The Four Commandments of Divergent Thinking
Four brainstorming rules encourage creativity and innovation: generate many ideas, build on one another’s ideas, welcome unusual ideas, and defer judgment.
THE IDEA
The Four Commandments of Divergent Thinking
The First Commandment: The more ideas, the better.
This commandment is obvious and never causes anyone a problem. It means quantity is more important than quality, so keep the ideas coming, one after another. The more the merrier. Who can argue with that?
The Second Commandment: Build one idea upon another.
The power of brainstorming lies in the freedom and spontaneity of the process: one idea spawns another and another and another in rapid succession. Participants are encouraged to say aloud that the idea one is suggesting “builds on” someone else’s idea. This statement, which rewards and flatters that someone else and reaffirms the connectivity of ideas, adds momentum to the process.
The Third Commandment: Wacky ideas are okay.
Wild and wacky ideas help us break out of conventional thinking and open the way to new, practical ideas. Wacky ideas also incite humor, which relaxes our paranoid grip on the mind’s generative capabilities and liberates more ideas. This commandment, however, bothers most people. Conventional wisdom dictates that “new” ideas must be sensible, reasonable, constructive, practical… you know, not silly or foolish. But “silly” and “foolish” are subjective modifiers that people tend to apply to any idea that does not conform to what they define narrowly as a risk-free standard of “sensible, reasonable, constructive, practical.” What troubles people is not that an idea is silly or foolish but that they will feel and look silly and foolish suggesting it. For that reason they fear criticism and ridicule.
The Fourth Commandment—The Golden Rule: Don’t evaluate ideas.
Neither yours nor especially someone else’s. This rule liberates people from their self-imposed restraints in generating ideas. Prohibiting the “evaluation” of ideas precludes criticism and ridicule, which in turn eliminates people’s fears, which in turn frees their minds. In brain-storming, the practicality of ideas is irrelevant.
When to use it
Starting a new product design brainstorming session to generate a wide range of possible features.
A marketing team developing campaign slogans—encouraging quantity and unusual phrases before filtering.
An educational workshop where students need to come up with solutions to a complex problem without initial criticism.
A personal creativity exercise: use the commandments to list 50 unconventional uses for a common object like a paperclip.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Applying the Commandments in a Product Design Brainstorm
A product team uses the Four Commandments to generate ideas for a new mobile app. They start by setting a goal of 100 ideas in 30 minutes (quantity). As ideas are shared, the facilitator encourages participants to say 'That reminds me of...' or 'Building on that, we could...' (build on ideas). When someone suggests a feature like 'a voice-controlled toaster app,' others laugh but the facilitator thanks them and notes it could lead to a practical hands-free cooking assistant (wacky ideas are okay). Throughout the session, no one criticizes or dismisses any suggestion; all ideas are recorded without judgment (don't evaluate).
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a recent team meeting where you had to generate ideas. Which of the Four Commandments were followed or violated? How did that affect the outcome?
In your own life, when facing a creative block, which commandment could help you generate more ideas? Try setting a timer for five minutes and write down 20 wild ideas without judging them.
How might the Fourth Commandment (don't evaluate) be applied in a brainstorming session where group members are naturally critical? What would you need to change in the environment?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Thinkers Toolkit by Morgan D Jones