Hasta La Ideas

Images courtesy of IDEO

If a recent segment on 60 Minutes is any indication, IDEO’s David Kelley is among the design superstars who have crossed over into mainstream recognition. David and his brother Tom, also a partner at the leading innovation consultancy, are pleased to present a new book, Creative Confidence, to prove that deep down (or perhaps not so deep) inside, “each and every one of us is creative.” We had a chance to catch up with the Kelley Bros. to chat about their latest page-turner and how each of us can tap into our own creative potential.

Earlier this year, Bruce Nussbaum published a book called Creative Intelligence. To what degree is this premise—that anyone can be creative—a new trend, and why do you think that is? Or alternately, if the idea has been in the ether for some time, why now?

While creativity is timeless, trends like Maker culture open up new opportunities to unleash creativity. Our great friend and IDEO cofounder Bill Moggridge strongly believed that most people were vastly more creative and capable than they knew. We agree, and we’re glad more people around the world are starting to agree, too.

We define creative confidence as the natural human ability to come up with breakthrough ideas and the courage to act on them. Since everyone was creative at some point in their lives (consider kindergarten), the challenge for us is more about unlocking creative potential than generating it from scratch.

Both in David’s work at the d.school and in IDEO’s collaborative work with client teams, we’ve witnessed many personal transformations when people who do not self-identify as “creative” get exposed to design thinking methods—and then surprise themselves with just how creative they really are. We’ve seen over and over that when people experience a series of small successes, they gradually gain confidence in their own ability to generate creative ideas and act on them. Creative confidence, what eminent psychologist Albert Bandura would call “self-efficacy,” comes down to a belief system about your own ability to have positive impact in the world.

Creative confidence is like a muscle—it can be strengthened and nurtured through effort and practice. In our experience, the best way to do that is through action, one step at a time.

The anecdote about Akshay and Ankit [engineers who end up in a d.school class] definitely rings true: We often hear from engineers who realize they’d rather be designers but don’t know where to start. Do you have any advice for them?

If you’re an engineer, then you’re a problem solver. The way to move in the design direction is to move from pure problem-solving to need-finding. That’s the empathy part of it. So instead of just doing your normal job, look for ways to reframe the problem that you’re working on, ways it might be solved in a different or a better way. Complete the task you were asked to do and then do it again in a more creative way using design thinking tools. Present both directions to the boss.

What you need is a bias toward action, to jump out into the world. Engineers tend to shy away from the messiness of the human part. So if you’re working on a new cell phone, instead of just considering the circuits or the software, go out and watch people use cell phones. Watch people use cell phones in extreme situations. Watch unusual phone use, and watch regular phone use. Ask people questions about it. Ask people to draw their cell phones. Do whatever it takes to get deep into understanding what’s meaningful to people about cell phones, rather than just working on the technology.

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