The role of playing in creative thinking

INTRODUCTION

In this lesson, we will present the key role that play has in training creativity. Play provides a game atmosphere that marginalizes consequences, diminishes pressure and allows a safe environment for failure that promotes taking risks.

The creative process can be seen as a game with three main steps: Opening, experimentation and closing,

OBJECTIVES

• Understand the role that play has in training creativity.
• Defining the Creative process as a game in three steps: opening, experimenting and closing.
• Promoting ideation and improvisation through play as a way to enhance creativity

CHARACTERISTICS OF GAMES

There is no doubt of the vital role that play has in training Creative processes.

Adults think play is childish and have no use in serious work. Nothing further from the truth. Creativity and innovation are in significant demand in corporate culture, and the truth is that without play, creativity can never effectively be trained.

Play provides the game atmosphere by giving the one aspect to creative problem solving that can't be emulated any other way. A game has no real pressure, no one would get a bad grade, lose their job, or lose their client if you failed. This simple fact allowed you to take risks you may not otherwise take. This is the real effect of engaging in play, marginalized consequence because nothing was on the line, you were free to take chances, and learning to risk is a seminal part of creative problem-solving.

It is using play as a tool in the Creative process to marginalize consequences and creates a safe environment for failure that encourages risk-taking.

But failure is a natural component of creativity as anything novel, by its nature, is new and untested. So if we are practicing creative problem solving, the fact is that we are bound to fail from time to time.

Learn to risk and experience smart failure. Smart failure is an early failure, taking risks early in your creative process rather than late to minimize the risk of the overall success of the idea. This is vital to creative growth, and something taught effectively through the structure of play.

WORKING WITH CREATIVITY

One of the most important characteristics of using play is the ability to minimalized consequences. Then, problem-solving through play can be practiced with less fear of taking risks, which is vital to Creative growth.

Play and creativity have significant similarities. This is the reason why play can help training creativity.

Play offers a board game of open possibilities while maintaining its structure. By playing, we can work out:

• Improvisation is the act of making something with whatever is available at that time.
• In theater, improvisation involves that actors react to each other, the audience, or an ad hoc situation, all on the fly.
• Comedy improvisation has one rule. It's called, Yes, and... It means you have to take the situation you're given and just go with it.

Ideation is much the same, especially in a group dynamic.

Imagine being able to riff and jam off of someone else, taking what they offered and modifying it, and they doing the same. It's the foundational aspect of brainstorming, and it's 100% play.

STRATEGIC PLAY

Play could be seen as frivolous, but it can be an extraordinary tool for strategic planning. This is called strategic play. Strategic play uses the storytelling of play as a means to reach a specific problem.

The strategic play help participants to mirror the problem-solving process removing the consequences of failure. This activity is more powerful when the playful problem closely resembles the real problem.

Imagine if you were tasked with generating a bunch of ideas for a new ad campaign at work. Your goal is volume. Well, you just practiced that exact same process. No consequence, all play. Strategic play, to be precise, play with a purpose. In this instance, your goal was many ideas. This is known as divergent thinking, but sometimes you may be looking for a single idea, the right solution to a problem. This is called convergent thinking

Note: Convergent thinking is a term coined by Joy Paul Guilford as the opposite of divergent thinking. It generally means the ability to give the "correct" answer to standard questions that do not require significant creativity

Divergent thinking is the type of thinking that's meant to result in many ideas, whereas convergent thinking is the type of thinking meant to result in a single idea.

The role of play in the creative process cannot be understated. It provides a mechanism for overcoming much of the inaction that occurs when we're faced with a problem we're having trouble solving. It's one way to overcome the obstacles that will pop up as we develop positive, creative growth habits. So the next time a problem is really stumping you and your team, toss aside the consequences and have fun.

THE GAME BOARD

The creativity process could be seen as a game with these essential components defined by Dave Gray in his book “Gamestorming:”

• Game space

The game creates an alternative world, a game space where the players must agree to abide by some rules, and they must enter willingly.

• Boundaries

A game sets boundaries in time and space. There is a time when a game begins and ends. The game can be paused or activated by the agreement of the players. It will usually have a spatial boundary, outside of which the rules do not apply.

• Rules of interaction

Within the game space, players agree to abide by rules that define how the game world operates. The game rules define constraints of the game space.

• Artifacts

Artifacts in a game can track progress and maintain a picture of the game’s current state.

• Goal

Players must have a way to know when the game is over. It also could be timed

THE CREATIVE PROCESS AS A GAME

All Businesses have goals that they want to achieve. From the setting of an initial situation (A) to a final situation (B), there is a space in between which we can call “challenge space”, the ground to cover in order to get there.

In knowledge work, the goals are uncertain and not precisely defined, we can call them “fuzzy goals”, and the path between A and B is not drawn, and we need to manage creativity for getting successive ideas to advance in a framework for experimentation and trial and error in the direction of the goal.

Then, we can define the game as a shape where the goal of the game is to go from A to B

Figure: Gray, D.; Brown, S.; Macanufo, J. (2012) Gamestorming. O'Reilly Media.

To go from A to B, the game has an opening, where the objective is to open the players' minds (participants), inviting them to explore as many ideas and opportunities as they can. Is the phase of divergent thinking. You want to create as many and as diverse ideas as you can.

Then, you enter in phase two, where those ideas need to be explored and experimented. This is the “emergent” stage, where new and unexpected things can emerge.

Figure: Gray, D.; Brown, S.; Macanufo, J. (2012) Gamestorming. O'Reilly Media.

Finally, there is a closing phase towards conclusions where decisions, actions, and next steps are set. Through this “convergent” stage, you want to narrow the field in order to select the most promising things for whatever comes next.

A game can be designed in many forms. Designing a game is a great way to advance in an ever more complex world where creative processes are increasingly needed to manage creative work.

CONCLUSIONS

Play is vital in training creative processes. Play provides a game atmosphere that marginalize consequences, diminish pressure and allow a safe environment for failure that promotes taking risks.

Play offers a board game of open possibilities while maintaining its structure. By play improvisation and ideation can be worked out.

Strategic play use storytelling as means to reach a specific problem. This activity is more powerful when the playful problem resembles cloisely the real problem.

The creative process can be seen as a game with three main steps: Opening, experimentation and closing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Courseware (2019) Creativity: Thinking out of the box. Courseware.com

Gray, D.; Brown, S,; Macanufo, J. (2010) Gamesorming. A playbook for innovators, Rulebreakers, and changemakers. O’Reilly Media Eds.

Mumaw, S. (2020) Creativity. Generate Ideas in Greater Quantity and Quality. LinkedIn Learning.

Seelig, T. (2017) Creativity Rules. Get Ideas Out of your head and into the world. HarperOne Eds.

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