Think for a moment – if you want to be a carpenter what you will need is a set of tools. These might include traditional carpentry tools like, the hammer, saw, chisel, screwdriver and measuring tape.
With the right tools it would be relatively easy to get the work done. Of course having
the right tools is not a sure guarantee of succeeding in what you are doing – but it is a
good start. Ultimately practice makes perfect.
Just like in carpentry work you need a proper set of tools, to think creatively and
coming up with solutions to seemingly impossible situations requires you to think
effectively and efficiently with the right mental tools. There are many effective mental
tools that are available, and here’s one more that you can use with relative ease and
achieve immeasurable success in your personal and professional lives.
To think creatively and come up with workable solutions, you can use a set of
attention-directing tools called S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E. I chose this word because it is an easy
word to remember and just like you wanting some fuss free scramble eggs for breakfast,
you can use S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E. in an easy non-complicated way to become a good
decision maker, problem-solver and solution finder.
Each letter in the word S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E. connotes a specific action that you need
to engage in to think ‘out of the box’. Next time you are sitting in your meeting or a
brainstorming session and asking yourself how you might want to solve a problem or find
a solution you might address your team with “Let’s S.C.R.A.M.B.L.E this for a minute.”
Then go through the action process that configures with each word.
SUBSTITUTE
Ask yourself can we substitute the problem with something else. What can be
taken out; can we substitute emotion; a part of the problem. Diabetic people aren’t
supposed to take sugar because it is no good for them. But there are diabetic people who
like sweet things. So using ‘substitution’ for sugar you can keep the sweetness but take
away the other parts of the sugar and you get ‘Sugar free sweeteners.’ Brilliant!
Likewise, there are people who cannot agree with dairy produces but like their coffee white. So what do you have?
Think about it!
COMBINE (with other things)
Sometimes by combining a few problems or things you might get the solution
that you want. It was someone’s crazy idea of combining, coffee, sugar and creamer and
putting them in little sachets such that all you have to do is put the mixture in a cup and
pour hot water. The three-in-one concept revolutionizes the way we drink coffee and
spread its wings to other forms of beverages as well. Now there is a whole variety of
‘three-in-one’ or ‘two-in-one’ things. The process of creativity is based on combination.
Arthur Koestler mentioned in his book the ‘Act of Creation’ that creativity is ‘bringing
together two previously unrelated planes of thoughts’. Ask yourself questions like: what
can we combine, can we combine ideas, combine different concepts and even combine
emotions.
REVERSE/REARRANGE
Sometimes you might notice that by reversing a situation will solve the problem.
At other times you need to rearrange the various parts that you have and come up with a
plausible situation. Before 1840s if you wanted to send a letter to someone you write the
letter and send it. The recipient of the letter on receiving the letter pays for the letter.
This created a massive headache to the mail industry as sometimes the recipient of the
letter refuses to pay. And went the addressee was not available or the letter was sent to
the wrong person, that person had to pay which was seemingly unfair. By a singular act
of reversing the situation a whole new concept of postal service was founded. Rather
than the recipient paying for the letter let the sender pay. And how can this be done – the
postage stamp of course! Sir Rowland Hill came up with this brilliant idea and the first
stamp comprising the Queen’s head and costing 1 penny was born. This relatively
unassuming piece of paper affixed to the letter has been epitomized and affectionately
referred to as the “Penny Black”.
Rearranging is another way to get things done and problems solved. I mean think
about it for a minute, the English language consist of just 26 alphabets. It is through the
rearrangement of these 26 letters that we have today the works of Dickens, Shakespeare,
Marlow, Hardy and the list goes on. What you are reading right now is basically the
rearrangement of the 26 letters. But can you figure the following sentence:
ECVR EIA TG TNHI KISN IOGO DOR FOUY
Obviously the sentence does not make sense at all. Rearrange the alphabets and you will
see the meaning. It stands for: ‘Creative thinking is good for you.’
Ask yourself questions like: what can we reverse here, or rearrange? Can we reverse the
situation? Instead of we seeking out potential customers can we change our philosophy
or product or service to get the customers come to as instead?
ADAPT
Thomas Edison, perhaps the greatest creative genius of the 19th and the early 20th
century once mentioned: “Make it a habit to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting
ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea needs to be original only in its
adaptation to the problem you are working on.” If you think about it most of the things
that we possess today is basically an adaptation of something else. The mobile phone for
instance is an adaptation of the telephone and radio. The air-conditioner is an adaptation
of the refrigerator. Ask yourself questions like: what can we adapt; are there new uses
that we can incorporate; can we put to other uses what we have; will it be possible to
adapt someone else’s idea without infringing their intellectual property rights.
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