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ASSOCIATIVE THINKING: A NECESSARY SKILL FOR CREATIVITY

lordjamesPosted for Everyone to comment on, 5 years ago4 min read

In today's world, new jobs requires a lot of creative intelligence, social, emotional and the ability to leverage artificial intelligence. For many, creativity is tied up to only intelligence. But is creativity = intelligence? Though many only know so, I believe a handful of others can actually tell that there are supporting pillars buttressing creativity.
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Image by Geralt from Pixabay

As never before, with the fast pace of changes in technological developments, people are having a hard time trying to find the kind of jobs that will be available a few years from now and the right skills to be employable.

What exactly is creativity? Creativity, in a layman's language, is having the ability to create. But what created is not entirely new. It is simply refined or modified.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it. They just saw something that was already there - Steve Jobs.

So, how does one arrive at one's creation?

The backbone of creativity lies in associative thinking which is the ability to draw associations and patterns across elements.
According to Sarah Caldicott, a contributor on Forbes magazine:

An associative thinker joins or connects ideas and facts from different experiences. Transposes observations across unrelated domains.

Looking at this ability of an associative thinker and comparing to Steve Jobs' definition of creativity, it's quite clear the connection between the two. Now you may ask: how do I develop this thinking skill?

Start Seeking and Recognizing Patterns

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Associative thinking requires looking deep into your short and long term memory for any ideas, images, thoughts and so on that you can link together or associate to build up a pattern. Sarah, mentioned above, went on to state that pattern recognition represents a core part of the associative thinking competencies recognized by the National Science Foundation ( NSF). How do you see things? Do you look out for nodes where things can connect together? Or you just see objects for what they stand for?

Be Knowledgeable

In one of my recent post, I talked about investing in your knowledge bank by learning new skills everyday. Strive to posses expertise that is both broad and deep. Keep pushing to learn new things, expand your horizon and develop the T-Profile.

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Image Credit

Are you among those saying higher education is unnecessary? A degree earned in any course adds to your pattern recognition abilities. You cannot recognize patterns when you don't even know what is going on around you. So while diving deep into your specialization, try to learn a little of everything possible. Get that newspaper today.

Gain Technological Management Skills

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Work landscape is changing. Technology is going to grow alongside of us. This will create new challenges, conflicts and opportunities. The future is already here, the jobs that will be demanded are shifting as more are automated by artificial intelligence, machine learning and robots. Therefore, be prepared to work alongside the machines.

Collaborations

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Collaboration is termed the future of work. You must have noticed how companies are collaborating across unrelated industries to bring together cutting edge innovations. This is the power of collaboration. Don't try to play Jack of all trade, master of none. Learn to work with teams, develop a culture for learning and working together where it is safe for anyone to contribute. There's strength in diversity.

In conclusion, always think outside the box. To be innovative, you must be ready to explore unrelated domain and draw out a pattern from them. What is Uber doing? — mobile phone + taxi.
How about Airbnb? — internet + accommodation
Even the Whaleshares platform we operate now is booming because someone thought it wise to add cryptocurrency rewards system to a social media platform. Unleash the power of your creativity and seek out patterns in the ecosystem, the world is waiting for you to connect that last dot today.

What do you think? How can we improve on our associative thinking abilities? Let's hear from you in the comment section below.

Originals @lordjames
All images are creative commons from Pixabay.

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