« Right Brain Workouts

No Creativity Without Chaos

By Peter Lloyd

Chaos is our friend. We can use it to help us generate genuinely fresh ideas. Without chaos, our lives would be doomed to predictability. There would be no such thing as creative thinking.

descriptionChaos, in the minds the ancient Greeks, opposed Cosmos, the order of the universe. While Cosmos toiled to maintain order, Chaos kept just as busy unraveling it. And they're still at it. Today science sees indomitable chaos in the randomness of subatomic events as well as in the vagaries of chance in our everyday lives.
You can plan a pretty picnic, but you can't predict the weather, Ms. Jackson.
—Outkast
No one can predict consistently and accurately whether a flipped coin will come up heads or tails. We can be quite sure, however, that each will come up half the time. Casino operators count on this kind of predictability. They also count on some of us failing to recognize the futility of beating the odds.

Like casino operators, creative problem solvers can use the chaos of chance for fun and profit. Unlike our order-seeking brains, chance is blind, irrepressibly unpredictable when it comes to specific events. You and I, on the other hand, gravitate toward order and avoid chance most of the time. We behave and think in very predictable patterns.

For this reason, successful idea generators intentionally introduce chance when working on a creative challenge. They use random stimulation to force themselves out of their habitual thinking patterns. Chance helps break down habitual thinking patterns. It helps us escape our prejudices and leads us to fresh insights by forcing us to make connections we would not otherwise even consider.

Everything in the universe arises from the struggle between Cosmos and Chaos. Just as surely as random mutation drives evolution, chaos drives creativity. To generate more truly unique ideas and to solve problems more effectively, get in sync with the universe. Invite chance, welcome randomness, embrace chaos.

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.
Next Workout »
Newsletter Sign Up

Join 40,000+ subscribers who receive our Open Innovation Newsletter every other week.

Subscribe