0:00 Have you ever stopped to think
0:02 what kind of camera
0:03 would you take on a trip to the moon?
0:06 Remember this is 60 years ago when cameras weren't electronic.
0:09 There were no iPhones
0:10 or anything like that.
0:11 Cameras were all mechanical
0:13 and a lot of very fine precision
0:15 mechanics, the kind of thing that doesn't take kindly
0:19 to being shaken up
0:20 in the vibrations of a of a rocket launch.
0:23 So, how would you make sure that you have
0:26 good photographs to bring back?
0:28 Think how disappointing it would be if you returned
0:30 home and your friends said, "Come on, show us your photographs."
0:34 And you had to say, "Well, actually I didn't take any cuz the camera
0:37 broke before I got there."
0:39 So, NASA had to make sure that they took
0:42 very good quality cameras
0:44 and they chose as the the camera supplier
0:48 a little Swedish company called
0:51 Hasselblad at that time
0:52 was a world leader, possibly
0:54 the world leader in very fine precision cameras.
1:00 Kind of cameras that professionals
1:01 use for things like surveying,
1:03 architectural pictures, uh important
1:06 wedding photographs, fashion shoots, and things of that sort.
1:11 Um and Hasselblad had been making these
1:14 cameras for a great many years, established
1:16 a very strong position.
1:18 So, Hasselblad cameras went to the moon.
1:20 By the way, uh people say there are 11,
1:23 some people say 12 cameras
1:25 that didn't come back.
1:26 They're still lying on the surface of the moon
1:29 because the little um lunar lander, which was used for the return journey,
1:34 had a very tight weight limitation.
1:37 And by the time
1:38 the astronauts had loaded up all the rock samples
1:41 they wanted to bring back,
1:42 there was no room left for the cameras.
1:44 So, the cameras were all left behind.
1:46 So, there are these 11 or 12
1:48 Hasselblad cameras lying on the surface of the moon.
1:51 I think it's the first recorded
1:52 example of spaceflight tipping.
2:02 very strong in making these kind of high-performance cameras.
2:06 Fast forward 20 years,
2:07 Hasselblad has a because
2:10 competitors are starting to eat into their territory
2:14 by introducing new cameras
2:15 with electronic controls and the like,
2:18 which were much more
2:19 um efficient and much less likely to suffer from being knocked and bumped
2:24 than the Hasselblad mechanical cameras.
2:26 What does Hasselblad It hires some consultants
2:30 and it sits down to have conversations
2:31 about what's our future
2:33 and there are lots of discussions
2:35 about opportunities in and the talks get nowhere.
2:39 Just goes round and round in circles.
2:42 And then somebody says, "Wait a minute.
2:44 Hasselblad's skills are actually in fine precision mechanics.
2:49 We're looking at the wrong problem.
2:51 We're asking what's its future in the camera business.
2:54 We should be asking
2:55 what's its future in fine mechanical engineering businesses."
3:00 Intake of breath from the senior management
3:02 of Hasselblad, conversation starts
3:05 and all of a sudden
3:06 lots of fresh ideas
3:08 come to the surface.
3:10 And that's an example
3:11 of reframing the problem
3:14 in order to open up
3:15 fresh ways of looking at it.
3:18 It's an example of what I call creative thinking.
3:23 It's a particular kind of creativity.
3:25 It's It's what you might call useful creativity.
3:29 And by that I mean useful in a business
3:32 I'm sure we've all heard,
3:33 maybe even played that little
3:34 parlor game, can you think of 100 uses for a paper clip?
3:39 And that's fun, but it's not particularly
3:41 useful in a business sense
3:43 unless of course you happen to be a paper clip manufacturer.
3:49 that is really my first
3:51 key learning point today
3:54 creativity can be very valuable
3:57 in a business sense.
3:58 It's worth trying to build your creativity
4:01 skills because they are important
4:03 skills to have as an asset
4:06 in your careers in life in
4:09 So that's learning point number one. Creativity is important.
4:14 At this point, I suspect some of you are feeling a bit despondent
4:17 and miserable because you're thinking to yourself,
4:20 well, if creativity is important
4:22 in um that's me
4:25 doomed because I'm not particularly creative.
4:29 Let's just test that.
4:30 Um I think the world divides
4:32 into those who are really very creative
4:35 and those who are not particularly creative.
4:38 Hands up those who think they're in the very creative
4:42 1 2 3 4.
4:46 Okay, so there there are some of you who are in the the creative
4:49 camp, which means that the majority
4:51 are in the not very creative camp. And that's okay. That's fine. That's normal.
4:57 Um nothing to be ashamed of.
4:59 And really it's to you that I'm addressing the rest of my remarks
5:04 you might be thinking, well, that's me
5:07 You'd be wrong because creativity
5:09 can be Let me just
5:12 explore that a little bit.
5:14 How many of you have ever watched children playing?
5:19 1 2 3 Yes, good.
5:21 You're getting used to this hands-up business.
5:24 children are very creative.
5:27 You give them a a set of plastic
5:28 bricks and they start building a throne or a castle.
5:32 You give them a little rag doll
5:34 and they create a a talkative
5:36 lifelong friend or a policeman or a monster.
5:40 You give them a scruffy old cardboard
5:42 box and before you know it they've created a train or a space rocket.
5:47 Children are enormously creative.
5:51 And yet, by the time we reach our late teens, early 20s,
5:56 most of you think you're not creative.
5:59 So, what happens to the creativity
6:01 you were born with?
6:02 Where did it all go
6:05 There are theories about this.
6:07 Some people argue that it's all the fault of the education
6:10 system because we're trained
6:12 throughout our education to be sensible,
6:15 to be logical, to grow up.
6:18 All the sorts of things that in a way are the opposite
6:21 of being creative and
6:24 So, the challenge is can we recreate
6:27 in you that creativity
6:30 that you were born with?
6:31 That's my second key learning point.
6:33 It is possible to to recreate
6:36 that that uh initial creativity
6:40 that you were born with.
6:41 And I'm going to show you how,
6:43 or give you some clues, some pointers at least.
6:47 The first thing to do
6:48 is to aim to be curious.
6:52 That's a mantra that you should keep firmly in mind. Be curious.
6:57 Develop your sense of curiosity.
7:00 Because if you're curious
7:01 about things around you, what you do over time is that you collect
7:05 an enormous database, I could almost call it, of things you have seen, things you've learned.
7:12 And that is a tremendous
7:15 Because when you're faced with a
7:18 a creative mind says, "You know what?
7:20 I've seen something like that before.
7:21 How Oh, yes, that was fixed in that way.
7:24 Can I borrow something
7:26 from that previous situation,
7:28 repurpose it as a way of solving the challenge that I'm currently facing?"
7:33 And the more you have that
7:35 rich library of experiences,
7:38 the more likely you are
7:39 to be able to find something that's helpful as a
7:43 a starting point for coming up with a
7:47 How do you build your curiosity?
7:51 The first thing to to really stress
7:53 is to be out of your comfort zone as much as
7:59 If you only ever do the same old things over and over and over,
8:02 you won't learn very much.
8:04 Whereas the more you deliberately
8:06 step out of your comfort zone,
8:09 the more you are likely to have new experiences
8:11 and build that library
8:13 that that is so important
8:14 as an underpinning for
8:17 So, read a lot. Read books. Read articles.
8:20 Read magazines, particularly in subjects
8:23 outside your own subject.
8:25 It's not a waste of time.
8:27 It's all about building the library. Explore different cultures. Explore different architectures.
8:36 Explore different ways that people work and think and live.
8:40 Particularly in a business context,
8:42 so you know who you're dealing with
8:43 when you're working in an international
8:48 fill your library with these
8:52 So, that's an important
8:52 part of learning to be curious.
8:56 There are three little words which are very helpful.
8:59 The first of which is how.
9:01 Keep asking yourself how.
9:02 How does something work?
9:04 We'll give you an example.
9:06 Um when I was a student,
9:07 my girl my then girlfriend
9:09 complained that the three-speed
9:12 gear on her bicycle wasn't working.
9:15 And I was overjoyed
9:17 because it gave me an excuse
9:18 to take it to bits to find out how it worked.
9:21 How does one of these things work?
9:23 Has anybody ever taken one of these to
9:27 It's full of little cogs
9:28 and wheels and springs
9:30 and poles and ratchets.
9:31 It's a three-dimensional jigsaw
9:33 puzzle of little bits and pieces.
9:35 I took it to bits,
9:36 fixed it, and eventually
9:38 put it back together again.
9:40 Um my joy my
9:42 girlfriend was overjoyed, and I learned a lot.
9:45 By the way, one of the things I learned was never ever ever
9:48 take one of these to pieces
9:50 on your front lawn
9:52 because what happens is all the little tiny cogs and springs and wheels,
9:56 when you take the lid off, go cling,
9:58 and then you spend the next 2 hours scrabbling in the grass
10:01 looking for the little bits.
10:03 So, don't do what I did.
10:06 But that's an example
10:07 of what I mean. You're asking how.
10:08 How does something Another key question is why.
10:13 You know, why is the sky blue?
10:16 Why do we use red for stop and green for
10:20 What is it about those colors
10:21 that mean that they mean stop and go?
10:24 Why are the Why is the width between the railway lines
10:27 4 ft 8 and 1/2 in?
10:29 Very funny Um when Brunel in the 19th century
10:34 tried to advocate his broad gauge,
10:36 his rails were 7 ft and 1/4 in apart.
10:40 Now, 7 ft I can understand.
10:42 It's a right nice round number.
10:45 But what's with the 1/4 in?
10:47 7 ft and 1/4
10:48 in is a very funny distance, I think.
10:51 So, asking why all the time.
10:54 And the third question to ask is who.
10:57 You know, who runs the internet, for example.
11:00 So, keep asking who questions.
11:02 So, how something work,
11:05 why do we do things in a particular
11:07 way, who is involved in in things.
11:12 So, build your library
11:13 by asking The The second thing that you can do to boost your creativity
11:18 is to pay attention
11:20 to the sorts of
11:22 articles and tips and tricks and techniques
11:25 that you will find on the internet.
11:27 There are loads of them.
11:28 Uh just one or two that I found particularly useful.
11:33 remember that it's about play.
11:36 It's about recreating that sense of play you had when you were a child.
11:40 And so, one of the things that's that could be very important
11:43 is to to to be
11:50 You've come across the idea that
11:51 many firms, I'm sure you've read about,
11:53 have relaxation areas, comfortable
11:56 furnishings, bright colors, where people can just lounge about.
12:00 That's not being idle.
12:01 That's deliberately recreating that sense of play space to encourage creativity.
12:07 And we do it in Royal
12:09 This is um in the Shilling Building on the the Egham campus.
12:14 It's where the the electronic
12:15 engineering department has its home.
12:18 We call it the creative thinking room.
12:21 And it's it's a nice bright
12:23 light space with lots of bright colors, comfortable furnishings,
12:26 even bean bags you can sit on.
12:29 So, no chairs like this,
12:30 but just sort of comfortable
12:32 lounging about In this particular
12:35 photograph, it's being used for a lecture.
12:38 But for a lot of the time, it's used by groups of people or
12:41 individuals trying to solve problems.
12:44 And it's where the PhD
12:45 students go to wrestle
12:46 with some problem they have.
12:49 Um it's where groups of undergrads
12:51 who are trying to deal with a an assignment
12:54 will go to to be creative
12:55 because it's a nice relaxing play space. So, relaxation.
13:02 That's dealing with the
13:04 if you like, the physical environment.
13:07 But you also have to remember that there are there are other things
13:10 that that you need to pay attention
13:11 to if you want to be creative.
13:15 For example, can anybody can anybody tell me
13:18 the solution to this
13:23 Surely somebody must be able to suggest it? Yes. Got it. Well done. Gold star.
13:33 Everybody assumes that this is
13:35 somebody from the inside
13:37 looking out and falling 26 floors. But it's not.
13:41 The person concerned is on the outside looking in.
13:44 And when they jump into the building,
13:46 they simply land on the carpet and they're fine.
13:50 The point of this is
13:51 we tend to make
13:53 And if you want to be creative,
13:55 one of the good ways to be
13:56 creative is to is to look at a challenge,
13:59 to look at a problem,
14:00 and find out what are the assumptions
14:03 that are built into it.
14:04 Because very often those assumptions
14:06 are leading you down blind alleys
14:08 or blocking you from being creative.
14:11 If you can understand
14:12 what the what the assumptions
14:13 are and challenge those assumptions,
14:16 that can open up
14:18 a whole lot of new thinking.
14:20 It's a bit like the Hasselblad
14:21 assumption that they were a camera business,
14:24 where in fact they were a fine precision mechanical
14:26 engineering And when somebody said, "Let's look at
14:31 opportunities in that bigger business space."
14:34 Suddenly the conversation opened All right.
14:39 So, this is dealing with the physical environment.
14:43 But of course another part of the environment
14:45 is the the psychological
14:51 We we like to try to create an environment, don't we?
14:53 In which people feel
14:55 comfortable about coming forward with an idea.
14:57 Let's let's say an R&D
14:59 chap sitting in a
15:01 a product committee brainstorming
15:03 meeting trying to come up with ideas
15:05 for a new product.
15:07 What you want to have happen
15:09 is that this guy comes up with a a bright idea.
15:13 You want all your staff, if you're working in a any kind of management
15:16 position, you want your staff to feel
15:19 able to come forward bright ideas.
15:22 Remember, this is dangerous
15:25 because in most organizations,
15:27 there are people around
15:28 you in in the group
15:30 who will do anything to try and push you down
15:33 in order to build up their own position.
15:36 Look at the expression
15:37 on the face of this this guy.
15:39 Let's call him a marketing guy.
15:40 It's not that I dislike marketing.
15:42 If any of you in the room are marketing
15:44 people, I'm not getting at you.
15:46 But, there's just a
15:47 a person in the room
15:49 who is very suspicious
15:51 of this person who's come up with the idea.
15:54 So, as a manager,
15:55 you want to create
15:56 an environment in which this guy
15:58 is happy to come up with an idea.
16:00 What you want to avoid
16:03 is the situation where
16:05 this guy, the marketing
16:07 guy, is is really breaching
16:09 out and crushing the idea that's just been put on the table.
16:13 What do you think
16:14 this poor R&D guy feels
16:16 like at this moment?
16:18 Do you think he will ever dare
16:20 to come forward with a bright idea in future?
16:23 What do you think's happened to his sense of creativity?
16:27 It's shriveled and crushed.
16:31 So, here's a lesson.
16:32 If you want to be creative,
16:34 and if as a manager,
16:35 you want your team to be creative,
16:38 your task is to create this sort of atmosphere
16:41 of being willing to be brave
16:44 and come up with an idea.
16:46 You want to avoid
16:47 this sort of behavior.
16:49 And any of you who've ever studied the technique of brainstorming
16:53 will know that one of the success
16:55 factors for a good brainstorming
16:57 session is to avoid the use of the word but.
17:01 So, when this guy comes up with an idea,
17:04 you're not allowed, Mr.
17:05 Marketing guy, to say, "But,
17:07 that will never work."
17:09 Or, "But, that's too expensive."
17:11 Or, "But, we tried it before and it didn't work last time."
17:15 You never say but in a brainstorming.
17:17 You always say and.
17:20 Yes, I get your idea and I can build on it
17:23 by proposing a way to do it at lower
17:26 or to do it in a different
17:27 way from the way we did it last time.
17:32 So, here are some some thoughts about creativity.
17:35 My first idea was first thought
17:37 was that creativity is valuable.
17:40 Secondly, it is possible
17:42 to recreate your creativity.
17:44 And thirdly, I suggested
17:46 a few ways in which you can help yourself
17:48 and people around you
17:50 to be more creative.
17:55 And I hope that's something which you can take away and be be
17:57 find find Uh and what of Hasselblad?
18:03 Hasselblad is is still there. It's still going.
18:06 It's still making cameras
18:08 and a lot of other things as well, including electronic cameras.
18:13 it's currently owned by a Chinese
18:15 company who make commercial
18:17 drones for doing surveys
18:19 of of the land.
18:21 Um and clearly having a high precision
18:23 camera mounted in that drone
18:25 would be very useful.
18:26 That's why the Chinese company bought Hasselblad.
18:29 So, it's still there.
18:30 It's still making cameras.
18:32 Um and I'd like to think that
18:34 back in the early 1980s
18:36 when that conversation around what businesses
18:39 is he in took place,
18:41 um that was a way that helped Hasselblad
18:43 to get over the threat that it faced at that time.
18:46 I can tell the Hasselblad
18:47 story because I was that rather naive
18:50 green consultant who in a boardroom
18:53 in Sweden in 1983
18:55 told the bosses of the world's leading camera manufacturer
18:59 that they weren't in the camera business.
19:02 and I've gone on trying to be usefully creative ever since.
19:06 And I hope that in sharing
19:07 with you just a few of the things I've learned along the way
19:10 will help you to be usefully
19:12 creative in your careers as well.
19:15 Thank you for listening.
