Divergent Thinking Helps Us Be More Creative at Work
Playful teams are simply more resilient
In this Attention Economy (it’s Matthew Crawford’s world – we just live in it), pressure to ‘get it right’ first time has never been so high. All kinds of companies push for quick solutions, for the first answer and then to move on. It’s understandable but it leads to loss of a richer, wider potential. ‘Time is money’ attitudes have been proven to stifle the creative potential of any individual or team and, crucially, stifle a deeper understanding of the way that their customers think. When we close ourselves off to creative exploration, there’s a real danger of missing the best opportunities; opportunities that are can only be discovered through relaxed, playful creativity and a healthy attitude towards risk-taking. The most robust companies in today’s creative, analytical and corporate sectors are making the best possible choices at the last possible moment. When teams are encouraged to take more risks and ‘fail harder’, it’s proven they fly higher.
Playful teams aren't wasting time, they’re actually, in the long run, saving it.
To be clear, ‘divergent thinking’ is the part of a process where an individual or team will aim to explore as many avenues as possible and come up with as wide a number of idea options as possible. Also called creative thinking, horizontal thinking or brainstorming, it’s a planning stage that uses imagination.
Leaning against divergent thinking is convergent thinking, also known as critical, vertical, analytical or linear thinking. In this logic-driven part of a process, multiple avenues are closed off and focus is applied. It’s also and making good decisions is vital to any business.
The problem is that most teams aren’t given a real chance to think divergently. Divergent thinking, even in short bursts, is difficult to maintain, even when set up formally. Most people want to find a solution and move on; they’d rather take the first offer that feels legit and workable. It’s time-efficient, feels savvy and makes us look good. “Yeah, this is the answer: move on!” is a high status choice, for sure.
The results of this ‘lean’ mentality is that many workforces don’t really get a chance to explore their creative potential and – importantly – to handle the process with confidence. What happens, though, when we’re encouraged to explore more, take more risks and ‘fail harder’? It’s proven that we actually fly higher. Futurist Douglas Rushkoff proposes that automation and technology’s increase means most company’s USP will be the hard-to-replicate quality of charismatic, creative and flexible human interaction.
In short, playful teams aren't wasting time, they're building resilience, creativity and, ironically, their problem-solving skills. They're trying out multiple ways to fail and thereby changing their relationship with failure to be more positive and less bound up in ego. And when a person becomes less stressed about failure, they become more resilient. Better resilience means more enjoyed risk-taking. More enjoyed risk-taking means increased creativity. And increased creativity means, inevitably, the generation (thanks to any formal divergent thinking) of a wider range of options / solutions.