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5-Steps in the Creative Process

Good decision-making is not the most important intellectual process. That distinction belongs to creating better alternatives. Toward that effort we should recognize the importance of creativity. I recently came across a sequence of steps that seems an appropriate creative process.

Attributed to Frank Feather and Gayle Hudgens, "A Whole-Brained Approach to Futuristic Management," AMA Management Digest (April 1982?) in The Silva Mind Control Method for Business Managers, by Jose Silva, 1983, Prentice Hall, pp. 40-41:

Five Steps in the Creative Process

1. Preparation. The left brain does its homework.
2. Absorption. The right brain images the groundwork and the goal.
3. Incubation. A period of gestation and maturation of ideas that takes place at the subconscious level.
4. Illumination. The "Eureka!" factor. The idea explodes into our conscious when we least expect it.
5. Verification. A logical left brain process that eliminates extraneous ideas and checks the final conclusion.

In using the "Silva Method," a person "programs" the mind to work on important problems. While I am skeptical about some of the claims, the Silva Method has many devotees.

—John Schuyler, December 1997.

Copyright © 1997 by John R. Schuyler. All rights reserved. Permission to copy with reproduction of this notice.