Creative Itch

Ideas Beyond Bias: Divergent Lenses

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Divergent Lenses

Have we lost our sense of imagination or just how to properly use it? I propose that we collectively need to fall down the rabbit hole with purpose on a recurring basis.

Approaching a problem through your own context creates a narrow solution funnel. You must be willing to get out of your own head for a bit and think about a problem from other vantage points.

"If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions"

- Albert Einstein 

Jumping straight into solution generation can lead to only making modest steps forward. If you are only focused on solutions, you are actively cheating yourself out of unique discoveries and novel combinations that only come through deep thought.

Focused thought will uncover numerous potential solutions by evaluating the underlying issues thoroughly. The biggest problems aren't always the most obvious. You must be willing to review your thoughts several times to see the small gaps.

We all have our own unique areas of expertise, but the insight granted through expertise always comes with blinders. This produces unintentional information unawareness. Refusing to acknowledge your blind spot will likely cause you to not consider what is beyond it.

"A specialist is a man who knows more and more about less and less"

- William J. Mayo

The best way to mitigate an information bias is by constantly changing your routine.

  • Force yourself into intellectually uncomfortable areas
  • Consciously decide to deviate from your normal daily routine
  • Seek information outside of your professional sphere
  • Find commonalities between two different items

    • Using Divergent Lenses as a metaphor, let us consider several ocular devices and how they impact our understanding.

    • Glasses - A pair of glasses will bring additional clarity when properly prescribed. The tradeoff with glasses is that our peripheral vision may be partially blocked and we may miss subtleties on the fringes.
    • Telescope - This helps us understand distance (or what is potentially in the future) but limits our perception by only focusing the lens on one eye. The information gained will be useful but incomplete. It will lack the depth that comes with using both eyes.
    • Microscope - A microscope is great at lending awareness and detail to situations that may go unnoticed by the unaided eye. The drawback with this level of detail is that we may be oblivious to the larger vision or trend around us.
    • Binoculars - These will give us more accurate depth perception than a telescope, but they will completely block our peripheral vision. Constantly using binoculars would also make completing close range tasks challenging.
    • Periscope - A periscope is similar to a telescope with the advantage of adding vertical awareness. We may be able to see over some obstacles, however, it has the same drawbacks of the telescope. It will limit what you can see peripherally.
    • Kaleidoscope - This device may not directly aid or enhance our vision, but it does have its place. It provides a unique approach for discovering patterns. I also believe this device is essentially a form of visualized imagination. The kaleidoscope still limits our vision without enhancing it in ways the other devices do, but it gives us away to interpret things completely differently.

      • Using some or all of the devices mentioned would produce a more reliable, detailed and interesting result. This is also the benefit of using divergent lenses. Using multiple vantage points and perspectives will produce more compelling and robust solutions.

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      Creative ItchBy Jef Lippiatt