The Pursuit of Uninnovativeness
search for the dusty project documentation. You can bet that he will abandon the frustrating search after two days at the latest.
5. Method “Like cures like” As we have already seen, the term “incubation” is taken from medical science and labels the period between the infection with a germ and the outbreak of the illness. Thereby the idea is put on the same level as a germ. As a cure a homeopathic medicine is advisable according to the homeopathic saying “Similia similibus currentur” (translation “Like cures like”). Just say: “The time is not yet ripe for this idea.” Or “Let us not jump the gun on this. We have to take our time to analyze this thoroughly.” And always remember: Homeopathy may only be used in small dose. Otherwise you have to fall back on traditional medical science (see methods 1 to 4).
Debase Creativity In our society creativity seems to be reserved for a certain class of people, mainly artistic persons in painting, music and literature and in similar economic sectors such as advertising, fashion and media. On the contrary, industry and science are still a bit critical concerning creativity. Of course, they want to nurture innovations, but in a more systematic, almost unsophisticated way. If Archimedes had thought: “Creativity is only for poets like Homer and Aeschylus. I as an engineer stick to what I know best.”, he would not have had the idea to seek his solution in the context of “personal hygiene”. Ernst Peter Fischer [15], professor for the history of science, mourns that nowadays the scientists “claim all sorts of things for themselves, but not creativity. They are rather revolutionary or, if this does not work, orderly, correct, precise, comprehensive and devotionally focused on the details. But to be creative, meaning to be disorderly, rather imprecise, speculating, imaginative and unstressed by details - nobody wants to be that.” The motto for creativity is: First chaotic, then systematic. First divergent thinking to generate creative ideas, then convergent thinking to develop realizable innovations from these ideas. This demands from the researchers and developers that they face the unknown and have confidence in their creativity. According to George Polya [48] the “open secret” of successful problem-solving is as follows: “The open secret of success is to throw your whole personality into your problem.” You can use the following methods to debase creativity:
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