[BLANK_AUDIO] Hi everyone. Welcome back. Today we're going to bust a few more myths. This time, about two topics that come up a lot when people talk about creativity, divergent thinking, and convergent thinking. You've probably heard those terms before. I want to start with a quick definition. A psychologist named Gilford is the person who actually came up with the phrases divergent and convergent thinking. He was the president of the American Psychological Association, and he was an expert on creativity. He originally said, that divergent thinking was about coming up with multiple solutions, multiple ideas, multiple alternatives. And that convergent thinking was when you narrowed down your choices. Think about what he didn't say. Gilford didn't say, that divergent thinking was all about out of the box revolutionary ideas. And he didn't say, that convergent thinking was narrow or uncreative. Divergence is about multiple options, convergence is about choosing from those options. Now here's the problem. People have taken those original definitions, and they've turned them into something that doesn't make sense, a myth, that myth says that only certain people use divergent thinking, and other people only use convergent thinking. That isn't what Gilford told us. He says that divergent convergent thinking are part of the thinking process, that everyone uses, everyone. You and me and everyone you know. But some people have taken divergence and convergence, and kind of put people into piles. Sound familiar? You bet. It sounds like we're putting people in piles again. Now, there's another myth that goes along with that, and that myth is this one that says that divergent thinking is only about the out-of-the-box revolutionary stuff. [SOUND] No. You put those two myths together, and you get this compound myth that's even worse. It says, there are these creative people, who do divergent thinking, and these uncreative people who do convergent thinking. That isn't the case. And so, we want to take our principles of creative diversity, and sort this out. So, we're going to add two new principles to our list. The first one says, everyone diverges and converges. All of us. It's part of our natural thinking process. You actually do this all day long. You diverge when you think about hm, what am I going to put in my kid's lunchbox today? What do I have in the refrigerator? What are all those options? And you converge when you choose and you pack the lunch. You diverge and converge when you decide, what are all the ways I could get to work, and which way am I going to use today? We all do both, all the time. Now, the second principle that we're going to use here says, we diverge and we converge differently, because of our different creative styles and different creative levels. So, our divergence looks different, depending upon who we are, and our convergence does too. Let me talk you through this a little bit. Let's think about some examples. So, let's say that we're trying to design a new, candy bar, let's say. And we want to come up with lots, and lots of possibilities. So we want to, diverge. Now, if I have a higher creative level, that means I have more knowledge. I have more experience. I have more skill. Then I may be able to come up with more possibilities for that candy bar. And they might be more advanced. Maybe they use more complicated materials or something. So, my level is going to influence the ideas that I offer. What about converging at different levels? Well, again, if I have a higher level, I might use more advanced principles to make my choice. Maybe I'd use some high level mathematics to pick the chocolate on the outside. Something like that. Now what about creative style? Well, let's go back to those more structured and less structured thinkers, and everything that's in between. If I am a more structured thinker and I'm diverging, I'm going to do it in a more systemic way. Imagine that you have all the ideas about candy bars, and you split it up into a grid. If I'm a more structured thinker, I might go from box to box, to box, looking at all of the different possibilities. And I can come up with lots of possibilities that way. If I'm a less structured thinker, I might take more of a shotgun approach. Hm, this looks like an interesting idea and that one does too, and that one does too, and I might find clusters. Now, to the more structured thinker, that may not look like it makes sense, but it makes sense to that less structured thinker. Both of them are diverging, both of them are coming up with different options. Now what about converging with different creative styles? Well, again, if I'm a more structured thinker, I'm more likely to think logically, and carefully, and meticulously about how I make my choice. If I'm a less structured thinker, I'm more likely not to maybe pay attention to those details, and not to be quite as concerned whether my choice fits with the choice of the people around me. There are all kinds of differences we see, and you'll be reading more about this. So, let's remember those two principles. Everyone diverges and converges, and we do so in accordance with our creative level and style. [BLANK_AUDIO] Now it's your turn. Think about all the places in the world you could go. Choose ten options. From those ten, I want you to pick one, and then I want you to step back and think about, how did I do that? What was my thinking process? How did I put the ten together, and how did I pick the one? Now, pick a date. Bon voyage!
