There are differences between domains. Here are some extra characteristics that Sternberg (1985) found to be important in the following domains:

Art: Imagination, Originality, Risk-taking

Business: Coming up with and exploring new ideas

Philosophy: Play and classifying new ideas

Physics: See order amid chaos, Inventiveness, Problem solving

These are really quite different, aren’t they! So what are you great at? How can you develop your unique skills?

As I listened to a successful business leader of innovation I was dumbfounded at how even one of the most advanced organisations can use just a few different techniques and suddenly they’re classed as ‘innovative’. I have great respect for de Bono popularising creativity and expressing a few useful tools. And it is probably because of this that an organisation just selecting the first thing that occurs to them happens.

Perhaps it’s an explanation of why McDonalds does so well: Don’t give your customers too much choice!

Even if you felt called to use de Bono’s suite of techniques, ignoring the fact that none are validated (and that many other schools of thought exist), I remain bemused that a ‘leader’ of innovation would just choose the first technique that comes to hand. Not that the techniques themselves are poor in themselves – but surely an innovator would be called to look beyond the obvious?

If you want to use de Bono, go beyond the 6 Hats – they’re great, but they’re just the beginning. A scientist should explore water logic, action shoes, ToLoPoSoGo and a bunch of ideas outlined in Serious Creativity… AND look to other sources of thinking on creativity.

We set our standards so low… even people who innovate often end up just innovating enough. With the rise of Asia in an era of abundance and outsourcing, the only way that the developed world can continue to demand the sort of quality of life that it has grown accustomed to is through lifting up the value chain. We don’t get that by digging deeper holes: We get that by freeing our minds…

Take off the handbrake, unleash the throttle and explore the things that you’ve never thought possible… That is the path to genius.

Daniel Smith

Why?  In larger cities, brilliant people are more likely to be socially connected with someone who may be able to help them on their project, whatever it is – maybe through complementary personalities, maybe through complementary backgrounds, maybe through something as simple as being able to bounce ideas off someone else.  The production of innovation rarely comes purely through one’s own personal effort, but through the involvement of others.

In short – those who want high performance need to do some social networking with people who are likely to help: perhaps with like-minded people in different fields; perhaps with colleagues who think differently, even though they are in the same field.

In African philosophy, there is a concept that, loosely translated, means that people are people through other people .  We definitely find this in expert performance – we perform at our best through the involvement of others.

In fact, we have very little basis on which that belief may rest.  Even in the human body, there is certainly a canvas, but the way each person lives will dictate where the canvas goes – a person can get a tan, for example, or can bleach their hair or work out at the gym.  The same principle applies to thinking – if anything, moreso.

Ericsson, Prietula and Cokely stated exactly this in their 2007 article, The Making of an Expert .  There, they provided support for the claim that expertise comes primarily through years of intense practice and dedicated coaching, through constant performance above and beyond what is currently possible – even comfortable – for that person.  This is something that is beyond a particular sport – managers, surgeons and musicians all had the common trait of deliberate, long-term focus on not-yet possible tasks and changing what was faulty in technique.  Ericsson (et al) makes clear that this takes at least a decade to reach expert performance, requiring another expert to give (often unpleasant) feedback.

K Anders Ericsson , Michael J Prietula, Edward T Cokely. 2007. The Making of an Expert. Harvard Business Review 85, no. 7,8 (July 1): 114-121.  Accessible through proquest.com .

This means something very particular for us: we cannot throw up our hands in despair whenever we hit a problem in our lives, whenever what we are doing just isn’t good enough.  If we want to be experts in a particular area, we must understand from the outset that it will take a lot of work, often painful work, and that it will be over a long time – about a decade’s worth of work, for starters.

That’s really hard.  It’s really daunting.  But, in my understanding, the most daunting part is that it’s all our choice .  We are able to choose to be experts in a given field, to be operating at that level.  As any expert can tell you – such as dancer-choreographer Twyla Tharp – it’s not through personal talent and innate genius alone.

Tharp’s interview was in: Diane Coutu 2008. Creativity Step by Step. Harvard Business Review 86, no. 4 (April 1).  Accessible through proquest.com .

It’s all about our choice – what we choose to do with our lives.  The one thing that we can change, no matter what stage or status of life we are in, is our selves.

There was a study done on soccer players around 2008.  To briefly summarise, there is a skill in soccer that is about anticipating where the ball is going to go.  The offensive and defensive soccer players were divided into two groups, and it was found anticipating where the ball is going to go was done far better by defensive players than offensive players (even when done in defense and offense, respectively).  Obviously, the defensive players have this as a central part of their role, while it’s more peripheral (and has less damaging results) for offensive players.

A Mark Williams,  Paul Ward,  Julian D Ward,  Nicolas J Smeeton. (2008). Domain Specificity, Task Specificity, and Expert Performance. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 79(3), 428-33.  Available from Proquest.com .

On the surface, this looks counter intuitive – soccer players should be soccer players, right? – but even mentally, there are quite different skills required in defense from offense, even though it’s within the one game.

We can apply this to everyday life, too.  I have a friend who works as an engineer for a major mining company, and at the drop of a hat, he can tell you the exact specifications of any given bolt that can be used in mining machinery.  Another friend worked in air conditioning, and could easily diagnose any problem that happened to an air-conditioner. I’m sure many readers could bring out other stories like this (and feel free to comment with some of them).  By the same token, that engineer would be at a significant disadvantage in, for example, electrical engineering – even though it’s engineering, with similar concepts required.

What this means for us is that we choose to excel at needs to be defined, specific and achievable.  We can’t be afraid to spend several thousand hours perfecting that skill, either…but that’s another post for another time.

Andrew Smith.

Even allowing that only 50% of the genes passed on were from a genius, the Repository did not produce geniuses at any kind of documented rate.  It did produce people who felt a void from never knowing their father, as David Plotz found in his 2005 book, The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank .

Claretta Yvonne Dupree 2007. The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank. Review of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank by David Plotz. New York: Random House, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6124-5; 262 PAGES, HARDCOVER, $24.95 (USA), $34.95 (CANADA). Ethics & Medicine 23, no. 1 (April 1): 63-64.  Available from Proquest.com .

Of course, there were a number of structural problems with the operation of the sperm bank (self-selected donors, the donors of dubious giftedness…), but as other research has correlated, the fundamental problem was that genius is not something that happens to infants at the moment of conception.  Genius – particularly in any societally meaningful way – is largely something that happens far further in the future than that… and continuously along the genius’ life.  This will be a focus for a number of my upcoming posts on this blog.

If this is the case – and research suggests that it is – then the influence of parents on their children cannot be understated, and what the parents consistantly convey to their children can make all the difference…

Andrew Smith.