Building your creative thinking skills means familiarizing yourself with two types of thinking: divergent thinking and convergent thinking. In this short video, I explain the difference between convergent and divergent thinking and give you some hints about how to use these two types of thinking to your best advantage.
Divergent Thinking
Divergent thinking is when we’re able to come up with many varied possibilities. It’s when we’re able to come up with ideas, but it’s also when we’re able to come up with lots of varied forms of information or lots of different possible solutions or lots of different, even lots of questions can be a form of divergent thinking.
Convergent Thinking
Convergent thinking is when we analyze the options and it’s when we make choices.
When to Use Divergent and Convergent Thinking
Now the problem that most of us have is that we use both divergent thinking and convergent thinking at the same time, and it’s just like hitting the accelerator and the brake at the same time. You’re not going to go anywhere or you’re just going to end up in the same place that you were yesterday.
When you separate those two types of thinking–when you separate your divergent thinking from your convergent thinking–that’s when you can really create new options and new possibilities.
We teach divergent and convergent thinking skills, along with other creative thinking skills in our courses The Innovative Team Mindset and Creative Problem-Solving Skills and Tools.
