Well done! You have made it to the final pearl of February for the book The Creative Mindset: Mastering the Six Skills That Empower Innovation by Jeff and Staney DeGraff. This last pearl will focus on the techniques of Translate and Evaluate.

"We create art, commerce, and communities based on what we can conjure up from our imagination and on how we connect these stories with those of others."

- Jeff and Staney DeGraff

5. Translate - Communicating your innovation to others.*

The TRANSLATE skill transforms ideas and visions into compelling stories that inspire and unify others. Storytelling is a powerful tool for conveying visions and explaining concepts, triggering imagination to find solutions. Successful innovators excel in translating their ideas into recognizable narratives through techniques like storyboarding, morphologies, and scenario-making. Our ability to communicate through storytelling is a critical, creative skill, shaping strategies and forming community connections. Through storytelling, we bridge the gap between imagination and reality, driving innovation, commerce, and the formation of cohesive communities.

There are three techniques for the Translate Skill. They are:

• Storyboarding: Storyboarding is a method that visually maps out the progression of a story, organizing its elements and sequences from one situation to the next. Originating from primitive before-and-after sequences like cave paintings, it's evolved into a modern technique used in filmmaking, comic strips, video game creation, and workspace development.
• Morphologies: Morphologies involve breaking down complex systems, like biological variations or storytelling structures, into organized forms and structures. This method simplifies complexity by identifying attributes and functions, allowing for the creation of new combinations and interpretations. In storytelling, morphologies enable the creation of diverse narratives by rearranging characters and plot elements. Similarly, in product design, morphologies facilitate the generation of diverse variations by combining different attributes and functions.
• Scenario Making: Scenario making involves creating narratives about potential future situations based on analyzing current underlying forces like politics and economics. Used in strategic planning for complex organizations, it predicts outcomes of multilayered scenarios by examining various drivers and adjusting based on new information. It helps gauge probabilities and impacts, aiding in decision-making amidst uncertainty.

"Evaluating ideas can be more of an art than a science."

- Jeff and Staney DeGraff

6. Evaluate - Analyze and select the best path forward.*

The evaluate skill involves assessing ideas from multiple angles to determine their feasibility and potential impact. This process combines divergent thinking, which generates a wide range of ideas without judgment, and convergent thinking, which evaluates and selects the most viable options based on criteria like impact and scalability. By balancing creativity with practicality, teams can identify innovative yet executable solutions. This structured approach, utilized in Innovatrium's brainstorming process, encourages the exploration of unconventional ideas while ensuring they align with organizational goals and resources.

Divergent criteria:

• Influence: Assess the idea's potential to impact the market and gain organizational support and resources.
• Interest: Evaluate the idea's relevance to stakeholders, including customers, and its potential to prioritize over current projects.
• Imagination: Determine if the idea is genuinely innovative and has the potential to enhance capabilities significantly.
• Urgency: Consider the necessity and timeliness of the idea's implementation and the consequences of not pursuing it.
• Immediacy: Assess the immediate opportunity and profitability timeline associated with the idea.
• Direction: Analyze how the idea aligns with strategic objectives, its potential to explore new markets, and its capacity to develop new capabilities.

Convergent criteria:

• Cost: Evaluate the idea's budget implications, including development, marketing, and potential cost savings. Consider opportunities for cost-sharing with existing products and ensure that benefits outweigh expenses.
• Time: Assess production timelines, trade-offs between speed and quality, and resource allocation to fit the idea into operational rhythms.
• Feasibility: Determine the idea's operational viability within current systems, resource requirements, and evidence of effectiveness.
• Acceptability: Evaluate the idea's simplicity of explanation, compatibility with target market lifestyles, alignment with prevailing values, and potential for endorsement.
• Usefulness: Analyze the idea's necessity, existing alternatives, and short- and long-term benefits in addressing identified needs.

Finally, for creativity and innovation to flourish, you need to find your 'Flow State.'

Finding your flow state involves recognizing the natural rhythms of creativity and adjusting your processes accordingly. These states, termed "flow states" by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, are periods of intense creativity that occur at certain times of the day for each individual. While these moments may seem beyond our control, understanding our own biorhythms can help us optimize our creative potential. By aligning our habits with this natural peak productivity, we can enhance our ability to enter a flow state and maximize our creative output.

Here are three ways you can increase your flow state:

• Build Flow States into Your Day
• Get up and Go outside
• Re-create the Environment in Which You are Most Creative

*DeGraff, S., & DeGraff, J. (2020). The Creative Mindset: Mastering the Six Skills that Empower Innovation. Berrett-Koehler.