Creativity and creative thinking has always been one of my main interests. I love psychology, and creativity and innovativeness are massive part of it. Creativeness is mostly established on your own attitude, and that means it can be developed through practice and studying theories of creative thinking, and most importantly opening your attitude and questioning your own opinions. Term “thinking outside the box” is often heard, and I think it is one of the main rules of creativity. I think that creativity comes through your own attitude and actions as well, as many of the points in this book prove.

On Team Academy, creativity is important part of the process. John Adair’s book “The Art of Creative Thinking” offers good theories and concrete help to develop your creativity. Book offers ways you can use to help you to get outside the mainstream thinking box and bring more depth to your way of thinking, making it more creative.

First thing what really struck me in this book is Anon’s theory of making the familiar strange and strange familiar. It mainly establishes itself on the saying that “God hide things from us by putting them near us”. We think that things near us are familiar to us, but in reality there’s so much we don’t understand at all. For example, I have thought that my friends in Deveta are pretty familiar to me now, but if I try to look at my team mates through stranger’s eyes and observe what first impressions they make to others, I see that there is still much to learn about their behaviour. It is good example that how just questioning what you know about your close ones can bring other sides of them to you. It brings a lot of depth in understanding their creative process, and why do they think the way they think and act the way they act.

Next part I am going to take to practice is that chance only favours open mind. In creative thinking, you shouldn’t ever block anything. Through open mind, the ideas are going to come to you. When brainstorming ideas, all ideas are welcome ideas. This is the attitude I’m going to use for example in my new team leader role. All ideas what I get from other teammates are welcome, without blocking anything immediately on sight.

Closely joining in open mind theory is observation. Observe anything and always keep your eyes and ears open to things what happen in the world. Following news and listening to radio and listening to other people and observing their reactions are the way to more knowledge, which is important in creativity as well. In creative thinking. You can take influences from everywhere. These influences can provide for example different points of view, or new knowledge unknown to you. I think I can continue in pretty similar way of observing the world, because that has always been one of my main interests. I’m not saying I can’t improve though, there is always new points of view in the world. I try to gather as much knowledge and different points of view as I can and use those in creative brainstorming and creative writing.

Book adds that in addition of being observant and open, you have to be curious. You don’t learn new ideas and theories if you aren’t interested about them and don’t want to learn anything from them. This is the thing I have realized from this book. I have thought that I am observing and open person, which I really think I am. But am I curious enough? I came to conclusion, that it depends on a situation or subject. I think that it kind of works that way with anyone, but it isn’t an excuse. There is room to develop my creative thinking by being curious about larger area of subjects and getting intel from them to use in my creative thinking process. Curiosity also makes you more involved socially. People love talking about themselves, and it is a good way of learning about their actions by just being curious enough to listen. This is also a thing I am going to use in my new role as Deveta’s team leader.

I think these were the most important parts in John Adair’s book. Questioning familiar things, being open, being observant and being curious. Through these four guidelines, I’m able to improve my attitude and actions. I believe that creativity and new ideas come through these subjects. I’m able to gather so much influences and knowledge through these and combine these to my already existing thoughts. With this, my thoughts gain a lot more depth, meaning more creative potential. Creativeness is always fascinating subject, and I believe my creative thinking is going to get even better with these guidelines I have got from this book.