Did you ever wonder why something was done?  Not just completed, but why it was done ... on a much deeper level.

Just how do you go about figuring that out?  There are so many different ways of attacking the question. Just how do you get to the root?  It's simpler than you may think.  Just ask a kid how they learn.

It's the Five Whys.

The system is deceptively simple and the results are astonishingly insightful.  Let's do an example. 

Let's look at why we lock the doors to our houses.  Start off with the first question, then ask another why question ... formulated from the previous answer.  Do it five times. Five levels deep.  Sometimes you get an answer sooner, sometimes you can go even deeper.  

Why do we lock the doors to our homes? To keep people out.

Why do we keep people out? Because some people we don't want in our house.

Why don't we want them in our house? Because we don't want them stealing from us.

Why will they steal from us?  Because they want our stuff to get money.

Why do they want money? Because they don't have a job.

So you can see, one of the reasons that we lock our doors is that there are people who don't have a job that may steal from us.  (No social commentaries allowed here...this is an illustration).

Let's try another.  This is one that I...

Stone Soup

You can't eat a stone, but in the fable, the stone is the first ingredient that is used for a delicious pot of hot soup.

How did that happen?

It was from the contribution of many others to the singular effort of creating soup. Everyone contributed different items to the pot until the soup was completed.  

So what was the contribution of the stone?

It was the idea that inspired others to contribute.  It didn't contribute to the final product yet was completely responsible for it. 

Creativity And Inert Ingredients

Are you stuck in a non-creative situation?  Is your group or team failing to come up with new ideas or solutions to a problem?  Maybe what you need is to feel comfortable putting forth ideas that are totally different.  "Stone ideas" whose purpose is only to stimulate other ideas, knowing that they won't make it to the end solution.  

The paradox of using an ingredient essential to the creation of, but contributes nothing to, the final product. 

Maybe it's time to use a stone in your creativity sessions.