In the last three ‘Thinking tools’ we explored techniques that come within the sphere of ‘perceptual creativity’. This month, we are going to look at constructive creativity and how to use storytelling to exercise the skill.

Stories are used widely in learning and development, and one of the foremost practitioners in the field is Margaret Parkin. She believes that the power of storytelling is that it suggests solutions to problems and doesn’t impose a rigid set of principles by which to abide. Being able to create stories is an important tool for the L&D professional’s kit and can be used in a host of different ways: from communicating vision statements to dealing with conflict.

EXERCISE 1 Obtain four random words and create a story using the words in any order you wish to fit the story you want to tell. The story must be interesting and engaging rather than just stringing the words together in a linear form.

For example, by using the four random words patrol; wasp; lasso; drug you might be able to create the following stories:

There was a patrol out to catch people believed to be smuggling drugs across the border. They were chasing a man and about to lasso him when a wasp stung the hand of the person with the lasso. As a result he lassoed a member of the patrol and the smuggler got away.

Or:

The police chief said: “You do not set out to catch a wasp with a lasso. Trying to catch drug-dealers with a patrol is just as useless. You need to infiltrate their network.”

You can vary the exercise by telling the story using the drawn words in the order they were obtained or you can increase the number of random words to five, six or even seven.

EXERCISE 2 In this exercise you obtain the random words one at toola time. For example, the first two words drawn are horseshoe and funeral. You would start your story:

There was a funeral and the horse pulling the hearse with the coffin in it threw a horseshoe and stumbled.

Add the next random word salad.

The horseshoe flew into the salad of a man eating at a street-side café.

Next word: lentil.

His companion said to him: “I’m glad that didn’t land in my lentil soup or we would have been splashed.”

Final random word: rash.

He said to her: “Who knows, the lentil soup might have cured that rash you get on your arms. Scientific discoveries are often made that way.”

Remember:

The use and practice of creativity is the best way to develop the mental skills and habits of creative thinking and, to improve those skills, you need to practise. Here are some essentials to remember when carrying out the exercises.

• There is no need for a time limit to the exercises or games, although you may want to set yourself five minutes per exercise, and as you get better you may want to reduce this to two or three minutes.
• The storyline must have some substance and not just be a string of ‘and’ followed by ‘and’, and so on.

These exercises are taken from How to have Creative Ideas: 62 exercises to develop the mind, Edward de Bono, Vermilion 2007. For further information on the work of the De Bono Foundation UK visit www.debonofoundation.co.uk

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