A neighbour of mine recently told me about her son’s creative ways to get out of pre-school preparation class. He asked her if he were to eat ‘lots and lots’ would he turn into a giant. My neighbour, who goes with flow for these kinds of things, said sure and asked why he wanted to be a giant. “So I can go to the school and crush it” was his matter of fact reply.

I love this answer for a couple of reasons. One, who can’t appreciate the chain of logic which sees the elimination of the school as the key to not having to go. This is pure reasoning at its best. The other reason I love this answer is because though it isn’t the best solution to the problem, it is highly creative. Too often when faced with problem solving we are conditioned to exclude ideas which we think can’t work. This selective filtering prevents us from truly exploring creative solutions and hampers the process.

As ridiculous as it may sound, when we brainstorm we need to include everything, including the ‘crush the school’ ideas. Brainstorming can be done in many different ways but there are four basic ideas which should be followed:

  1. Get as many ideas down as possible. Don’t worry about the feasibility or quality.
  2. No judgment. Brainstormers are encouraged to suspend criticism and instead focus on getting as many ideas out as possible.
  3. Encourage ‘crush the school’ ideas. Radical and ridiculous ideas may provide new ways of thinking about a problem and encourage better ideas.
  4. Group and combine ideas to create better ideas.

Once the crazy ideas are allowed to see the light of day, some of them stop looking so crazy and start looking like solutions.