You’re facing a big challenge at work and can’t come up with any innovative ideas. Maybe your business is flagging or a particular area in your personal life has stalled. Either way, you could really use fresh new ideas to spice things up.
In situations like these it’s tempting to go seek help from the experts. After all, someone much more knowledgeable should be the best source of ideas, right?
Well, maybe not.
The Problem with Experts
Experts need to specialize. They need to draw boundaries around their subjects so they can narrow their focus and be as effective as possible in their fields.
This ‘compartmentalization in thinking’ is immensely useful in speeding up problem solving. It also means experts usually fall short in stretching their thinking beyond their areas of expertise, and as such fail to see the big picture.
Michael Michalko puts it well in his book Thinkertoys: “It’s like brushing one tooth. You get to know that one tooth extremely well, but you lose the rest of them in the process.”
But it gets worse: experts may not only miss obvious solutions, but they may actually cause harm, forcing inadequate solutions that fall within their area of expertise. “To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail”, psychologist Abraham Maslow wisely remarked.
Although experts are often useful, when it comes to innovation you may actually be better off without them.
An Alternative: Embrace The Nonexperts Around You
The alternative to talking to experts is — drum roll — talking to nonexperts, of course.
Regular people around you. Your soccer buddies. The garbage collector. Uncle Bob. It doesn’t matter who: anyone outside your field, anyone who’s strange to the problem — anyone who “doesn’t know the rules” will do.
Regular people — nonexperts — don’t have enough experience to know where to draw boundaries: they’re unaware of limitations or “how things are supposed to work”. In their naïveté, they’ll miss many constraints and assumptions you take for granted — which is exactly the point. These are the people who will most likely spark fresh new ideas for you. They can genuinely think outside the box: for them, there’s no box.
We have a tendency to always go after more specialized people for getting help in our problems — and that works in many cases. But for creative endeavors, perhaps all you need is someone who knows less.
The great news is that there is no shortage of nonexperts around you. Everyone is a nonexpert at most things. All you need is to know how to tap into their non-expertise in the area you need help. Here are 3 tips to help.
1. Meet Different Kinds of People — Lots of Them!
To build a solid network of idea-generating friends, first and foremost you need to strive for diversity.
It doesn’t matter if you have 500 peers to draw ideas from if everybody else’s mind is the same: it’s not a matter of how many people you know, it’s how many kinds.
Resist the temptation to seek advice only from people who think alike: it’s comfortable, I know, but it hinders you from fully expanding your mind. Go out and mix with people with diverse interests for a change!
Getting in touch with many different perspectives is guaranteed to keep your creative juices flowing (and as a bonus you become a much more interesting person in the process!).
Find out how different people would tackle your problem. How would a nurse do it? A 5-year-old child? An economist? Your mom?
Never miss the opportunity to have casual conversations with strangers. The butcher, the old lady ahead of you in the line and the ice cream vendor are all sources of potentially useful ideas. Even if you don’t discuss your particular problem directly (which of course may not always be a sensible thing to do), discovering different perspectives about random life subjects is useful in itself to spark new ideas.
2. Seek Out Idea-Oriented People
Having an abundant circle of relationships always comes first, but after striving for quantity, you now need to make sure you have quality relationships too!
There’s a certain breed of people that you’ll always benefit from having around: it’s the kind of thinkers that spark your imagination whenever you talk to them. You know who they are:
- They love original ideas and use them in their businesses and lives.
- They are relentlessly curious and pay attention to the world around them.
- They may be naïve about your business, but are not stupid or ignorant of the things that matter.
- They have great wits and challenge the absurdity in things.
Make a list of people who you know have those traits and arrange to spend more time with them. Never let too much time pass without staying in touch with them. Discuss your challenges and ask for ideas — or just engage in idle chatting (which also sparks a torrent of ideas in itself).
Having such vibrant people around you is invaluable for your creativity and too fun to miss out.
3. Engage in “Fool Mode” (Assume Everybody’s a Genius)
This is a fun technique I use sometimes. I like to call it “Fool Mode”.
When I’m in “fool mode”, everybody knows the solutions to my problems. Everybody is a genius — except me. In fact, not only do they know the solution I’m looking for, but they may be already giving it away — the only caveat being they’re talking in riddles — so it’s my job to figure it out!
Adopting the fool’s mindset works great because it checks our tendency to kill ideas before giving them at least some thought.
Think about this: When someone presents us an idea we can’t see the use for, our tendency is to dismiss it immediately, labeling it a ’stupid idea’. Now what if the other person were a well-known genius — like, say, Einstein? Would you not consider paying a little more attention to what he would have to say? Of course you would! It’s in that thinking — trying to force relationships between seemingly unrelated ideas — that your breakthrough idea may lie.
Being in “fool mode” is also fun and teaches important lessons: You open your mind to the world. You temporarily suspend judgment and let go of any intellectual arrogance you may have. You assume everybody has something to contribute — and what you come to realize, of course, is that they do.
In Closing
You shouldn’t expect random people to actually solve a complex problem they don’t know about. But, if you have an open mind and are willing to listen, they can spark off a torrent of fresh new ideas, which may be just enough for you to solve the problem yourself.
So, by all means don’t dismiss experts. They have more experience and can often help you. But don’t forget that the great innovative ideas are usually elsewhere. The solution you’re looking for may be with your neighbor or with weird uncle Bob — you just need to go get it.
Hey Luciano,
I think it’s really interesting that you bring this up. My interviews with up and coming bloggers podcast has enabled me to do exactly this. AS part of the podcast I’ve interviewed people who have even as low as 80 RSS readers and no more than 100 visits a day and I learn something from each and every one of them.
One of the beauties of the world we live in today and our social media technology is that we can literally reach out to anybody and ask them for help, and almost everybody will be willing to give it to you. I think it’s so cool that I have a support team of people that I’ve built mainly through interviewing them. I think one thing worth mentioning is developing genuine relationships with people because then when you seek out idea oriented folks, or anybody else, they are going to move from just being part of your network to being your friends. Then hitting them up on chat for a quick question turns into a 30 minute conversation in which you come away with a dozen new ideas.
Very good point, Srinivas!
The Internet brings infinite possibilities of casual collaboration. Twitter, for instance, has proven to be an invaluable way to tap into a pool of ideas from vastly diverse people. It just blows my mind the idea of having such a diverse network of people at our fingertips!
And yes, with time, it’s not just a cold “network” — we do make some real friends in the process, which is absolutely great of course!
Thanks Srinivas for commenting once again and being such an active member of our community, I really appreciate it!
Excellent advice, and Thinkertoys is a great read and reference. I have carefully cultivated a number of non-experts among what I like to call my ‘personal pillars’ of friends. Some of the most valuable people are the wild and creative artists who have the most unusual perspectives – I learn so much from them when I present a problem completely out of their (and my) field of expertise. You said it perfectly when you pointed out that you need people who ‘challenge the absurdity of things’ in your sphere of influence.
Another great post, Luciano. Keep up the great work!
Rod
I love the term ‘personal pillars of friends’! (Isn’t it fun to come up with cool names for those concepts?)
Thanks for sharing, Rod!
These people are what are referred to as ruff diamonds.
Very valuable and still unique in their thinking, possibly not influenced by higher education and self made. This type of thinker is invaluable. Hey, some of them are your parents who had interupted learning when young because of past wars or migration to another contry. The higher educated only gain from their experiences, so keep in contact,tell your mom you love her, today!
Hi Luciano:
Generally I agree with you on the value of crowdsourcing idea generation. usually at that stage, the more minds involved, the better.
However, I have to take issue with you on the nature of “experts”. Yes, narrow expertise in one area, say technology, can be a hindrance.
But there are other people — ahem, like me — who are expert in creativity, idea generation, and innovation (which is actually a series of processes — beginning with idea generation — that require different skills, such as evaluation of ideas, development of them, etc.).
You’re right. Thinkertoys is a great compendium of creative tools, but it’s not the only one. There are some others around that are equally as good. Von Oech’s A Whack On The Side Of The Head is still one of the best.
But you’re still talking about do-it-yourself creativity, which doesn’t always work optimally unless you’re experienced at it.
For example, most people immediately go to brainstorming, which for the most part is a waste of time because people invariably throw out ideas that is within their sphere of recognition.
So maybe 2 of a thousands ideas are actually unique and breakthrough. Brainstorming can be a good warm up for real creativity, but isn’t very creative in itself.In fact, it can be a creativity killer because it’s often approached from a project management or “quantity” point of view.
Anyway, just wanted to let you know that “expertise” can have many meanings, the primary one of which is the holder of some knowledge. That knowledge can involve the methodology of idea generation and creation.
Other than that, I love your blog.
Cheers
Tony Wanless
@reinventionist
You make some great points, Tony — thanks for sharing!
I agree the word “expertise” can have multiple meanings. In the article, I refer to ‘expert’ as one that has a lot of expertise in the same area you’re currently having problems with — whatever that area may be.
Creativity experts are a whole different story, as they’re not directly tackling a specific client’s problem. Creativity experts work in a “meta-level” of solving problems, not getting involved with the customers’ domain-specific knowledge directly and, as such, not working on that domain’s “box”.
Thanks for the reminder of the subtle but crucial difference!
Regarding ‘A Whack On the Side of the Head’, it’s one of my favorite creativity books too! Do you have other recommendations to share? I’d love to know!
Good read. I think it all depends on what your rut is. If you haven’t had a date in months and you want to get out of that rut, then that is probably based on personal choices and actions that can be changed.
But if you are trying to completely restructure your business because your burn rate is ridiculously high, you may need to seek the advice of someone who only deals with preventing that exact problem.
I think it boils down to whether or not you know what the rut is, how it happened, and how to get out of it. When my business was stalling I quit listening to other people who were having business struggles and started seeking people who have already been in my position but worked their way out.
Great blog! Really get me thinking
Hey Luciano!
I agree that yes, when we’re in a rut, oftentimes the experts don’t have anything good to say. Except I think that even our networks aren’t reliable enough to get us “unstuck” – I think that we, ourselves, hold the solutions we need. All we need to do is take a step back and trust that we’ll find that fresh idea that sparks a whole host of new thoughts.
The effect is twofold: we get the kickstart we need and we enjoy a nice boost in self confidence because WE thought of the idea, not someone else. This leads to greater self-trust and efficiency down the road.
Absolutely, Brett! I believe it would be crazy to rely on our network of nonexperts to get us unstuck.
I agree that many times the solutions are already within us: in fact, nonexperts will rarely give us ready ideas or solutions: nonexperts usually just act as triggers for sparking our own ideas and helping us reach solution on our own.
The good thing is that, in the end, the idea will still be “your idea” — and you’ll still get the boost in self-confidence you mention.
Thanks for adding to the discussion!
Great article, Luciano.
Creativity is definitely a non-linear way of thinking and I totally agree with the combination of tips #1 and #2. When you step back and see the world (or your challenge) with other eyes, a whole new dimension opens up in front of you. You’re free from expert’s paradigms.
It is very interesting that one of my tweets yesterday night was “If you really want to know about the future, ask an experienced kindergarten teacher. Experts on any subject will give you biased answers.”
Much of your post passed by my head before that tweet. Synchronicity maybe?
Congrats
Alexandre Steinberg
@_asteinberg
Ha, just saw your tweet — interesting coincidence indeed!
Thanks for commenting and welcome aboard! (as it looks like you’re new here — which only makes the coincidence even more interesting!)
As always, great tips Luciano. But again, like many other things this is something that is difficult to partake. I have tried discussing issues with my non-expert friends and had found it a more frustrating process because at the end of it, I end up teaching them the ‘rules’ that we need to consider and ‘train’ them to think like me..
The fool mode looks interesting though. Probably by not teaching them the rules they have to consider, I end up unleashing many more possibilities!
Hi Anand,
Yes, having to educate the listener about some of the ‘problem rules’ is oftentimes necessary. However, you should try to reveal the constraints and rules as late as possible: reveal as few detais as you can beforehand, and continue adding rules progressively only as it’s strictly necessary. It’s really not that hard once you realize the value of not exposing the boundaries to the other person.
I tried this yesterday Luciano. I had a new website which needs to be marketed and I made my parents offer ideas on that. At first they couldn’t think of anything at all, and then I slowly hinted a few things I am already doing, and then they came forward with a few suggestions..
But the problem was once they got into a thinking cycle on something they have no idea about, they kept thinking on the same lines…It was not very successful
Hi Anand,
For highly-specific subjects one thing that you may want to try is metaphor. Instead of asking people how to market a website, ask how they would market, say, a lemonade stand. Bring your problem domain a little closer to them to avoid mental blocks due to a total lack of understanding on their part (the more rules you need to lay out for them to understand your problem, the less useful they’ll be). Then later you just transpose the ideas back to the real problem domain.
Hope this helps!
I think it makes sense but again in the context of this article, the closer you take the metaphor, the bigger experts people become. In this case, non-experts in Internet marketing know very well the ‘rules’ when it comes to a more everyday subject like marketing a lemonade stand…and at that point, you are no longer engaging with non-experts..
Yes, it’s a balance — one that oftentimes is very hard to achieve. You want them just a little closer to the problem domain, but not too close…
I am so glad to hear this sort of wisdom come from you Luciano! I believe that everyone is an expert in their own way. I can extract valuable information from anyone because each has their own unique perspective. Ignoring the experts and seeking commonsense advice from our friends, family, and children can sometimes be the most insightful and enlightening thing we can do to help push ourselves forward.
Truly excellent post! Thanks for sharing!
Luciano,
What I appreciate most in your article is your balanced outlook. Be open to all ideas, amateur or expert. Ultimately, each of us is the ultimate decision maker, but the more ideas we have to work with, the better.
That being said, I have found from experience that the experts (not those that call themselves so, but those that have proven track records) can be immensely helpful. Often they have “been there, done that,” and can guide past many a potential pitfall. Expert advice can be expensive, but worth it in time saved and errors avoided. But finding a real expert…Aye, there’s the rub!
Oh, you’re right about that! Nonexperts disguised as experts are by far the most dangerous species of all! Run for your lives!!
Great post, just a quick observation, upon reading this it reminded me of the tarot card “The Fool”
While The Fool may well indicate a lack of experience or grasp of the pitfalls along the path he is taking, it is equally true that his lack of experience leads him to believe all things are possible, which brings even impossible goals within his grasp.
One of my favourite.
Thanks
Hi Jozef,
That’s very interesting! I’m not familiar with Tarot, but this got me curious about how a Tarot deck could be used, not in trying to predict the future, but in boosting one’s creativity. There are several commercial “brain boosting” decks around, that’s why it got me curious…
You also make a great point about “beginner’s mind”. This a recurrent theme in Zen philosophy (and the title of one of my favorite books on the subject, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind), and one that I’m particularly fond of.
Keeping an open mind is vital – you can learn so much from all kinds of people.
You know what Mark; I think you summed up the whole message of my article in one sentence. Maybe I need to sharpen my synthesis skills!
Thanks for the wrap-up!
Bravo Luciano! I really enjoyed this article. Creativity is never the product of following majority opinion. And the majority will typically rely on obvious sources–like experts. Undiscovered jewels are found in the most unlikely places.
I haven’t even thought about that, Nea — and you’re absolutely right. Worse yet, when an expert proclaims something, it might have been valid for a particular context; but then it gets spread and taken as a general truth by the wider audience.
That’s something we need to be very careful (especially on broader subjects, which experts can “pollute” nonexperts opinions much more easily)!
what a great read. You hit the nail on the head there bud.
Thank you for this blog. Yes, depending on the subject, sometimes experts will have a trained eye and are only able to see from that perspective. Allowing yourself to expand with all sorts of ideas can start the juices going even if what they actually say is not helpful. Sometimes, an answer I completely disagree with, helps me come up with exactly the angle I need to address a particular subject.
Dr. Jennifer Howard
You’re absolutely right. Most of the time, nonexperts won’t say readily “useful” things. You need to be alert and accept their ideas with an open mind, avoiding rejecting them immediately. As I mentioned in a previous comment:
Good Post.
Btw if your interested to further explore,check out another ref
“Getting Unstuck:How Dead End Becomes New path”- By Timothy Butler.
In Breif about book:
Many times in life, we will find ourselves at a dead end, in our career or personal world. Far from being a sign of failure, these dead ends are in fact a developmental necessity. We have, despite our feelings of hurt, self-doubt, or depression, arrived at a new frontier. There is a process that leads from dead end to new vision…
Have Nice reading.
Thanks Ganesh for the recommendation. Browsing similar books, I was even more intrigued by this other title from the same author:
The 12 Bad Habits That Hold Good People Back: Overcoming the Behavior Patterns That Keep You From Getting Ahead
Judging by the reviews it looks pretty awesome.