Creative thinking takes place in two arenas: internally and externally.  Internally, or in your own mind, creative thinking is all about exploring, playing, and probing with new ideas.  Externally, when you relate your new ideas to others, creative thinking is about communicating, explaining, and persisting until others get the vision.  But these ideas are somewhat nebulous.  So let me try to take concepts such as “playing” and “explaining” and put them into a more concrete form.

Creative thinking: internally

• Exploring - To really come up with new ideas you have to be willing to look outside the box.  And in the realm of your imagination you can explore anything.  Here the problems are laid out and the more obvious solutions are explored.  But exploring is decidedly an activity that should stay internal.  Few people have the patience for creative thinking that may be jumping from point to another seemingly unconnected point.

• Playing - Beyond exploration, playing has to do with intentionally breaking the perceived rules and intentionally thinking through solutions that may seem impossible.  Using scenarios like,  “If I had unlimited resources, how would I handle this?” Playing pushes limits. And this part of the creative process should still remain internal as people are typically quick to judge.

• Probing - Here the creative thinker begins to challenge the status quo.  Identify biases and assumptions that may be preventing ideas from flowing.  Again, because of the political nature of most organizations, probing should initially take place internally since people can feel threatened by the probing process.

Creative thinking: externally

• Communicating - Once the new ideas have been sorted and sifted, the next step is to communicate those ideas.  Careful thought needs to be put into how and when to communicate your new ideas.  Make sure the people to whom you are communicating understand your frame of reference.  It is easy to throw out an idea and confuse a group who has not been tracking with you internally.

• Explaining - Once you communicated your idea you often have to take the time to fully explain it. You may need to show people which boxes you’ve broken down and which assumptions you may be challenging.

• Persisting - Finally, you’re probably going to have to be patient while the idea takes root.  The external process of creative thinking is iterative: you’re probably going to have to communicate, explain, and persist, and repeat the process several times.