How to Have Unlimited Creativity

Himanshu Bharadwaj at UXDX Community: Unleashing Change and Creativity. Video: https://youtu.be/YchqOQAMLT0

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Speed bumps and why obstacles create creativity

[00:00:00] How's everybody? Last week I was driving to a doctor's appointment. It was cold and I was late for the appointment, and I started speeding up. As I started speeding up I couldn't see a speed breaker, a speed bump, on the road, and my car hit this speed bump. It damaged my car a little bit, but as I hit that speed bump it made me think something. Obstacles come in our life and it forces us to think, and that is a good thing, because creativity happens when we have obstacles. If there are no obstacles we have the same thinking, same vision, same process going on, and then there is no creativity. If we are constantly enjoying that success then we never deviate from it, and then success also withers away. So maybe obstacles are important in life.

[00:01:14] As we look back on the last one year within UX, I see everywhere designers are very anxious. They are uncertain about their future, and rightly so, because if you see the FAANG companies, where everybody wants to get a job, they laid off about 3,000 UX designers. The researchers were badly hit in the last one year, and job openings are not that many. The salaries are also more or less stagnant for UX designers in the last 25 years if you account for inflation.

[00:01:55] More than anything, what surprised me the most was IDEO laid off 30, 32% of their staff last year. I used to think IDEO was the pinnacle for design thinking, and everybody wanted to work at IDEO. So what happened? Is it the end of design thinking? Did something go wrong in design? What are the speed bumps designers are facing? Is there less creativity in design thinking? If you look at the design thinking diagram, is that how everybody thinks? Is thinking linear or is thinking messy? Is there a start and end of thinking?

[00:02:41] Those are the questions I started to think about, and the bigger question I started to think about was, is there creativity in design thinking? The definition of creativity is fluency, originality, flexibility and elaboration. Are we doing these four things in our design process today?

Return on creativity and the missing definition of design

[00:03:05] The other speed bumps in the design process that I see around are design agencies not able to figure out whether they should charge their clients for process or for ideas. And if you work for a design department as an in-house designer, or a product company, are you designing for use or are you designing for sales?

[00:03:37] If you are a business owner or if you are an executive, you're always thinking about return on investment. But have you ever thought about return on creativity? If people say creativity is the most important economic resource, why are we not investing in creativity to get the returns?

[00:04:03] Then I started to really question the nature of our design profession. What exactly is design? Is design objective, subjective, art, is it data driven? What I found surprised me. In the last 20 years, design leaders around the world have not been able to define the definition of design, and there is a research paper for it. If you look at every other profession, every other subject, there is a definition of chemistry, there's a definition of physics, there's a definition of economics. But what exactly is the definition of design? We don't know yet, because there are just way too many definitions of design.

[00:04:50] Another bump that came our way in the last one year: artificial intelligence. UX designers are worried whether they'll be replaced by AI. What I felt was creativity is something that we ought to look into, because that's the X factor, that's the hidden force. The World Economic Forum listed out the top 10 skills needed for the next five or six years until 2027, and creative thinking is amongst the top. Why are we not thinking about thinking?

Peter the worker: are we human beings or human doings?

[00:05:36] Let's look at a persona. Let's call this person Peter, for better understanding of his journey. He works at a large corporation, and in a large corporation he's basically doing his work, so he's probably a worker. But all of us, when you're working in large corporations, are we workers or are we creators? Are we workers or are we thinkers?

[00:06:09] We call ourselves human experience designers. What does being a human mean? Because we are basically human doings. We are doing, doing, doing. We are not being. Being a human means being grounded, because the word human comes from humus, which is the topsoil. So being humble, being grounded, is what it means to be human.

[00:06:38] Since it's so corporate, so regimented, organized, everything has a process, there is no creativity, because creativity is not linear. We end up having fossilized, blocked, rigid and consequential thinking, and there is no creativity in large organizations. And we wonder why designers are not able to prove themselves. So how can we unlearn to be creative? Creativity is the skill for the future.

[00:07:13] This person Peter looks at his calendar. It's very busy, but he has a lot of the child in him, because his childhood was very joyful and happy. So he is a functioning adult, but he also understands that if he considers work as play then he'll be okay. But are we considering work as play? Maybe not. That's why we are all so stressed in our jobs.

[00:07:48] On top of that, we are hijacked with biases and beliefs that hold us back. We just don't know how to be creative, because creativity is being free, being free from all the beliefs, all the notions that we have carried over many, many years. How can we get rid of these biases? Is there a process for it?

Education teaches convergent thinking, not creativity

[00:08:16] Let's take this Peter into college. He was in this college and he wondered why there is not a subject called creativity. He studied physics, chemistry, he studied economics, he studied art, design, but there was no subject called creativity. It's a vital skill for the future. If we have to be innovators in a company we have to learn creativity.

[00:08:45] This is a problem with the industry. We hire people for intelligence. We look at their GPA scores, we look at their experience, we have the interview where we ask intelligent questions and we expect intelligent answers. But when we hire people, we expect them to be creative. So we hire intelligent people and expect them to be creative. How can they both match? It's a different skill set.

[00:09:13] In education we are learning the facts. We are more or less doing convergent thinking, and memorization is a skill that we learn. There is always a fear of failure, because we have these marking systems: we have to get A+, a grade, 90 out of 100, 95 out of 100. We are studying skill sets. We learn Figma, we learn Photoshop, we learn how to work with the tools, but we never learn how to have a mindset. So colleges produce specialists, not generalists or not even polymaths. Being a polymath enhances creativity. We end up being measured for our memory, not for intelligence.

The teenage brain, myelin and the frontal cortex

[00:10:00] Let's go back into the past, when Peter was a teenager. There is something in our brain called myelin, which is basically a coating between neurons, and it's a fatty coating. Having a good myelin coating allows us to have signals travel from the back of the brain all the way to the front of the brain, which is the frontal cortex. The frontal cortex is used for executive thinking, where all the decision making is done. So you can have better decision making, better creativity, better rational thinking, better judgment if the frontal cortex is developed. And the frontal cortex is not developed all the way until the age of 25.

[00:10:55] This is why, without this coating on these wires, imagine electrical wires without the rubber coating, and when you put them all together there is short circuiting. This is why you see teenagers having an impulsive attitude. They are rebellious, they are judgmental, they're very self-conscious over their image. This is the age where if you focus on enhancing your brain you can be more creative. You can allow for more coating to happen, more development of the frontal cortex. And Peter's parents were smart enough to help have him develop the brain.

[00:11:37] So how do you develop the brain? Our brain is like a supercomputer. It has something called neuroplasticity, which allows us to rewire the brain and enhance creativity. If you look at the software of our brain, you can enhance it with knowledge and experience. If there is a battery in the brain, that is good sleep, connecting with nature, digital detox. Why do we always carry our cell phones, iPads, computers all the time? Why can't we be free? Why can't we free ourselves from these digital devices and enjoy nature? Even when we are looking at a very nice sunset, instead of enjoying the sunset we just put our hand in our pocket and pull out a cell phone and capture the image, and we hardly ever look at that image, because it's just stored in the memory of the cell phone.

[00:12:41] The hard drive of our brain can be enhanced by meditation, keeping a journal or self-talk, because the brain is where all the information is, and it allows us to be superhuman. Our superpower as designers is being able to enhance the brain. We get paid for our creativity, but we hardly pay attention to how we can be more creative. The brain has only three pounds of weight, but it has 100 billion neurons, and imagine 100 billion neurons having 10,000 synaptic connections. The number of those synaptic connections now are more than the stars in the Milky Way. Imagine how complex this brain is. But we don't know how to activate all parts of the brain to get benefit from our creative superpowers.

Childhood, the senses and flow state

[00:13:44] Let's look at Peter in his childhood. He was a kid and he used to play on the beach, he used to play with clay. By playing with sand, by playing with clay, it allows you to experience all the sensations. Your senses, your sense of touch, is enhanced. You're looking at beautiful beaches, you're looking at different shades of sand, you are creating toys out of clay, so all your senses are at play. The more sensual stimulation that you can have, the better creativity it would enhance.

[00:14:33] At the age of five or four we are very playful, and our beliefs are formed until the age of seven. This is the age where creativity can be really fostered. Parents ought to know how to enhance creativity in their children. Tactile experiences stimulate different areas of the brain. And when we are playing at a young age we lose sense of time and space, and that equals flow state. When we grow up and work in our careers, when we are deeply engrossed in our job, we need the flow state to be more productive, to be more efficient. But we just don't know. Our attention spans are so limited these days.

[00:15:27] Even at the age where we are adults, even if we end up playing with toys at that time once in a while, I would suggest people should play with children, should play with their childhood toys, and that enhances creativity too. But we just don't know how to do it.

What creativity actually is: super drunk and super alert

[00:15:50] So what exactly is creativity? In simple terms, being creative is being super drunk and super alert. We have these brain waves in our brain, and one of the most important brain waves is a gamma wave, which we need for problem solving and concentration, being able to focus. At the same time there are other waves, alpha, beta, theta. Having this theta state keeps us very relaxed. Alpha state is restful. So having this restful state at the same time as being on high alert, having those two streams of waves running parallel, is basically being drunk and super alert.

[00:16:37] But what do we do today to be alert? We are drinking coffee in the morning. The effect of coffee lasts for the next 16 hours, so we are unable to sleep. So to sleep we are either taking sleeping pills or we are having wine or alcohol, and the cycle continues. We are always in this fight or flight mode, so when we are working in teams we have friction, and we just can't draw on our intuition on demand. Intuition is something very important for designers to be creative.

[00:17:15] Ultimately what we are understanding is that creativity is very hard, because our inner child wants love, our teenage self wants to rebel, our present self wants peace, and our future self dreams. We can't have all of them together, and that is a problem.

Diversity of ideas and making connections

[00:17:44] Let's go further back into Peter's journey. This is the zygote of Peter, sperm and egg combined. From male and female, two different entities, there is a combination. So diversity: two diverse experiences combine, or two diverse ideas combine, to create a creative experience. That is what creativity is, that is the application of creativity.

[00:18:12] How do we do it? In our brain there are different associative cortices, and by stimulating all parts of the brain we can come up with novel ideas, and that is what creativity is. If you look at this brain scan, the top row of the brain scan has more activity in all parts of the brain. The bottom portion is the normal brain. But when somebody is thinking creatively, all parts of the brain are activated, and that is what we need to aspire to have.

[00:18:54] When you do that you can make connections between unrelated things, and you can succeed in any profession you go to, not just in the design profession. Every profession needs creativity, being able to make the right connections. If you look at advertising, advertising uses this kind of connection making. Look at any visual: how do you combine different elements into something more creative with a profound impact on the consumer?

[00:19:33] If you look at innovation, look at how Google was created. Google's idea actually came from something called a journal impact factor. Top journals have impact factors, and also ranking of those journals. These guys, the founders of Google, were actually researchers, and they got the idea from there, and then they created Google.

[00:20:01] I use this in my exercises with designers, and also with the stakeholders, when I have to get everybody in a room and come up with interesting ideas. I basically throw out some really unrelated words, very unrelated words, and have them combine them and come up with something interesting. For example, if you combine music and ocean, maybe the answer is harmonic waves. If you combine cat and detective, maybe it becomes Purrlock Holmes. You can come up with some really funny and interesting ideas. You can name your companies like that. It's a very small trick, it just triggers creativity in you.

Stillness and the beginner's mindset

[00:20:46] Let's look at Peter's life journey even before he was born, even before human beings were born, even before there was any cell on this whole earth, or maybe even before there was anything in this universe. Before anything in this universe there was probably nothing. There was emptiness. That emptiness was the empty space. There was stillness, and from that stillness everything was born.

[00:21:26] That is the superpower: being able to understand the stillness within us, from where the thought comes. When we give energy to the thought it becomes emotion, it becomes action, and when we combine action with our thought it manifests into something tangible. That is what creativity is: being able to tap into our inner stillness.

[00:21:54] This is the hardest thing to do, because doing nothing is the hard thing to do. That is what embracing a beginner's mindset means. Go all the way to the beginning of everything, which is basically stillness, not knowing anything. You might have won a lot of awards, you might have a really flowery resume, but when you are working on an assignment you are nothing. You make yourself so humble. That is what being a human being is. You don't know anything, you're starting from scratch, and that helps you come up with more creative ideas.

[00:22:33] One interesting way of explaining this concept is: have you ever seen a tree fall in a storm? Whenever a tree falls it creates a very loud sound. On the other hand, if a seed blossoms into a sapling and then into a flower, it does it very silently. So destruction always creates sound, but creativity is very silent. It is a very slow and silent process. Tapping into that silence is the trick.

Practical exercises: sensory priming and creative mapping

[00:23:14] Let's do something more practical. I'll help you walk away from this presentation with some actionable ideas. For example, if you have to come up with ideas on the spot, you don't have enough time, maybe you have an hour, maybe less than an hour, and you have to come up with something interesting. Think of this flower that you see in front of you, a rose flower. Think of the smell of the flower. It's in a garden. Think of the breeze in the garden, the cold breeze touching your skin.

[00:23:56] Think of the soft touch of the flower. Think of the beauty of the flower. Think of all the emotions that come with the flower. Think of your first kiss, when you gave the flower to your wife or the girlfriend or the boyfriend. At that point of time all your senses are activated, which means there are areas in our brain that have different sensations that are connected with different senses, and you have activated all those senses. Now think of the idea that you have to solve. You will come up with a lot of good ideas.

[00:24:43] Likewise, you can even create a sensory vision board. We create this idea board with visuals. How about, for example, you're working on a brand. Let's take an idea for Apple. What does Apple smell like? What are the emotions Apple generates? What is the visual for Apple? What is the sound of Apple? What is the taste of Apple? What is the touch of Apple? Define all those sensations and then come up with an idea. Use a brand, or you can use any product also, and come up with ideas.

[00:25:19] This is another idea, for creative mapping. How can you come up with really interesting ideas? You can divide ideas between absurd, impossible, possible, dream ideas, negative ideas and positive ideas. Why I say negative ideas is because unless you know how you can break the product you will not know where the weak points of the product are. Unless you know why people will not buy the product you will not know how to sell the product. Unless you can dream big you will not be able to come up with ambitious features in a product. Unless you know what is impossible you'll not know which boundaries to cross.

[00:26:01] You have to be absurd, you have to come up with crazy ideas, and that happens when, as a design leader, you create a safe place for your design team. In different stages of your creative process, preparation, incubation, inspiration and execution, take some time out and do these exercises. These are brainstorm exercises. It will refresh you, you will be able to evaluate where you are in the process, come up with some better ideas, improve the process and do better.

[00:26:35] In the end, when you have all these ideas, evaluate all your ideas and take creative decisions, and these creative decisions then become your new features, your new enhancements. You can do it for your team also, and you can create a really interesting team by allowing everybody to think wildly, absurdly, negatively. Have them be dreamers. You will have a better retention rate in your design team.

Summary: creativity as a whole brain activity

[00:27:06] Let me summarize what we have learned so far. What exactly is creativity? I define creativity as a whole brain activity, which is basically a multiplication between curiosity and positive attitude. Now I define curiosity as knowledge multiplied by imagination multiplied by evaluation multiplied by introspection, which is more or less your brain function. Different parts of the brain create curiosity.

[00:27:40] Likewise, positive attitude is courage, patience, communication, being compassionate, having love and play, which is also brain function. When you have all this you will have whole brain activity, and that is how you can create, and you can create consistently over and over again, and your ideas will be phenomenal, extraordinary. This is the secret to being creative. Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing some questions.

Closing

[00:28:20] Host: Hi, thank you very much, Himanshu. That was really deep introspection into how people think and where curiosity and innovation come from, so thank you very much for sharing. I'm just conscious of time. Unfortunately we don't have time for questions right now, but if anybody has any questions out there please do write them in and we will share those with Himanshu, and he can share his answers on the Slack channel. We'll invite you to that. Thank you very much, Himanshu, for sharing that. I found it really insightful. It got me thinking about ways I can try and increase my curiosity as well. Thank you so much.