Creativity 299 ANSWER WITHOUT READING ON This is the classic test of creativity developed by J.P. Guilford in 1967. It is called the Alternative Uses Task. You can try the task with many objects: bricks, chairs, even water. How did you do on your first attempt? 8 to 10 uses is about average, 20 is extremely good. It’s possible to teach most people to get near twenty and I'll show you how to do this in a moment. Another test of idea generation is to draw 30 things in 30 circles. Thirty is such a large number it forces us to come up with some nutty ideas and break our natural tendency to self-censor. For example, I'd like you to create logos or logo ideas, for a new coffee company in your circles. The test is best done without a time limit so now is the time to break off reading and make yourself a coffee. Then come back and draw 30 circles on a piece of paper. Fill in the circles. MAKE A COFFEE, THEN START DRAWING. The aim of brainstorming is to remove our inhibitions and get us to generate a mass of ideas. In normal life, we tend to suppress ideas even before we are consciously aware of them. Sir Ken Robinson has researched creativity in children and found the ability to brainstorm reduces linearly with age. At five or six, children given one of these divergent thinking tasks come up with many creative solutions: fold the paper clip into a dinosaur, and use it to attack your friends, get two and use them as chop sticks. As adults, we tend to disqualify ideas. You could never fold a paperclip that tightly or accurately, we said, “a” paper clip not two. But, you can fold a paper clip tightly, and the room you are doing the test in has thirty paper clips and thirty people in it so just team up with a friend. I never said this was a solo task! Do you see how you impose nonexistent rules on your thinking, particularly the implied rule of not working with others? I did not say this test was subject to examination conditions. The first twenty years of our lives teach