LEAD 300 is easily one of my favorite classes period. The format, the topics, and the work was memorable and rewarding. Below you will find my favorite activities, lessons, and knowledge picked up along the way.

          I cannot talk about this class without first talking about the marble activity. On the first day of class, each student was given a marble. At the end of class an assignment was given. We were to write down 100 uses for the marble without any repeats. As I began this assignment I didn't think this was too difficult, but as I got to 60, 70, and 80 uses, I started running low on ideas. Naturally, I asked my roommates for some and although most of them were repeats, I was able to figure out enough to get me to 100. After learning more about divergent thinking and creativity, our next assignment was to write 100 more uses for that marble. When I completed this and discussed our thoughts and ideas in class, I realized a couple things. Firstly, you are much more creative than you think. Next, you are less unique than you think. The purpose of the assignment was to practice creativity without your self-editor. When you consider ideas, feasibility is a massive part. People are always saying to be realistic. However, if you keep considering farfetched and crazy ideas, you may just find one that works. If you asked a person 100-200 years ago what they wanted, they might have said "a faster horse". By being open-minded and innovative, someone eventually created the first automobile and the rest is history.

          One of the earliest lessons in this creativity class surrounded the topic of divergent thinking. Most of what people do is convergent thinking which is taking a bunch of information and then doing a project or taking a test or writing a paper. In divergent thinking, you take in limited information and generate as many ideas and solutions from it. The marble activity for example, was a divergent thinking activity. Throughout the course, my classmates and I did many divergent thinking activities which helped us think outside the box, challenge assumptions, and put aside our self-editor during idea generation. 

             From there we moved into a more practical approach to problem-solving called design thinking. There are three steps to design thinking which includes understanding, imagining, and iterating. During the understand phase, you focus on fully comprehending the problem, the people involved, the process, and the context. You should have both an explorative and user-centered mindset in this phase to understand the depths of each component. Imagine is the next phase and it's largely where idea generation comes into play when imagining the possibilities and impossibilities. Your mindset in this phase should be divergent and multi-disciplinary in order to maximize the amount of ideas and engage with every area of the issue. Lastly, the implement or iterate phase is where you bring everything together for a feasible solution. Having an iterative and integrative mindset can benefit you by assessing solutions and improving them and balancing multiple criteria.

              After reading the last two paragraphs, you may think that solving problems and generating solutions is easy. Unfortunately, that is far from the case. Especially when it comes to brainstorming there are rules that you need to follow to be effective. The rules to brainstorming are as follows:

1. No Judgement - positive or negative, just say "Yes, and..."

2. Go for quantity - generate many ideas (you might even be able to combine some)

3. Go for wild and crazy - no judging yourself

4. Build off each other's ideas

               Too many brainstorming sessions end with satisficing. "What is that?" you ask. It is a combination of satisfy and suffice. Here is a simple example.  You and your friends want to eat tasty pizza that is cheap. You drive around and you see "Tony's Pizza Parlor". Sure enough, they have pizza that is both tasty and cheap. So naturally, you decide to eat there. Looking back on it though, had you drove around a little bit longer, you could have gotten cheaper and more tasty pizza at "Uncle Joe's Pizza Shop". In many group projects, too often groups will choose the first idea that works in order to keep moving forward. However, in most cases what ends up happening is that you solve your problem, but it could have been solved more effectively or at a cheaper cost, etc. This is why we need creativity and patience. The best solution is almost never your first idea. Being patient, generating ideas, and implementing solutions to worldwide issues are all things a great leader needs to do in order to create positive and long-lasting change.