unleash them. He guarantees us that once this task is conquered, creativity will ‘burst out’. So how can this be done?
Buzan explained, “The first step for the employer is to check how much a potential employee has been allowed to nurture and develop their own natural creativity by giving them creativity tests. However, if someone gets a low score it doesn’t mean they are not creative, it simply means they have not nurtured their creativity. A good employer will identify this and help the individual to develop their imagination and essentially, learn how to think.” But how can employees reframe their thinking process to unlock their inner creativity and generate more innovative ideas?
Have brain, will travel
Buzan believes that in order to allow creativity to flow freely we must shift the way we have been trained to think and avoid speaking to our brain in a ‘monotone foreign language’, which he explained leads to a mental shut down. His quest to encourage people to think outside the restrains of blue and black and the confines of lines on a page has led to the creation of the Mind Map—a colourful diagram that enables us to manage information by connecting associated images, words and visual links, which branch around one central governing concept.
Buzan explained that using a tree-like structure gives us freedom to generate infinite ideas—as new thoughts flourish, a new branch grows, reflecting the natural and organic process of thinking, which is essentially limitless. He stresses the importance of using colour in the map in order to ‘speak our brain’s language’, which responds to colour and appeals to our memory—a vital ingredient to what he refers to as the ‘creativity formula’. By doing this, we are able to help train the brain to think differently and manage information in such a way that we have the means to travel through and around the universe with our mind.
Risk fundamental to HR
With greater freedom of thought comes greater risks, so what can organisations do to balance the two? Buzan maintains that risk taking is fundamental to HR’s process of nurturing and developing creative talent. He explained that the whole psychological background of the brain is a ‘trial and error’ mechanism and in order to successfully reach a goal—it must take risks and adjust itself towards the end objective.
Citing the example of Thomas Edison, who after making over 6,000 unsuccessful attempts to invent the light bulb went on to achieve his goal, Buzan insisted that there is no such thing as failure, but rather experimentation that paves the way for success. He recommended that this concept should be applied to the world of work and the development of the ‘human resource’ via six key stages: try, event, feedback, check, adjust, success.
Buzan explained, “All companies that lead allow people to take risks, the entire Stock Exchange is taking risks, when you do your job you are taking risks, because if you don’t allow people to take risks you are not allowing them to experiment and this means you are hindering their creativity. What companies can do, however, is teach people how to think and behave in such a way that the probability of errors is lower. Then you have to consider what to do when they do make a mistake, whether that’s losing money or a client, and the answer is allow them to learn from their mistakes and create a solution.”
Without HR providing freedom for staff to think freely and opportunities to experiment, it is almost impossible for creativity to flourish among them. Conversely, by injecting ‘colour’ into an equation that has traditionally only featured black or blue, HR can help facilitate endless possibilities for staff to imagine and innovate. This will ultimately be key in helping an organisation differentiate itself from its competitors, and will do wonders for the bottom line. What’s not to like?
The Da Vinci code…to success
- Study the art of science
- Study the science of art
- Develop your senses
- Copy the best and develop it
- Realise that in some way everything connects with everything else
Buzan’s guide to mind mapping:
- Start in the centre with an image of the topic to give the mind focus
- Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your mind map
- Select key words and print using upper or lower case letters
- The lines should be connected, starting from the central image and should be curved rather than linear to avoid rigid thinking
- Use multiple colours throughout the mind map for visual stimulation and also to encode or group
Your own Mind Maps can be created by downloading the free iMindMap6 software available at www.thinkbuzan.com
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
