Seeing What Others Don't See
Issue #69
This is one of my favorite quotes on creativity. The creative person looks at the world and sees the same things as everyone else, but thinks something different. He puts two and two together and comes up with five. He thinks what nobody else has thought.
A good example of this is the development of Post-it® Notes. Dr. Spencer Silver worked on developing adhesives for the 3M company. In his search for stronger and tougher adhesives, he stumbled across an adhesive that would stick temporarily and could easily be removed, but he had no use for it.
Art Fry, a colleague of Dr. Silver, sang in the church choir and was frustrated that the small scraps of paper he used to bookmark the hymns kept falling out. Aware of Silver’s discovery, Fry had a light bulb moment: maybe, the adhesive would keep the slips of paper in the hymnal. With the help of Dr. Silver, Fry tested his idea, and it was a success.
Art Fry’s willingness to look at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different led to the creation of a new product for 3M that you and I can’t live without.
What are you seeing today that you could look at differently? Sometimes we need to rethink how we see things. Are you stumped by a problem? Take a step back and look at it from a different angle. Explore other ways to think about the situation. Find other solutions to the problem.
Creative leaders learn to see the world differently from others. They see things that others do not see.
Like Michelangelo, can you see the angel in the marble? Have you found a way to set him free? Don't be afraid of what you dream. Don't worry that you may be crazy. What you see makes you very special. Trust yourself. You won't lead yourself down the wrong path.
Believe in the angels locked in stone. Believe that you can free the angels. Believe that the world will be better because of what you create. Believe in your talent.
One of the functions of creative leaders is to see the world in ways that nobody else does and, at the same time, help others to see the world in new ways. I have often found that the best novels teach me new things about the world I had not previously discovered.
Creative leaders may not know what they are looking for, but they will recognize it when they see it and find a way to communicate it to others.
Do you know how to look at the world? What makes your way of viewing the world unique? Do you know what you are looking for? Have you found it or are you still looking?
Do you appreciate your unique vision of the world? Have you accepted your vision of how the world should be? Have you communicated your vision to others?
Plant seeds of hope in the hearts of others!
Thank you for reading Creative Seeds.
You are spot on, Harley, when you say we must look at things with new eyes. Sometimes, as with Post-Its, the new eyes belong to someone else. I worked at 3M when Post-It Notes were invented. There was a trial use of the adhesive before Post-Its. The company made some cork-looking sheets to emulate a cork pin-up board. You could attach notes to it and easily remove them and replace them with other notes. They were only "sold" internally and weren't very popular. The adhesive got fouled with dust and lint. Art Fry's idea of applying the adhesive to the notes was pure genius and fit perfectly with 3M technology and expertise (Scotch Tape, etc.) I was privileged to hear Spence Silver and Art Fry talk about their invention and its development into a commercially viable product.
I was a young engineer working in another division. One of the unique things that contributed to the development of Post-It Notes was that 3M, at that time, allowed technical employees to devote 15% of their time to the pursuit of projects that interested them rather than just projects assigned to them. This helped immensely in nourishing creative talent. Also, technical success was rewarded with Technical Excellence Awards each year. The highest award, The Carlton Society Award, went to the person whose discovery or invention had the greatest impact on company profits and growth.
Sadly, 3M has fallen on hard times and is no longer the company it was back in the 70s and 80s when I worked there. Recently, it lost a multi-billion-dollar suit for contaminating groundwater in surrounding communities. Many doubt it can survive.