Six Flowers Rule To Get Success (My own ideas)

I love flowers. Everytime I see flowers, I can’t help myself to take photos of them.

Four days ago, while I was reading six thinking hats of De bono, I got an idea to imitate him. I got an idea to map flowers into the rules that we should obey to get success in our lives.

The following is my idea. I named it “Six Flowers Rule To Get Success”.

Red Tulip (Burning Desire)

Red Tulip represents Burning desire. In my imagination, I think the appearances of those flowers and the way they blossom are like people who will fight all obstacles for their dreams. That’s why I use Red Tulip flower to represent burning desire. The Burning desire is the starting point of all achievement. We must have burning desire to success in life. All of genius have burning desire in their jobs. Majority of people don’t have burning desire. A saying said “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Desire empowers us to draw inspiration from our subconscious mind. It can help us to achieve our objectives. Thomas Edison experienced about ten thousand failures before he invented the light bulb perfectly. His desire to get success never waned. Finally he got the achievement. So, to be a successful person, we must have a burning desire.

Sun Flower (Constructive Thinking)

Sunflower represents constructive thinking. At sunrise, the faces of sunflowers are turned towards the east. Over the course of the day, they move to track the sun from east to west. They always face the Sun. They always try to see the light. So, we also should find the light in everything we see. There’s a saying. “If life gives you lemons, learn to appreciate lemon juice!” I like that saying. We must have constructive thinking. We must take problems as challenges that will enhance our abilities. Constructive thinking is a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. Constructive attitudes can provide happiness, better health and successful outcomes of every situation.

Rose(protecting myself)

Rose represents protecting myself. Every rose plant has spines to protect themselves from herbivores. We must protect ourselves from everything that can attack us (for eg, from diseases). We must protect ourselves from our enemies. To protect ourselves, we need to improve our weak-points. We need to accept positive criticisms and we must try to improve ourselves by accepting lessons that are given via positive criticisms. But, we need to ignore negative criticisms. If required, we need to respond to negative criticism calmly.

Orchid (flexibility)

Orchid represents flexibility. There are various types of Orchid flowers. Their colors and appearances are different. So, I’d like to choose Orchid flowers to represent flexibility. Nowadays, technology is changing rapidly. And business is changing rapidly, too. To respond dynamically and effectively to rapidly changing business requirements, we need to be flexible. Flexibility is required in many aspects of our life too. Although we should stick on our goals, we should be flexible in our approach. Anthony Ribbons said "If you are truly flexible and go until...there is really very litttle you can't accomplish in your life time.

Forget-me-not (Helping others)

Forget-me-not represents helping others and making ourselves to be useful. If I help my friend and other people, they can’t forget me. When they need help or they need a friend to share things, they will miss me. They will love me and they will be willing to help me. I will get good things back from them. My social network will be wider and I will get more successes in life.

Daisy (Cheerful Heart)

Daisy represents a cheerful heart. Every time I see that flowers, I feel cheerful. That’s why I choose Daisy to represent a cheerful heart. I want to have a good sense of humor. I want to have a cheerful heart. Humor is very helpful to cope with pressures and problems. Humor can ease tensions. With cheerful heart, life can be fun. Life will be an interesting game. And we will be more creative. We will be able to learn effectively. With cheerful hearts, our working environments will be lovely places. We will be able to handle all challenges effectively.

Some may not agreed with my choice of flowers to represent characteristics. Anyway, this method is useful for me. Moreover, we have learned the subject “Creativity and Innovation”. So, just applying other’s techniques is not enough. We should be creative. We should create our own techniques. We must have the desire to create new ideas. Those creations will be exercises for us. Copying other ideas and writing others’ ideas with our own words (paraphrasing) will block our creativity. So, we need to create own ideas.

My creation may be crazy. But, I value all of my creations because I created them by myself. My own creation can show my identity. So, in future, I’ll exercise my mind on by creating new ideas.

When I fell my ideas dry up

When I feel my ideas dry up, I usually do the following things.

Listening to the music
It makes me relax. All of my tensions and stresses melt, while I’m listening music. And most of the songs have good lyrics. So, they can enhance our imagination.

Reading poems
In poems , words are so powerful. Poems can make us to be creative and imaginative.

Going to the new place
When ours’ ideas are drying up, we should walk to the new places. We need to change our environment. That will make us fresh and will enhance our creativity.

Taking a rest
I often take a rest and just forget problems, when I feel my ideas dry up. Taking a rest can make me fresh. If we don’t have enough fun, there is not much room for creativity. Breakthrough ideas usually come when we relax. I often got good idea when I played a sport or took a bath.

Imagination, Visual thinking and Creativity

To get breakthrough ideas or to resolve problems creatively, we need to visualize things in strange ways. We need to use the ability of imagination visually.

Many scientists use this technique to get ideas. For eg, Einstein used to formulate his subject in the visualization technique. He imagined that he rode a train on a beam of light. By using this technique, he can think of relativity theory.

Kekule's dreamt of a circle of tail-to-mouth snake in his fireplace gave the idea him the structure of the benzine ring.

So, being able to imagine visually can give breakthrough ideas to us. And, we need to jot down those strang valuable ideas because they can fade away.

I decided to practice to be imagine and to use the the visual thinking technique.

Difference between Creativity and Innovation(Thomas Edison's view)

"The definition of innovation is commercial success. It's not just about creativity.

Thomas Edison

How do you think? Do you agreed with him?

Idea and Experiences

Our past experiences can affect how we interpret data. So, we will interpret the data differently and conclude differently. So,
there can be many right answers and creative solutions from many different people. So, we shouldn’t ignore other’s ideas just because those ideas do not fit our experiences. We should be quiet and listen, without judging. In a team, we can get valuable ideas from many experiences of all members.

Creativity and Logic

I think thinking logically will block the creativity. During the creativity process, we should ignore logic. Though, logic is very important in our daily lives, but it should be ignored in brainstorming activities. After brainstorming, we have plenty of time to think logically. During creativity process, w need to ge as many ideas as we can get, whether the ideas seem ridiculous or not. So, there is no place for logical thinking during brainstorming. The role of logic will be after brainstorming process.

Company Culture and creativity

I think company culture can influence to creativity of people. We need to move traditional corporate communities to the community which is full of tolerant, diverse and open to new ideas. If our environment can’t support, we need to create that environment to be able to support creativity. To create good company culture

• Top management must welcome new ideas from everyone within the company

• The person who can give good ideas should be rewarded

• The negative criticism should not be allowed.

• Family spirit should be adopted within the company.

Factors to be creative

Three days ago, I and my friends play a game to list the factors that will make us creative. We can find many factors. Hey…I won in that game. :-D Here are the factors in our lists.

curiosity
rebellion
collaboration
suspect
change
courage
creating excitement every day!
Doing at least one new thing per a day
Brainstorming
Reading
Making discussion
Listening good music
Watching movies in active way
Making competition
Challenging ourselves
Love, romantic thoughts [of course, Love is the most powerful tool to be creative. I think :-) ]

Habits of creative people

I love to read biographies of great people. I thought about them again and made a list to be creative. In biographies of very creative people, I noticed that

1. They just do what they love to do (for eg, Einstein just took care of the subjects he loved, and very bad in some subjects.
2. They want to be different. (for eg, Vicient Vangoh always try to be different with others)
3. They just follow their dream (for eg, Right brothers)
4. They do their best in their work(Every genius give too much time and effort to their work, some artists take 7 years to draw famous paintings)
5. They don’t care to the negative criticisms (for eg, Right Brothers)
6. And some use strange methods(for eg, Einstein used to think himself as Isac Newton sometimes while he was thinking)
7. They love their work. (I heard that a saying “love your work as your sweetheart”). But for me, work is not invisible, so, it’s difficult to make my mind according to the saying. That’s why I didn’t become genius. :-D
8. They try hard so much. (for eg, Thomas Edison just sleep 4 hours per a day.)
9. They just see failure as challenge. (for eg, Thomas Edison tried thousand times to invent a bulb)

Dream & Imagination

I think it is powerful for creativity & innovation process. Everyone can dream FOC. Wright Brothers maybe dream to fly like a bird in air. Who Knows???? Then, they could do experiments to realize their dreams. They might encounter the several failures and suffer agony & pains for it. Anyway, because of their dreams to fly in air, nowadays, we can fly in planes (a big bird) to visit around the world.

I also had a dream. :-) I had it after watching advertisement of “Transformer” movie on TV. I really like the way that a car transforms into robot. Moreover, I also come across with a nice Nike sneaker transforms into a robot toys in net.

I got one idea to transform something like that for me. As our lecture rooms are so cold for me, I have to bring sweater or jacket everyday. I put it in my bag and have to carry it whenever I have class. I would like to have a backpack that can transform into jacket. If so, no need to worry if I forget my jacket or sweater at home. If I reach to class, I pull out my stuffs from backpack, put it onto arm table of my chair and will transform this backpack into jacket and wear it. After class, I transform it into backpack and collect my stuffs into it. How nice!!! I really want to have one. :-)

My Definitions for CIIE

Creativity = the power or ability to think and act for new & improvements

Innovation = the act of introducing somewhat new on something that already exists.

Invention = creating something that did not exist before

Experimentation = the process to test or implement one’s creativity in order to come true

How to create innovation - my thoughts

Here are some points in my thought about how to create innovation in our lives, in our workplace, in over environment etc.

• Take risks. Don’t play with safe

(Risk taking is challenging in life. It speed us to going forward to beat the competitions in life. It will improve our abilities and enhace our characters. It encourage changes in our lives)

• Make mistakes. Don’t try to avoid them

( Failure is the seed of success in some case. Great success may come across at the end of failure. So, dont be afraid to be mistaken. It will teach us how to do problem solving and how to steel ourselves against all odds)

• Take initiative. Don’t wait for instructions

(Instructions & procedures are not useful in some case. Seek our own ways to reach our goal. Follow our dreams to smell success in life)

• Welcome destruction. It is the first step to success in the creative process.

(Dont accept things easily. Everything can be changed in our hands & in our thoughts. Everything needs improvements. We all have equal chances to change it. Nobody will blame!)

• Focus on opportunities, not only on problem

( Because of existing problems, we have chance to find out solutions. However, we should also focus on opportunities how to implement the our abilities, established technology, etc. into current problem solving situatition. It will be noticeable changes and encourage innovations)

• Experiment

(I think experiment is a testing and a kind of preparation. We need prepareness to face the changes. Furthermore, luck is prepareness(experiment) meets opportunity.)

• Take personal responsibility for fixing things. Don’t blame others and Stay calm

(Noone is perfect in all time. Accept failure and try to solve it out. Dont blame on others to cover the loosing face of yours. Take personal responsibitiy and accept the result. Failure is not totally failure if you can't accept it.)

• Smile

(Smiles are effective and cheerful language of human beings. It is a sign of affectionate on someone. Create a perfect and live smile to build a friendship to strangers. It really works for me!)

• Have fun

(Do fun stuffs when you are bored. It will give ways to refresh your brain to create something new. Your will feel happiness and have a break from tension of work while doing fun.)

Ten faces of innovation: what kind of persons can drive the creativity into organization?

I come across the book named "Ten faces of innovation" in Amazon a few days ago. The Authors are Tom Kelly and Jonathan Littman. I have been read "The art of innvation" by Tom kelly and I like it. I couldn't help the desire of reading the book and surfed NUS libriaries portal to borrow this book. Unluckily, it is on borrowing and 3 persons hold it. Therefore, I read book reviews of others and tried to be happy with it. Here are some knowledge I found out from it.

Anthropologist – person who observe people, processes and interactions “with a fresh eye” and discover ways to help them.

Experimenter - person who is willing to take a chance and to explore alternatives and test concepts through prototyping, trial-and-error and applied science.

Cross-pollinator – person who enjoy connecting different cultures, like a bee flitting between the private parts of flowers, the cross-pollinator spreads good ideas and techniques between specialism, breaking down silos and sharing good practice

Hurdler – person who knows that the path to innovation is full with obstacles but never give it up to overcome or outsmart those roadblocks and able to leap tall buildings (well project hurdles anyway) in a single bound.

Collaborator – person who can persuade people and teams together to perform collaboration by finding common interests and objectives among them.

Director – person who can gather talented crews together and help them to spark their creative talents under his/ her coaching to innovate.

Experience architect - person who can put himself in the customer’s shoes and visualize products and services that can meet at a deeper level with customer’s latent or expressed needs.

Set designer - person who can create a stage on which innovation team members can do their best work by transforming physical environment into powerful tools to influence behavior and attitude of innovation.

Caregiver – person who support their colleagues, providing a sympathetic sounding board and gentle encouragement when times are tough and motivating and inspiring people by care giving to them.

Storyteller – person who can tell the stories about people, products, process and services in creative and interesting ways using his/ her excellent narrative or communication skills.

The above persons are who contribute different ways of creativity and innovation to teams. These individuals can fuel innovation inside the organization and should company hire these kinds of people to adopt innovation in their orgainization.

I wonder what kind of person should I be? What kind of person I would like to be? I strongly would like to be Anthropologist. I love this kind of study!

Creativity and Politics

Yesterday, I read the news of our country, in a newspaper. Now, I have an idea to relate the political problems of our country (Burma) with creativity.

I felt sorry to read the news of my country. I’m very sad to hear that many people died in the demonstration.

The current government of my country(Myanmar) and other politicians need to solve the current problems with creative way. I think politics is a non-zero sum game. So, both can win simultaneously. Both sides should play win_win game.

To play a win_win game, both sides need to be mature. Both sides must not be selfish. Anyway, if one site deny to play win-win game, it can’t work. In the case of politics in my country, the game is just one-sided. Government wants to apply force and don’t want to negotiate with others.

So, Leaders of the opposition need to use more creative way. And all people need to think creatively. People need to think from other persepectives. If we can’t get the democracy easily right now and we can’t change the government right now, we must change ourselves. We must practice democracy in our everyday life. Then, later, we will get the government that will suit with us. We need to change our perspectives and views. We need to change our thoughts. Most of people think freedom can be given by government. But, at the situation of my country, we Burmese people need to think that we must create freedom in our mind first. (Of course, political freedom is also important.)And then later, I think we will get political freedom and democracy, because there is a rule that everyone gets just they deserve at long term. That doesn’t mean we don’t need to act political actions to against the ditactors. I just mean we need to combine political actions and following self disciplines.

Anyway, my idea may not be practical but I think that thinking from different points of views may get useful answers. By following our dream and making some efforts to modify our raw ideas must be fruitful somedays.

Can creativity be taught and practiced?

Some people think that creativity can’t be taught and practiced. I don’t think so. I think we’ll be more creative by changing our habits. To be creative, we must think freely. We must play with everything in our mind. No need to judge our ideas at first. Just need to improve our draft ideas by making effort. The essence of creativity lies in its freshness, its freedom, its newness. So, we need to think freely. To be creative, we may need to break existing rules if required. We need to apply every tool (that will enhance our creativity) in our daily life.

In my MT5003 (Creativity and Innovation) class, I have to learn many tools that will enhance my creativity. I also surfed Internet to find more tools. Here are some tools that will enhace our creativity.

1. Six thinking hats
2. Six action shoes
3. Lateral thinking
4. 7 step models
5. 6 Wh and how and I(how,what,why,when,whrer,who,which, and If)
6. Laddering and so on.
   

We need to choose the suitable that will suit with us. No need to use all these tools simultaneously. By using those tools, later, we’ll have a good habit of thinking. We’ll have a habit to think all things from various perspectives and will be creative. And for me, using those tools is also a fun. I’ll use those methods appropriately to enhance my creativity.

Six Action Shoes

Occasionally, thinking is an end in itself, but usually thinking is to choose or design a course of action. Sometimes, there is a distinct thinking phase (where you might use a technique such as the Six Thinking Hats) and then an action phase, where you can use the Action Shoes. Below is my implication after reading about six action shoes by De Bono. :-)

Put on Orange gumboots to take urgent action to overt a crisis or to deal with an emergency situation.

Put on Pink slippers to take caring or helping action in a situation where it is vital to consider and respect human feelings.

Put on Navy formal shoes to take action which requires authority or rules or regulations to be established or adhered to. When action should follow set routines.

Put on Brown brogues to take practical action, that which seems sensible in the situation

Put on Purple riding boots to take “extraordinary” action that is defined by the wearer of the shoes

Put on Grey sneakers for investigation and collection of information.

Six Thinking Hats

White Hat : Information & Neutral

Yellow Hat : Postitive Thinkging

Blue Hat : Manage Thinking Process

Black Hat : Negative Thinking

Red Hat : Emotions & Feelings

Green Hat : creative Thinking