Book chapter summary - Synectics: The Development of Creative Capacity, Chapter 1: History of Synectics Researches Into Creative Activity, by William J. J. Gordon

What I read

The first chapter of William J. J. Gordon’s book Synectics: The Development of Creative Capacity is titled “History of Synectics Researches into Creative Activity.” Synectics is briefly defined in the Introduction as “Joining together of different and apparently irrelevant elements”, and this chapter introduces the research methods and approaches that Gordon and his team used in establishing their theory of Synectics and its relationship to creativity.

Gordon begins by noting a historical tendency to either overly measure creative activities (in order to mechanize them) or to highlight creative genius (someone abdicating the ability to encourage creativity at all.) Modern approaches (in the 40s, when this text was written) begin to introduce a community of participants in a creative process, but this also introduces group think. But group creative development has become a clear focus for Synectics, and Gordon describes that a solid creative working group has a number of benefits when striving for creativity.

First, the group moves faster, and is able to compress the duration of a creative process, exponentially. This is only true, though, if the group is able to avoid solidifying ideas by naming them or by declaring them as rationally completed. In the group, the process of creativity is non-rational, and includes “evocative metaphors, images with rough surfaces, and fissures on which others can get a grip and participate.”

Additionally, a group’s approach to creativity, when functioning “correctly”, is to encourage hesitant ridiculousness. This is most effective when the group that is doing the encouraging is multidisciplinary, which is something that Gordon’s researchers focused on in selecting team members. Gordon offers an equation for the elegance of a solution, which is the variety of variables over the simplicity of a solution, indicating that the variety comes from the team makeup.

Finally, the focus on the group, and particularly a changing group, offers a range of responses to the actual methodology investigation that Gordon’s team was conducting. Part of this group is often someone with technical skills in the topic being studied, who is responsible for “feasibility”, but should still speak the language of the working team, which is a language of illogical exploration. Gordon describes that the feasibility is important because “the most important single aspect of a Synectics working group is the implementation (in the form of working models) of those concepts developed into solutions.”

In the remainder (and majority) of the chapter, Gordon describes the history of the research that led to the Synectics theory. The work began in 1944; their first data gathering was with a person skilled both in psychoanalysis and invention, and was working on advancing and redesigning an altimeter. The individual used a think-aloud approach as they worked through an investigation process of redesign, and the verbal protocol is included. From that protocol, Gordon established four psychological states at play: detachment from the problem and then involvement in the problem, deferment of a solution, speculation, and autonomy of object, as if the problem has taken on a life of its own. This work then led to further interviews with people in art and science, but in these cases, the interviewers were present. Gordon’s team determined that this was not a strong approach, because their presence and questioning disrupted some of the participants’ ability to work creatively. However, the four psychological states remained at play, even for those participants who felt they were unable to work effectively while being interviewed.

Gordon notes that in the groups they observed, there was always at least one person who used “self-protection” to avoid participating in or fostering the creative process, often because it questioned their abilities as experts.

He also notes that, without recording the sessions, his team was unable to truly analyze their technique itself.

Next, Gordon describes an experimental data gathering approach that was called the Rock Pool Experiment, conducted in 1948. In this work, unrelated artists of a variety of mediums were invited to live in the same house for several months. Their experiences were taped, and because the individuals were often in close quarters and collaborating, they discussed their internal dialogues related to creativity; this provided the team the ability to identify how their creative process worked.

Based on the assumption that the creative process in art and technology was the same, the team turned to investigating technologists who were involved in invention. The team also evaluated research into psychology through literature reviews. In 1952, the team established a working group in a company, focused on invention. Gordon describes how, from then until 1959, their research work became more mature and they began to operationalize their investigations; from then on, their findings matured quickly.

The four states that were identified earlier became “more plastic, more manageable in an operational context.” The group identified more states, as well. One of these was to use things that are commonplace as a starting form of thinking about a problem to solve.

Gordon describes that, in 1956, the group focused on defining the role of a leader in a creative group. He noted that, while a leader has authority, they observed that leadership role shifting continually throughout a set of creative sessions. Their conclusion was that the leader is actually encouraging the group to second-guess him, or to win his approval.

In 1958, Gordon describes that the group identified another state or way of being during creative problem solving – the goal of “making the familiar strange.” This was then fed purposefully into working sessions as an approach, and the team concluded that it is a consistently effective way of provoking invention.

Another state that emerged was the sense of pleasure that emerged in someone who was creative, not just when they solved a problem, but when they saw a path towards solving it. By recognizing the pleasure sensing, people can then understand better when their process is “working” effectively.

In 1957, the group identified yet another state or way of being: creative people use play effectively, and in three ways. First, they play with words, meanings, and definitions. Next, they play in pushing a law or scientific concept “out of phase.” And, they play with metaphor. Playing with metaphor was considered one of the most effective ways of making the familiar strange, by using simile (what if this is like that?)

This first chapter serves as an introduction to the rest of the book, which then is structured around these different states or ways of being.

What I learned and what I think

First, I’m struck by the time this was written—1944—and how little I (and others) know about this. All of the things that are being described are the underpinnings of most of the creative methods that we would champion at frog, Modernist, and Narrative, and that are at the center of the ideation phase of the “design thinking” process that swept over corporate America, but none of them are popularly credited to Gordon. One reason may be because the work is now grounded in academic papers, but his work was also present in corporations in the 40s. References to him and his team haven’t lived on, and neither has the word Synectics. I feel like I missed when I wrote both Exposing the Magic of Design and Creative Clarity, because these concepts should have been included (and may have even caused me to shift, or avoid, writing the content in the first place, as it’s already been written!)

I’m considering several parts of this in parallel.

The four stages, which evolved into more, seem right-ish. These included:

• Detachment from the problem and then involvement in the problem
• Deferment of a solution
• Speculation
• Autonomy of object, as if the problem has taken on a life of its own
• Using things that are commonplace
• Making the familiar strange
• Using play (and especially metaphor.)

I like “autonomy of object”, as if the problem is a player in the solutioning, and that resonates with me as a part of the give-and-take of iterative drawing. I sketch something, I look at it, it looks back at me, and we change something together.

Of course, making the familiar strange fits perfectly, and I’m great at it (I think) because I find the whole world to be a lot “stranger” than most people, or so it seems. Additionally, play, and both metaphor and language games, have always struck me as fundamental for creativity. One missing, and perhaps something to further investigate, is the use of irreverence in the process, which I’ve always found helpful.

A lot of the writing sets the stage for collaboration, and the right way of forming a collaborative group to be creative. We gesture at this when we do corporate training, but I’ve always felt that something about the people who tend to thrive in corporations makes them also “bad” at this form of creative rapid game playing, probably because of the “I don’t want to look dumb” or “I don’t want to break any glass” part that’s required to sit at the grown-up table. I also reflect on the fluidity with which, after almost 15 years of working together, Matt, Chad and I were able to spin up almost all of the qualities that Gordon describes as effective. I think that’s because we worked through any part of politicking, embarrassment, pleasantries, and the “rhythm” of creativity allowed for all of the methods above to just flow without concern.

I’m also reflecting on the research methods Gordon used, which are almost all based on recordings of real-world sessions. It’s the same as in the Reflective Practitioner, and as far as I can remember, the same as in Herb Simon’s work. It’s also the same process used in strong qualitative research (some sort of inception thing going on here). I like the method. It’s logistically difficult, based on the worry many companies have about showing the “secret sauce” (ugh). I wonder if there are other methods that could be used, such as the selfie studies that we were embracing at Narrative.

And, I’m continually thinking about the way researchers seem to view creativity as “big creativity”—coming up with meaningful insights about big problems, or driving big innovations, rather than the pragmatic part of operationalized creativity which we find now in most companies that worry about ”shipping software.” Creativity is still happening in those places, and I think these approaches are at play, but it’s very different than the grandiosity with which this academic research keeps discussing it. I think it’s a mixture of a few things. It’s selection based, because if you research people focused on big creativity, you’ll find methods about that. It also may be time-period based, as if design was more about invention at that point in history (I don’t know that to be true, and a lot of what I remember about industrial design history actually says that most designers were bemoaning “doing the plastics”, but my timing may be off).

I enjoyed this text, and I’m going to keep reading the rest of the book; I may jump to the topic on playfulness.