How do you get a coconut out of a tree?
A sneak peek into the current chapter I’m writing on APPLIED CREATIVITY as a model driving optimal practice.
Imagine you are primal man, living in a village on a tropical island.
On your daily scavenge for food, you observe a cast of crabs scuttling across the white beach sands; larger than your usual crustacean, these crabs scale the nearby palm trees and proceed to knock down the rather large, heavy seeds… coconuts.
With two front pincers the size of your forearms, these crabs hug the coconuts and with a satisfying ‘crunch’… begin peeling off the husk to feast on the creamy, white innards.
A radical idea occurs to you… if these crabs eat coconuts, maybe you could eat coconuts too?
One small problem… the coconuts are atop a tree.
How do you get a coconut out of a tree?
Like all good villagers, you conform to culture, turning to common logic and existing LINEAR process:
- There is no established process (or cave paintings) on coconuts, so obviously it can’t be done.
- You ask a colleague if they know how to retrieve the coconut; they’ve never eaten coconuts, (since there is no established process) so obviously it can’t be done and why would you want it?
- If crabs eat coconuts it must mean coconuts are only edible by crabs.
- You scale the tree and recover the coconut — it is encased in a hard shell that you cannot open — your first assumption was correct — your colleague was right — you are ridiculed and ostracised by the village before dying of starvation.
Logically… the idea of eating coconuts is absurd.
But let’s say, as a radical thinker, you really, really want the coconut, how would you solve this problem?
When existing processes are insufficient, how can you flex your CREATIVITY to adapt, innovate, problem solve… eat coconuts?
CREATIVITY is a language: personal, dynamic, sometimes abstract, every language abides by rules.
Understanding how CREATIVITY behaves allows you to reliably flex it in order to problem solve, adapt, innovate, avoid echo chambers and proactively employ optimal practice.
To learn how APPLIED CREATIVITY drives optimal practice, download the first chapter of my upcoming book for free here… cssellers.com/book
