Fredrik Härén's Blog, page 7

The Creative Process: Decisions at the Core (Episode 141)

Interview with Alice Liu, Partner at innovation consultancy ID8 Innovation.

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“Creativity is 99% decisions and 1% inspiration.” This reimagining of Thomas Edison’s famous quote about innovation captures a fundamental truth often overlooked: creativity is not merely about sudden bursts of inspiration. As Alice Liu, Partner at innovation consultancy ID8 Innovation, emphasized, creativity is deeply rooted in the decisions we make throughout the process. 

 

Now, if creativity is indeed about making decisions, then honing our decision-making skills is essential to becoming more creative.

 

Alice Liu, who has a rich background in both innovation strategy and neuroscience (she got her PhD in neuroscience around how humans make decisions), offers a unique perspective on this. She explains that decision-making is at the heart of creativity, whether you’re building a startup or creating a work of art. “There’s a lot of decision-making in creative pursuits,” Liu notes. “Knowing when to prune your idea, when to converge or diverge in your thinking – those are all decisions that move you forward.”

 

The Role of Decision-Making in Creativity

 

At every stage of the creative process – defining a problem, generating ideas, refining concepts, and implementing solutions – decisions are crucial. Liu’s experience in venture building highlights how decisions can shape the outcome of creative endeavors. “In the venture studio, we had to make constant decisions based on data from the market,” she says. “Is there enough evidence to continue down this path? Should we pivot or persist? These decisions are central to the creative process.”

Even during ideation, which is often viewed as the most “inspirational” phase, decision-making plays a critical role. Liu points out that while ideas may come to us unexpectedly, choosing which ideas to pursue and which to set aside requires careful consideration. 

 

The Neuroscience of Decision-Making in Creativity

 

Liu’s background in neuroscience offers valuable insights into why decision-making is so integral to creativity. She explains that our brains are constantly making decisions, often unconsciously. “Our brains are really good at synthesizing a lot of information, even more than we can consciously articulate,” Liu says. This unconscious processing helps us make decisions that feel intuitive, but are actually based on complex neural computations.

 

Liu also discusses the concept of “prediction errors,” a key mechanism in how our brains learn from decisions. “Every time we make a decision, our brain calculates a prediction error – how much the actual outcome differed from what we expected,” she explains. “Over time, this process refines our decision-making, helping us make better choices in the future.” In the creative process, this means that each decision, each experiment, and each failure contributes to developing sharper creative instincts.

 

Enhancing Creativity Through Better Decision-Making

 

Given the centrality of decision-making in creativity, how can we improve this skill? Liu offers three strategies:

 

Practice Decision-Making Deliberately: Like any skill, decision-making improves with practice. But Liu emphasizes the importance of practicing effectively. “You need to test ideas early and iterate quickly,” she says. 

 

The more decisions you make, the more your brain refines its prediction models, leading to sharper instincts and better creative outcomes. Creative people train themselves to effectively come to the point where they need to make a decision. 

 

Desensitize Yourself to Fear: Fear can often paralyze decision-making, particularly in creative endeavors where the stakes can feel high. Liu suggests that overcoming this fear is crucial. “You need to confront the fear of failure,” she advises. Because fear can stop you from making decisions, or trick you into making the wrong ones.

 

“The more you expose yourself to situations where you must make decisions despite fear, the more you desensitize yourself to it.” Over time, this builds the confidence to make bold creative choices without hesitation.

 

Think of a person who is pushed to ask 100 strangers for a date. After 100 rejections the person will have lost the fear of approaching a stranger. After that the decision to approach one more stranger becomes easier. 

 

Respect fear, but work on desensitizing it so that fear doesn’t give you non rational or emotional reasons for not making the right decision.

 

Optimize the Path to Decisions: In creativity, it’s essential to make decisions as efficiently as possible, but not hastily. “Find the most efficient path to a decision, but don’t rush it,” Liu advises. “It’s about balancing speed with quality.” This balance allows you to move forward in the creative process without getting stuck in indecision or overthinking.

 

In short: Make decisions as fast as optimal, but not faster.

 

Conclusion: Creativity is Decision-Making

 

As Alice Liu’s insights reveal, creativity is not just about moments of inspiration. It’s about the countless decisions that shape, refine, and ultimately bring an idea to life. The creative process is littered with instances where you have to make decisions – decisions that will profoundly influence the creative outcome. 

 

By focusing on improving your decision-making skills, you can enhance your creative potential. Whether through deliberate practice, overcoming the fear of failure, or optimizing your decision-making process, each step you take improves your ability to create. And as Liu’s perspective suggests, “Creativity is 99% decisions and 1% inspiration.”

The post The Creative Process: Decisions at the Core (Episode 141) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

I dare you to dare. (Episode 227)

The slide of Åsa Gabrielsson of Epiroc said “Dare to think new”, and it got me asking myself: “Am I daring enough around thinking in new ways?”

I am afraid the answer is “no”.

Do not get me wrong, I think I am good at coming up with ideas that make my life better in some way. But I am not much of a risk taker. (An example: Often when I write my books, I already have a number of buyers for them before I start to write them so that I already know that I will make a certain amount of money before investing the time into writing them. It’s smart, but it’s not very brave.)

Often I hear: “Creativity is about taking risks!” – but actually, creativity is about being brave enough to take that risk. Or more specifically: To dare to think in new ways, and to act on those ideas.

And while I think it’s a bit misguided to think too much about the risk-taking aspect when it comes to creativity, I think it is absolutely spot on to think about daring.

In Epiroc’s case it was about investing in developing electric vehicles for mining, something that has now gotten them to be one of the leading suppliers of that in the world.

Listening to Åsa, I made a commitment to dare more around both how I think, but also around how I choose to implement my ideas.

I dare you to do the same.

Fredrik Haren – The Creativity Explorer.

 

Åsa spoke at the opening of the innovation house at Knightec in Västerås, where I had the privilege to be the closing speaker. It was such an inspirational evening full of innovation where I also got to listen to Karin Hasselström, Dimitris Gioulekas, Caroline Åkerblom of Tesla and Niclas Sigholm. I left the event inspired to innovate more.

And to dare more.

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The post I dare you to dare. (Episode 227) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Do not be a problem solver, be a problem preventer. (Episode 140)

Interview with Peter Mehlape,  Managing Director, Southern Africa for Medtronic.

 

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You know the saying “If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem?”

 Well, it’s time to start saying: “If you are not part of the prevention, you are part of the resulting problem.”

 To think about creativity as “solving a problem”, as many people do, is actually a very limited way of thinking around creativity. Instead, we should think of how to use creativity to prevent a problem from even arising.

After all, why wait for a problem to become a problem before solving it, when you can stop it from ever becoming a problem?

The idea of being a problem preventer might sound obvious, yet when we take a look around the world, we can see unlimited examples of people wasting energy on solving problems that they easily could have prevented.

If we want to improve the world immensely we should really teach people to solve problems before they are problems.

It’s like there is a bug in our human system that makes us partially incapable of preventing problems.

As any parent will know, we can learn to be preventers. New parents suddenly run around the house looking for potential accidents waiting to happen so that they can prevent them.

And sure, we prevent a lot of problems from ever happening, but my point is that we could be so much better at it if we dedicated more of our creativity to problem prevention instead of problem solving.

So why don’t we?

I recently discussed this conundrum with Peter Mehlape,  Managing Director, Southern Africa for Medtronic. Medtronic is a global medical technology company that produces medical devices and technologies such as pacemakers, defibrillators, insulin pumps etc. Peter has spent virtually his whole working life in healthcare, and he has been getting exceedingly annoyed at the healthcare industry’s tendency to solve problems (sickness) instead of trying to prevent them (health).

Peter: “If you wait for a problem to happen and then solve it, it tends to be much more expensive. Think of fixing a water leak vs making sure water pipes are in a good condition.”

So what is the reason we do not spend more time on prevention? According to Peter, there are multiple reasons.

1) Because prevention requires a much deeper understanding of the issue at hand.

2) It’s usually harder to get buy-in and resources for prevention as people do not want to use resources to fix a problem that doesn’t exist (yet).

An example: According to Peter, many health ministries in African countries cannot see the value in investing in safer roads even if it’s clear to the experts that safer roads creates fewer hospitalizations, which means lower healthcare costs for that country. In some of these countries the reason for not seeing the problem is that the countries do not even have the right statistics for costs of traffic accidents so they cannot even see the problem that exists.

So how can you get people to get more excited about preventing problems?

Peter recommended:

1) Show data

Weather forecasts predicting flooding can get people to prepare.

2) Paint a picture

A prevention is a story from the future. A happy ending to a story that hasn’t yet been told.

If you want people to invest in prevention they need to see that happy ending. So paint a picture that people can relate to.

Think of the story of the three little pigs.

3) Create short term benefits.

Since people have a problem seeing positive gains in the future, “trick” them by giving them a short term gain.

Want people to prepare to avoid floodings in their homes? Have the insurance company offer a lower insurance fee if the home owner agrees to an inspection of the pipes.

When you think about it, health care should really be 99% prevention and 1% curing. We will never get there, but we should be more passionate about prevention of problems.

People like Peter, who are ambassadors of preventive creativity, should get more recognition.

What problem are you going to prevent today?

The post Do not be a problem solver, be a problem preventer. (Episode 140) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Creativity inspiration from Davos (Episode 226)

Today, I am in Davos and after giving my speech I decided to go for a hike in the mountains.

While being there I recorded a short video about embracing creativity inspired by how The World Economic Forum – that is held in Davos – has ranked “creativity” the #1 soft skill of the future.

Keep exploring creativity so you can discover your full creative potential!

//www.fredrikharen.com/catalog/uploads/2024/09/The-Creativity-Explorer-in-Davos.mp4

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BIG news: Partnered with Wiley to publish The World of Creativity! (Episode 225)

Since writing my first book – 30 years ago – I’ve been dreaming of this moment – to partner with Wiley for the global launch of a book.

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I am “The Creativity Explorer” and I feel it is so aligned with Wiley’s motto of: “We champion the seekers.”

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Celebrate with me today for signing with Wiley! I cannot wait to publish “The World of Creativity” with them.

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​See here the LinkedIn post.

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I would LOVE a supporting like or comment on the post! 🙂

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As I reflect on my 30 year journey as an author, from self-published, to using local Swedish publishers, to working with Penguin South East Asia – to now getting a global publishing deal with Wiley, my insights are:

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1) NEVER give up on your dreams – at least as long as there is still a chance of them coming alive!

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2) Be ok with the process taking time.

Take one step after another to make your ideas come true.

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3) When an opportunity presents itself – drop everything else and go for it.

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Now go out there and take a step to make your dream idea one more inch closer to becoming a reality!

The post BIG news: Partnered with Wiley to publish The World of Creativity! (Episode 225) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

“The Thirst” (Episode 139)

Interview with Sebastian Sanchez, MD at Heineken in Panama.

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Have you ever wondered why most people give up and some continue? It’s true for endurance sports like triathlon and it’s true for creativity. People give up in marathons, but some people don’t, and people give up creative projects, and some people don’t.

 

So can we learn something about persisting with creative projects from endurance athletes? I decided to find out.

 

It started with an observation: Some people quit even though they shouldn’t have.

 

And some people endure.

 

The ones who endure have “The Thirst.”

 

The Thirst can be defined as “When you feel like you want to quit – but you do not – because you shouldn’t.”

 

I learned about The Thirst from Sebastian Sanchez who is both an innovator (he has been the Director Global Innovation at Heineken and is now MD at Heineken in Panama), but he is also ranked as one of the Top 1% Triathlon Athletes in the world. (He has done 75 half-marathons and countless marathons during his endurance career.)

 

Sebastian explained that people look at endurance athletes and think: “These are people who never give up!”

 

But that is a myth that Sebastian learned about the hard way: During a marathon in Frankfurt he collapsed after pushing himself too hard.

 

Great endurance athletes do give up sometimes.

 

The secret to endurance is not “never give up” – it’s “do not give up when you shouldn’t, even if it feels like you should.”

 

According to Sebastian the mentality that endurance athletes have is the ability to be pushed forward when they feel that they should give up – but ONLY (and this is key!), when pushing forward really is the right decision.

 

Sebastian calls this “force” that pushes endurance runners past the instinct to stop for “The Thirst”.

 

And this mindset is just the same for creativity. Some people keep pushing on with creative projects that are futile, or should have been killed long ago. But even more people quit creative projects just because they get that feeling of wanting to quit – even when they should really have been going.

 

They lack The Thirst.

 

But truly creative people have the ability to push themselves past that feeling of wanting to give up but ONLY when that push is the right thing to do.

 

They have The Thirst.

 

So what is the secret to being able to push through when you should?

 

According to Sebastian it’s; “When I hit that wall of wanting to give up I tell myself, ‘Yes, it’s hard, but I can do it’. I remind myself that I have a higher goal. And I have trained myself to stay calm and not be over-run by bursts of wanting-to-give-up-feelings.”

 

JK Rowling was rejected 12 times before she got a publisher. She shouldn’t have given up, and she didn’t. She had The Thirst.

 

Be inspired by endurance athletes like Sebastian and learn from their ability to push through with something even when they feel like giving up – but only the times when they know that is the right thing to do.

 

The next time you contemplate killing a creative project you love, ask yourself: “Do I have The Thirst?”

 

Should you really give it up, or should you actually keep going?

 

The post “The Thirst” (Episode 139) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Build your perfect office. (Episode 224)

Here’s a video with a message about investing time and energy to create the perfect office for you.

(Okay, I admit, the main reason I made this video is that I bought a drone a few days ago and really wanted to film my office 😀 But I think the message about creating the perfect space for your creativity to thrive is really important, so I hope this video will inspire you to do that.)

​Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLL8R5wdOJ4

//www.fredrikharen.com/catalog/uploads/2024/08/The-perfect-office.mp4

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Burn old ideas, burn! (Episode 223)

A few months ago, the house that I used as storage for my book “The Idea Book” burnt down in a fire. All the books went up in flames!

 

I took it as a positive sign.

 

A sign that I should move on. 

 

The book has served me really well. It has sold 250,000 copies (not bad for a self-published book), been translated to, I think, 17 languages and was included in “The 100 Best Business Books of All Time” etc. It was still selling well years after it came out. And most importantly I have hundreds and hundreds of amazing stories from people who have told me how much the book has helped them become more creative.

 

But I am now done with that book.

 

The fire sent me the message that I should let the book go, to push me to start writing a new book. A book that, I hope, will become even more successful, and help even more people.

 

Like an “idea phoenix”, creativity can obtain new life for a new idea by rising from the ashes of an old one. 

 

Sometimes we need to kill one idea to give us space for an even better one to emerge.

 

What idea do you need to (metaphorically!) set on fire and turn into ashes so that you can move on to an even better idea?

 

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A picture of the cover of a book burnt in the fire, and a picture of the fire itself.

 

Would love to know your thoughts. Post your comment on LinkedIn.

The post Burn old ideas, burn! (Episode 223) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Lucid Dream Ideation (Episode 222)

This morning I had a magical creative moment. I was half-asleep, half-awake and I started brainstorming with myself in a dream like state about ways to create a memory for my dad on my island.

I played along with different ideas while being in a state of half-asleep. The ideas flowed in and out of my brain. And this idea came to me:

“Hang a saxophone from a string so that it floats in the air.”

My father was a musician, he loved his saxophone and he loved crazy and creative ideas. Hanging the saxophone in the air became a tribute to all of that.

When I woke up, I went straight to work and one hour later the saxophone was floating in the air 4 meters up in the air. I hung it upside down because it felt a bit more unexpected.

It now hangs there as a tribute to my father and I can imagine him floating around in the sky above my island playing on the instrument.

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(This is just a prototype, the final version will have a speaker broadcasting saxophone music, be using fishing lines instead of ropes to make the illusion even stronger, and most likely be a 3D printed saxophone that glows in the dark. But the one I got up today is a great first step.)

The whole ideation process for this creative process happened TO me in a dream – a lucid dream that I could, in some aspects control.

The trick, I felt, was:

1) Do not try to wake up, or get too excited about the idea or how to remember it. (That will ruin the moment and bring you back to reality.)

2) Let the ideas “come” to you, instead of trying to “come up” with them. (You are more of a receiver than a transmitter here)

3) Be prepared to influence the creative process forward when you feel that is ok. (Let your “awake”-you nudge your “dreaming”-self – if it feels right.)

Some of the best ideas in the world has come when people are sleeping, dreaming or just going in or out of sleep. The idea with “Lucid Dream Ideation” is to understand that you CAN influence the creative process, if you do it in a way that doesn’t ruin or disturb the dreaming.

I am writing this while sitting on the porch that is overlooking the floating, soaring saxophone in my garden. I call the piece “The Stage of Life”. It’s a reminder of the need to live a creative life, and it is a tribute to my creative father. It feels fitting that this idea was passed to me in a dream.

The next time you have a Lucid Dream Ideation moment, I hope you enjoy it, and take advantage of it as well.

Would love to know your thoughts. Post your comment on LinkedIn.

The post Lucid Dream Ideation (Episode 222) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

MIMA (Make It More Awesome) (Episode 221)

A couple of days ago I experienced the amazing feeling of taking a cold swim and a hot sauna bath in an abandoned mine 80 meters below ground. ‘The lady of the mine sauna ritual – with mining guide‘ is in Dalarna Sweden.

Words or pictures cannot describe how unique this experience was.

The woman running this show told me that the mine had been re-discovered by a bunch of teenagers who went there to dive. Later, when they got older, started bringing friends there and it turned into an adventure mine where guests could climb and dive in the mine.

It was already then an amazing experience.

But then one of their diving guests, a man from Finland, who had just done a dive in the cold water said to them “You should have a sauna here!”.

And the organizers ran with the idea and the “Sauna in a mine” was born.

To me this is a perfect example of MIMA – Making It (even) More Awesome.

An experience that was already unique (diving in a mine) became even MORE unique when the sauna was added.

This is the lesson for today: What is your most awesome product or service? How can you make it even more awesome?

Creativity is the art and skill of constant awesomeness and improvements.

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Me with the woman running the sauna experience

The post MIMA (Make It More Awesome) (Episode 221) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.