MANY CREATIVITY CONSULTANTS use analogies to “force” creative thinking. Exercises such as “Compare your problem to a toaster” are common. I have mixed feelings about them because, to be honest, I often cannot find meaningful similarities between real-world problems and toasters. Nor can many groups. Yet sometimes an absurd analogy will inspire creative thinking and prove highly worthwhile. So that leaves us with a dilemma: how to take advantage of the benefits of analogies but avoid artificial, difficult “force fits.”
This method is one solution I stumbled across in my own creativity work. It uses a toolbox full of tools as a ...
Get The Manager's Pocket Guide to Creativity now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
