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Creativity & Innovation | Divergent Thinking
THE THOUGHT
There is more than one way to tie a shoelace.
Kindergarten, Suzette was my best friend. One regular morning, as we were getting ready to break formation and head into our classrooms, she noticed her shoelace was untied. Unceremoniously, she bent down and started tying it. Suzette was clearly unhinged. She tied her shoelaces like a madman.
Turns out, shoelaces can be tied endless ways. The standard "bunny ears", the "loop-swoop-pull", Ian Knot (supposedly the world's fastest), surgeon's knot for extra security. Straight lacing, ladder lacing, checkerboard patterns.
Even a mundane task hides infinite possibilities. Once you understand that, everything changes. You begin noticing the different ways people hold their coffee cups, fold their clothes, organize their thoughts. All variations on answers to the same problem.
How many puzzle solutions go unknown?
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
THE DIVE
The Many Paths Forward
Divergent thinking is the mind's ability to generate multiple solutions from a single starting point. It's the cognitive process that turns one question into ten possibilities, one problem into a dozen approaches.
Most of us learned to think convergently. School rewarded the single correct answer. Work environments often demand efficient, linear solutions. We've been trained to narrow our focus, to find the one way forward.
Divergent thinking operates differently. It resists obvious answers. Instead of moving toward certainty, it moves away from it, exploring tangential connections and unlikely combinations.
Interestingly, abundance creates detachment. The more options we see, the less attached we become to any single one. When we can see ten ways to approach a challenge, no single path feels precious or irreplaceable.
This cognitive flexibility benefits both creativity and mental resilience. People who think divergently recover faster from setbacks because they instinctively know there are other routes to explore.
But there's a catch. The very skill that frees us from rigid thinking can trap us in endless possibility. Analysis paralysis strikes. When every path looks viable, how do we choose which one to walk?
Can divergent thinking be learned? And if so, how much is too much?
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THE PRACTICE
Expansion Point
Some people naturally generate multiple options, but anyone can learn to think more expansively. Like any skill, divergent thinking strengthens with practice and can be developed with the right conditions.
Exposure to novelty. New environments spark mental combinations. Fresh ideas recombine in unexpected ways.
Psychological safety. When people fear being wrong, they default to safe answers. Divergence requires permission to be weird.
Unstructured time. Showers, long walks, moments when your brain isn't under direct command. This is where creativity emerges. Let yourself be bored.
Constraints. Creative thinking expands under mild limits. What if you had to open a jar while wearing oven mitts?
Reframing. Instead of "How do I finish this faster?" try "What if this doesn't need to be done?" What's the opposite? What would a child do?
When it matters, aim to break free from defaults. Once you've generated options, deliberately narrow them: move to "good enough", set deadlines, add constraints. All techniques to help us converge and move forward.
The goal is to invite unexpected thinking, then tie the shoelace in time to answer the classroom's call.
COMMUNITY
Inner Lab: Rubin’s Vase
Created by Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin in 1915.
This famous optical illusion shows how perception can shift between two stable interpretations. What do you see?
Catch you next week!