The Art and Science of Creativity: A Set of Albert Einstein’s Quotes to Explore Creativity

 The most advanced societies are diverse mixtures of peoples that can spark creativity and amplify innovation effect.

Creativity is both innate and a skill. Developing creativity requires both internal motivation and self-awareness. Creativity is the high level of thinking because it evolves many thought processes, such as imagination, pattern discovery, originality, intuition, etc. There are both art and science about creativity. Here is a set of Albert Einstein’s insightful quotes to explore the breadth and depth of creativity.

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks a real advance in science.”- Albert Einstein

Knowledge is fundamental. But without the imagination to "believe in the possible," creativity may not happen. Imagination leads to discovery. Discovery is both an event and a thought process. A great wealth of knowledge fuels imaginations. However, being creative is not just being knowledgeable. At the highest level of imagination engagement, we become driven to leverage our imagination for visualizing and expanding ideas. Knowledge helps us refine our idea to what is economically feasible to achieve the tangible results. Sometimes it is not possible to "see" the facts because they exist in different planes, they often seemly unrelated because they are scatted in transdisciplinary, but interconnected domains. So until you deal with facts from different sources that relate essentially to the same matter, the patterns are not apparent. Creativity is the high level of thinking which occurs often at the intersection of imagination and knowledge, to recognize patterns and come up with better solutions.

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” - Albert Einstein

In the business world, at least, you can't always wait for the "best" solution to emerge. Because with the increasing pace of changes and frequent disruptions, the best practices are outdated sooner than ever and “commonly known” method is no longer working anymore when the circumstances change. It is important to experiment, explore, and encourage new ways to solve problems. When you encounter a tough problem, you need to think of it in a creative way. There is as much creative thinking that goes into problem identification as solution discovery. Sometimes lack of creativity becomes the problem after many people refused to deal with it for various reasons and ignored it until it becomes a problem and later, the bigger problem and the harder problem. It takes courage to get out of the conventional thinking box, practice creative thinking to come out novel ideas, broaden thoughts and connect wider dots for figuring out alternative solutions. Creative problem-solvers have the ability to reframe the circumstances or conditions around a problem, they see the old problem from every direction and find a better way to solve it creatively.

“We still do not know one-thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.” Albert Einstein

There are  known known, known unknown, and unknown unknown. The things we know compared to the things we don’t know is just a tip of the iceberg. Digital organizations are complex systems, with nonlinear patterns or emergent behaviors. Generally speaking, unknown unknown is caused by the nature of randomness or even chaos. It’s unpredictable and lack of a stable pattern or order. The business management needs to know which factors contribute to uncertainty. Is it caused by “unknown” factor - not identified with the scope of the business planning; or is it caused by “unknowable” -beyond the knowledge and understanding of management; or is it caused by “stochastic events”- situations with random distributions as well as “unknown” distributions. Ignorance of unknown (both known unknown and unknown) is the pitfall for problem-solving. Handling uncertainty effectively is fundamentally the ability to adapt to the business dynamic and solve problems innovatively. It’s important to deploy new ideas, new process and new adventures to adapt to changes. Be humble to admit our limitation. It’s critical to collect information and feedback, doing enough homework for planning with necessary adjustment on the way to fit the emerging situation, take the structured methods or empirical practices for problem-solving.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” - Albert Einstein

Logically, simplifying the complicated thing is an optimal and smart choice. Simplicity is the design principle of looking for what is common for maximum reuse. Simplicity is a behavioral attitude to see things as and what and where they are and be content and cool as it is. Everything is designed. Design thinking is a creative process coming up with novel ideas and figuring out elegant solutions. People complicate simple things when they don't have the answers. When a business becomes overly complex and people get frustrated and annoyed by not being able to accomplish things easily, this drives the search for simpler concepts and methods. There is a coherent relationship between simplicity and clarity. Complication proceeds simplicity, not the other way around. When pioneering and solving problems, initial solutions are often more complex than required, and then, adoption and progress come with simplification. Creativity process could be sophisticated, but creativity is never for making things complicated, the opposite is actually true, creativity is to advance, but also simplify things.

“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.” - Albert Einstein

Creative people judge the world for themselves and they are skeptical of but open with outside opinions. Originality and independent thinking are crucial ingredients in creativity. Independent thinking means you do not follow others opinion blindly, but analyze and synthesize all sources of input and information to form your own viewpoint and blend into fresh ideas. Creatives sharpen their thinking skills via open and skillful questioning, They ask different questions, or ask questions differently; they are not afraid of challenging the status quo or rocking the boat; they are thoughtful in making comments, not finger pointing, but focusing on problem-solving. They kindly ask questions to draw out other’s assumptions; holds the flow and keep track, not to get lost on tangents. They embrace opposite views to trigger creativity, and they can look at the source and find from the neutral point, something that will shed light on solving the disparity that exists. They refine the massive amount of disparate information to discover patterns and come up with fresh ideas or alternative solutions.

It’s not difficult of being creative, it’s difficult for you to be understood by others most of the times. Creatives are often visionaries and forward-thinker. People perceive creative people as risky or unrealistic because creative people always see the possibility in the world when most people only see the way that they have been told with ignorance of invisible, or intangible things. A set of Albert Einstein’s Quotes inspires us to think differently and take courage to practice creativity. The most advanced societies are diverse mixtures of peoples that can spark creativity and amplify innovation effect.

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