But the lyrics needed work. In fact, they were nonsensical. “Scrambled eggs, Oh you’ve got such lovely legs, Scrambled eggs. Oh, my baby, how I love your legs.”52
So Paul worked on the lyrics, and in 1965 sat down with an acoustic Epiphone guitar and recorded the song. The song was reworked with the help of the legendary producer George Martin. George Martin described that song as a transformative event in the music of the Beatles.
The song “Yesterday” went on to be the most recorded song in history. It has been recorded by over 2,200 different artists, including Frank Sinatra, James Taylor, The Supremes, Elvis, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, and Linkin Park, to name but several.
Coincidentally, it was also in 1965 that a brief and simple book came out titled A Technique for Producing Ideas, by James Webb Young. At the time of its publication, Young was regarded as a creative wizard in the advertising industry, and his book described the simple process for generating ideas experienced by many creative people. In the course of this brief and inexpensive $5 book, Young explained and systemized the five stages to producing ideas.
James Young knew the five-stage technique worked and even considered not sharing what he’d learned so as to maintain an advantage over his competition in the advertising industry. But in the end, he believed that the positive good of sharing the technique far outweighed any downside related to the fear of aiding his competition.
Besides, he explained that the five-stage formula is so simple, that “few who hear it actually believe it.” And that executing on the formula, despite the fact that the technique provides a path to success, does require intellectual work, such that “not all who accept it use it.” It’s a process that has been used by countless creative people.
It’s exactly the technique McCartney instinctively used in creating the song “Yesterday.” And it’s undoubtedly a technique that you’ve used in your life and work—though you might not even have been aware of the actual process.
Here’s a summary of the five-step technique that James Webb wrote in his book, A Technique for Producing Ideas.
Gathering
This is the fact-finding stage. You gather information and educate yourself about the matter. In the book, James Young is careful to stress that this means going deep beyond what might typically be expected to fully immerse yourself in the challenge.
What are the real needs facing the customer? What is the heart of the question? What are the real barriers? How are similar matters being addressed elsewhere in related areas?
Fact finding might involve technology, customer insights, service issues, or even entire business models. This initial stage is where the more information obtained, even from seemingly afield, the better.
Although everyone acknowledges the importance of truly understanding the problem and gathering specific knowledge about possible solutions, this involves tedious work. In the haste for an answer or solution, the fact-gathering stage is easily shortchanged.
Relevant to McCartney, this stage is exemplified by the countless thousands of hours spent listening, playing, and writing music throughout his life.
Thinking
Once all the facts have been gathered, this is the stage where thinking and problem solving are applied. This is the stage where the different aspects of the challenge are considered.
This is the time to delve deep into what might work and also to think broadly about different potential solutions. The greater the number and variety of possible approaches and different combinations considered, the better.
Incubation
At this stage of the process, you actually stop the deliberate and conscious thinking about the matter, and essentially hand the work over to your creative unconscious mind. James Young recommends purposely doing other things—like going to the movies or art museums—to give your brain the freedom to think creatively.
This is what happened to Paul McCartney when he was sleeping.
The Solution!
During a morning shower, or a run in the woods, or in our sleep—the idea emerges. Sometimes in a flash, sometimes with a hesitant. almost shy appearance. The facts and concepts have been associating and connecting in our brain, and the idea emerges from our subconscious.
James Young calls this the “eureka!” moment.
It’s what physicist Niels Bohr experienced when he went to sleep and dreamed about atoms. He saw a nucleus and electrons spinning around the center, like planets around a star. After waking, he believed the vision was an accurate depiction, so he went about finding the evidence to support this theory.
Final Development
This is where the additional work is applied to bring the idea to fruition in the real world. It’s when McCartney swapped out the lyrics of “Scrambled eggs, Oh you’ve got such lovely legs” for “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.” It’s when George Martin pushed for a string accompaniment to the song.
In a world where our problems require new thinking, your best creative self is essential, and the simple techniques outlined in the $5 (or less) book could be of great benefit to you (and the world). Spend 30 minutes (it’s only 40 short pages) and give it a read. The writing might seem a bit dated, but the words of wisdom are timeless.
You’ll increase your chances of having sweet dreams. And the results could be significant. Maybe that’s what Paul McCartney meant when he wrote “And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me. Shine on ’til tomorrow, let it be.”
And, by the way, the song “Let It Be” was inspired by another of Paul McCartney’s dreams. He was dreaming of his mother, who died from cancer when he was just 14. He said, “It was great to visit with her again. I felt blessed to have that dream.”
Becoming a Creative Genius (Again)
Scientists know quite a bit about the human brain. And more important, they know about your brain (yes, your specific brain). It weighs just over three pounds, makes up just 2 percent of your weight, and contains about 86 billion nerve cells (neurons) that are connected by trillions of connections, or synapses. It’s the most complex structure in the universe.
It’s our brains that let us humans shape essentially every facet of our world. Our brains allow us to communicate complex ideas, recognize a single face from a billion others, build rockets that fly into outer space, and make us feel all fluttery when we get near someone we love.
Recent advances using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are giving scientists new insights into how the brain works by allowing real-time visualization of activity in the different regions of the brain. But the reality is, it’s all still early pioneering work. The brain—including how consciousness and memories and intelligence work—remains a great mystery.
But one thing scientists do know fairly well is how to test for creative ingenuity. How to find those seemingly rare individuals who are “the creative types”—the problem solvers, musicians, artists, philosophers, designers, and poets. In fact, scientists can determine quite accurately which people belong to that rarified most creative category.
And here’s the unbelievable truth—you belong in that genius category. Those are your cohorts. Your people.
In the 1960s, NASA had a mission to land a man on the Moon, and the NASA deputy director hired a scientist named George Land to devise a creativity test to determine the most innovative and creative NASA engineers. The test Land developed proved to be of exceptional accuracy, and NASA used the assessment to determine its most creative engineers and program managers, before assigning them to various projects.
In 1968, Land decided, really out of curiosity, to try the same creativity test on a group of five-year-old children. The results were both unexpected and astounding. To Land’s astonishment, he found that 98 percent of the kids tested at the creative genius level.
Five years later, Dr. Land tested the same group of kids at 10 years old. This time, the percentage scoring a genius rating dropped to 30 percent. Land tested
the group again when they were 15 years old. This time the percentage scoring as geniuses dropped to 12 percent.
And what percentage of adults scored as creative geniuses? Over the years, the test has been applied to over 280,000 adults, and 2 percent of the adults tested as creative geniuses.
George Land described these continual and significant decreases in scoring as a result of creativity being essentially manufactured out by our educational system. In other words, the process of educating kids in school results in “de-genius-ing” them. Land believed that part of this is because we teach children to simultaneously think divergent and convergent.
Divergent thinking is when you’re brainstorming and exploring a multitude of possible ideas. Where idea generation means casting a wide net. Where nothing is off limits.
Convergent thinking is when you’re pruning away the different ideas, attempting to narrow the thinking to a final working solution.
Land explains that simultaneously thinking divergently and convergently results in immediate restriction and even dismissal of the various ideas as they emerge. As soon as someone has the inkling of a possible idea, he or she is immediately evaluating and eliminating the idea as too complicated, costly, unfeasible, or “far-out.”
Clearly, we adults need help. My friend, Carl Nordgren, has taught creativity and entrepreneurship at Duke University for 14 years. He is also a successful entrepreneur, novelist, and an experienced fishing guide. He knows how to lure a prize creative idea and a rainbow trout that’s hidden beneath the surface. Nordgren wrote an informative and important book called Becoming a Creative Genius {Again}, and he can help us regain our creativity.
Here are just five of the many ways Nordgren advises we get reacquainted with our creative genius younger selves.
Start a creative action program (CAP).
Simply, this means doing something new every day and making a note of it. It doesn’t need to be complicated or time-consuming. In fact, it likely won’t take any extra time. One day it could be driving a different way to work. Another day, using your other hand to brush your teeth. Or cooking a new Indian dinner. Setting the alarm 45 minutes earlier and going for a run. Giving meditation a try. Delaying checking email until you’ve planned your day. Jotting down a list of ideas to make your workday more productive. Even small efforts like those will begin stimulating your creativity. By making a point of doing one new thing every day, you’ll develop a mindset of looking for new things to try.
Keep a journal. Make observations.
Get a notebook and carry it around with you. Have the intention of being observant, jotting down ideas that might occur during the day. Keep it casual. Don’t worry about filling it with brilliant thoughts. Note whatever creative observations you might have on a particular day. Or jot down a recurring question you want to get answered. Or your thoughts about how something at work could be improved. Write, sketch, scribble, and doodle. Aim for at least a few entries each week.
Practice, ready, fire, aim.
As adults, we often overthink things. Doing the standard, “ready, aim, aaaaim.” Once I participated in a workshop where at one point we broke into groups of several people. We were to construct a tower, of maximum height, using just Play-Doh and straws. We had 10 minutes. The only rule was that the first six minutes were for planning and discussion only. We weren’t allowed to touch the Play-Doh or the straws until the final two minutes allotted for “build” time.
For the first six minutes, we planned the hell out of that structure and discussed dividing the construction tasks. When it came time to build, there was a frenzy of elbows. When the clock ran out on our four-minute build time—our planned masterpiece was totally incomplete and lay in pieces on the desk.
Another group (who was in another room and had not observed our experience) was given the same 10 minutes, but was told to begin building immediately. They crushed us with a wobbly structure that stood several feet tall.
It’s not a perfectly applicable example for everything. But it did make the point of getting caught-up in “aiming” and the advantage of getting started “firing.”
Be generous.
Give and contribute without regard for credit. Listen intently when other people share their ideas and suggestions. Support them. Build on their ideas.
Carl Nordgren urges his students to do this.
“Become known for giving what must be the greatest gift of all these days, their undivided attention, and practice being generous listeners. That means focused listening, blocking out all distractions, and putting your phone away.
And it also means carefully listening, for the best the idea has to offer.”53
Be playful.
The one thing that is self-evident of creative geniuses (and I’m talking about those five year olds) is that they know how to play. How to be curious. How to explore. Follow their lead, and become a creative genius (again). The kids are waiting, and they want you to reach 98 percent.
How to Kill a Good Idea
One time, I blindly stepped into an elevator shaft on the twelfth floor. I was working in Houston, Texas, and the company had recently moved into a new building where several floors were still being completed. To deal with all the construction material, the elevator interiors were lined with thick blankets, giving them the gray appearance of the shaft itself. What’s more, the elevators didn’t always work properly. We were told an electrician was killed working on one of the elevators a couple of weeks previously.
I was carrying a two foot tall stack of computer printouts that nearly came up to my chin. The stack blocked my downward view, and when the elevator doors opened with an audible ding, I didn’t even think of looking down, but rather just stepped in. With nothing under my feet, I began to fall. That was a surprise. But more about that in a minute …
I’ve seen my share of good ideas die. Occasionally, how they die comes as a complete surprise. Like my misstep into the elevator shaft, or the twist ending of a whodunit mystery that you never saw coming. Like when you learn in The Empire Strikes Back that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s dad.
But, product innovation isn’t scripted like a movie. It happens in the real world and is subject to all the inane and myopic thinking that people are known to often exhibit. I’ve been guilty of it too. Like the time in the mid-1990s, when I wondered to myself (thankfully) why a junior colleague was so enthusiastic about the company getting a Web page.
In contrast to the surprise movie ending, the vast majority of the time these innovation casualties don’t happen in a single climactic scene with everyone caught off guard. Rather, their demise comes as no surprise to anyone. Not only that, but everyone usually knows what killed it.
In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” Anyone who’s fought to bring innovative products to fruition can deduce that Sherlock Holmes never had a case involving product development; otherwise he might have said, “New product development is resisted by many and usually in full view of everyone.”
It usually doesn’t take a detective to figure out the cause of death. Here’s a list of the usual suspects.
Apathy
The truth is that companies are filled with people who mostly don’t care one way or the other about the next product introduction. Of course, they’ll never admit that to their colleagues. On the contrary, they probably outwardly appear to be quite enthusiastic about the innovation and will do the work that’s asked of them to advance the cause. Just like they do with anything they’re working on.
But here’s the thing. Bringing a new technology to fruition is not just like anything else being worked on. In fact, it’s quite unlike anything else. It’s a new product. It hasn’t been figured out. And new things only become successful when there’s an inordinate amount of work applied to moving the project along, to overcoming new problems (everything is hard the first time), and pushing through the man
y iterations it’s going to take to succeed. By definition, it’s not like anything you’re already doing.
Jealousy
It’s human nature, but sometimes people don’t want something (or someone) to succeed. It could be because they’re resentful of who came up with the idea. Maybe the idea originated in another department (“What does Sales know?”) or from a customer (“Customers don’t know the market”) or from someone who’s young, or old, or whatever.
Lack of Commitment and Effort
Many people on the team care about what’s being developed and the company’s continued success. They genuinely cheer for the day the new product will be released. They love the idea of a new product, but their enthusiasm wanes when demands start affecting their normal workday. They resist putting in the time to meet the needs, not to mention giving their blood, sweat, and tears.
Pushing an innovation along the path to success means occasional (or frequent) early or late days or working weekends. It means intense periods of focus. Thinking differently than you do when managing your existing work. Often it means going the extra mile, and sometimes it means taking the shortcut through the woods.
Limited Resources
I used to tell the team (proudly), “We’ve done so much, with so little, for so long, that we can now do anything with nothing.” We’ve all been asked to do more with less. Less people, less budget, less external resources, less time, less physical space, less whatever. And yes, you can rally and get a lot done despite the shortcomings. But, as we all know, creating a breakthrough is hard work. And while you might have to work with limited resources, it’s unrealistic for the company to expect you to pull a rabbit out of a hat, if you’re not even given a hat. At some point, limited resources are not only just challenging, but they cross the line into planning to fail.
Politics
People oppose things all the time for the wrong reasons—to protect their turf or simply to express their authority against a threatening influence. Once I was chastised by a colleague who headed another department for calling someone in his group on her mobile phone at 5:20 p.m. during her drive home. The department head said I was violating her private information by asking for her mobile number. Territorial attitudes aren’t helpful in getting things done.
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