Creativity
Technique
Stuck in your search for a good idea? Try the "Escape
Method" suggested by Edward DeBono. Look at any element
of a situation that you take for granted. Then remove that
taken-for-granted element to provoke change. For example,
we presume restaurants charge for food. What if they did
not? Perhaps they would charge for time. People who order
a cup of coffee and linger over the paper pay more than
those who grab lunch to go. DeBono suggests a cafe could
have "a parking meter in the middle of the table."
As unlikely as this sounds, he points out, "An escape
from the necessity of having to pay the bill then and there
led to the concept behind Diners Club many years ago."
Try the technique on parking meters themselves. What if
they didn't take money? What would they take? Coupons promising
community service? Credit cards? What if they had plugs
to connect laptops? What if individuals owned them instead
of cities?
Now try this technique on your problem. Just relax and
have fun. The practical dimensions can come to you later.
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"I submit that creativity is an art--an applied art--a
workable art--a teachable art--a learnable art--an art in
which all of us can make ourselves more and more proficient,
if we will." --Alex Osborn
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"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with
bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are
simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices--to be found only in
the minds of humankind."
--Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone
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What Do Emotional States Communicate?
| Have you ever talked
to someone who looks back at you vacantly, nodding from time
to time but never really responding with excitement or even
disagreement? What do you do? Most people immediately try to
figure out what's wrong. We attribute meaning to the behavior,
thinking that Jack is bored. We may adjust our message--add
more examples, speak louder, say less. Or we may close down
because Jack does not care what we have to say. |
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Or does he? Sometimes emotions or physical condition
cloud communication. Communication scholar Stewart Tubbs* identifies
a number of symptoms of stress that can easily be misinterpreted.
- What a listener calls irritability can really be fatigue.
- What is read as apathy can mean a headache.
- Shyness is regularly labeled aloofness.
- Defensiveness grows out of fear but is often expressed as aggression
or anger.
- Uncertainty leads to cautious, quiet behavior.
- Lack of concentration can actually be an expression of nervousness
about another issue entirely.
- And my vacant stare can just mean I took too much allergy medicine.
Sometimes emotional responses to our remarks are so
obviously out of place we can easily suspect our interpretations
are wrong. As a professor, I am periodically baffled by students'
explosive anger and almost frantic responses. Then I realize the
semester is winding down, and I am seeing and hearing not hostility
but what I have come to call PFS--Pre Final Syndrome. Student behavior
I respond to as anger is really anxiety.
You can never know for sure what another person is
feeling. Be careful about your interpretations of nonverbal messages.
When you can, check out what is really going on. When you don't
feel comfortable doing that, at least be aware that behaviors have
many meanings.
*Stewart Tubbs. A Systems Approach
to Small Group Interaction. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998: 55.
Communication Tips: #1
- #2 - #3 -
#5
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