5 steps to innovative solutions

Creativity is not a mysterious gift reserved for the favoured few. In reality, it is a process that may be learnt by any person. Any important problem — at work or elsewhere — can be serviced with original ideas. Understanding the steps of the creative thinking process unlocks pathways to imaginative problem-solving, new solutions, and lateral thinking that might lie there in plain sight.

Let’s take an example. In the 1870s, newspapers faced a challenge when photography became popular. Pictures were demanded, but printing photos was cumbersome and expensive. It entailed engravers etching the actual picture on a steel plate that quickly wore out, a slow process and not cheap.

Enter Frederic Eugene Ives, a photographic inventor. He developed a new process for printing images, making it much faster and more convenient. This is how at each stage of the creative process you can solve an authentic everyday problem.

5 steps of creative thinking

In the 1940s, James Webb Young, a young ad executive identified five steps in the creative process. These stages illustrate that creativity is as much about making new connections between existing ideas as it is about finding something completely novel.

Gather Resources: First, you find out everything there is to know about your chosen subject. Ives was an apprentice to a printer, first learning basic printing and photography, before working in a lab management position at Cornell University.

Work through the Material: Next, experiment with the information you’ve gathered. For Ives, this meant dedicating years to tinkering with new techniques, forming connections between concepts he already knew.

Take a Break: After intense concentration, take a break. According to stories, Ives had his epiphany at a small little light early morning when he woke up with the solution in mind after a good night’s sleep. The subconscious mind makes sense of complex information during that little break.

Let the Idea Come Back: Most creative ideas come when least expected. For most, insights come at moments of rest, giving one a new point of view.

Refine the Idea: Good ideas need refinement. Ives made his process even more effective through patentable inventions, which suggests that creativity elaborates on ideas and evolves based on feedback and revisions in the process.

Creativity is not about building something from the ground up; it is about connecting ideas in new, impactful ways. It is not a skill per se, but rather an approach practised by anybody. Keeping in mind the above-mentioned points makes problem-solving intuitive and gives us the confidence to approach challenges within an original frame of thought. Creativity is, therefore, just seeing familiar concepts in a new light.