We all have heard a lot about Intelligence Quotient or IQ, based on which the intelligence of an individual is measured – Higher the IQ greater the intelligence. All through the years IQ has been a standardized parameter on which intelligent candidates have been recruited to various high institutions.
But, does that mean people with average IQ scores are less intelligent??? Absolutely not… At a point in our lives, most of us would have taken IQ tests. What those scores fail to tell us is the difference between being a genius and being creative.
Creativity comes in many forms. It is the ability to come up with new ideas through a mental process of connecting existing concepts. It is not revolutionary or ground-breaking ideas that we are talking about, all they must be are new for the thinker.
“Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.” – Paulo Coelho
In the present scenario, more and more businesses are hunting creative and innovative talents and not with off the chart IQ scores. Being able to come up with creative ideas are not something you need an overly high IQ to achieve.
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences, or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.” – Steve Jobs
As we discussed, creativity is the ability to come up with new ideas by connecting the already existing concepts, here are a few ways on how to improve your Creative thinking and innovation skills:
Start asking more Questions –
What many of the good innovators do is take an existing object and ask intelligent questions to twist the very concept of it and make it into something entirely new. So, learn to ask more and more questions, the answers will be around the corner.
Train your Imagination through the act of dreaming –
Creative thinking is not something that sprouts out of nowhere. It is the resultant of regularly training your imagination, practicing your powers of observation and DREAMING big or small. When said so, everything sounds really simple. But in this modern era of busy schedule and information overload, this important aspect is often ignored.
Make time for Creative thinking –
It is very important to keep aside clearly defined time for creative thinking and innovation. For example, Google asks its teams to allocate a minimum of 20% of their time to creative thinking or new projects.
But most of the time even when we are all set to innovate, no ideas pop up in our minds. This is just because, we ignore to practice the very art of Dreaming and do not focus on cohesive ideas.
Creativity in you is what the World needs today, for that you are not expected to have high IQ scores. Learning to observe the people, world and everything around you is an important element to creativity. Being open to criticism, persistently asking questions to drive yourself into the future that remains unknown to us and learning to dream your way through is what will make you an exceptional innovator.
Innovation and creativity are part of our everyday life. Be it your Jobs or the most mundane aspect of your lives, approaching it slightly different will change the phase of it in a matter of time.