[摘要]公司需要变化，需要不断寻找新创意，才能立于不败之地。但你的团队或许并不擅长创造性思维。那么，如何让团队成员跳出常规套路，提出独辟蹊径的创意呢？一些看似简单的方法，其实很有帮助。

You’re trying to get your team to think creatively. But instead you’re getting blank stares… followed by feeble, minor variations of solutions you’ve already heard a dozen times. What can you do?

你努力让团队进行有创意的思考，结果却只看到茫然困惑的眼神……最终得到的解决方案，跟自己看过几十遍的那些鸡肋方案大同小异。对此，你能做些什么?

This is a common problem at most offices today. Everything seems to be in a state of flux. Long-established industries are being disrupted by newcomers and tech startups. Companies need to change, management knows it, and they are looking for fresh ideas.

这是目前大多数办公室普遍存在的问题。似乎一切都处在不断变化当中。历史悠久的行业正在被不断涌现的新生力量和科技初创公司破坏。管理层清楚，公司需要保持变化，而且他们也在不断寻找新的创意。

But you probably didn’t hire these people for their creativity. It’s not what they do. As a management consultant, I once sat and watched a team of insurance brokers try to brainstorm. It wasn’t pretty. Here are five ways to get your colleagues’ creativity engines started.

但你雇佣这些人时，或许并不是为了利用他们的创造力。那不是他们擅长做的事情。作为一名管理顾问，我曾亲身参与过一个保险经纪人团队进行头脑风暴的过程。那个场面可不太美妙。那么，如何发动同事们的“创造力引擎”呢?以下是五条建议。

1. Put them in a messy room

1. 将他们放在一个杂乱的房间里。

Sounds silly, right? A study conducted at the University of Minnesota, and published last year in the Journal of Psychological Science, found evidence that just being in a messy room can help people think more creatively.

听起来很蠢吧?明尼苏达大学(University of Minnesota)的一项研究发现，杂乱的房间可以帮助人们更有创造性地思考。该研究已在去年的《心理科学杂志》(Journal of Psychological Science)上发表。

Participants in several experiments had to fill in questionnaires while sitting in an office. Some were given a clean and tidy office; others, an office in disorder, strewn with papers and supplies everywhere.

几项实验的参与者均被要求在办公室里填写调查问卷。其中一部分坐在干净整洁的办公室里;其他人的办公室则一片杂乱，到处都散落着文件和办公用品。

Participants were then presented with various tasks to test their ability to think creatively. In a nutshell, those who had first spent time in the messy office trounced those who had been in the neat one. They were more likely to think up creative solutions to problems, and more likely to embrace new and innovative products over conventional ones.

参与者随后被安排了各种任务，以测试他们进行创造性思考的能力。简而言之，最开始在杂乱办公室的参与者，完胜在清洁办公室的人。他们更有可能想出有创意的解决方案，并且更有可能接受有创意的新产品。

“Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights,” wrote Minnesota’s Kathleen Vohls when reporting the findings. Just making the office untidy “made a whopping difference to people’s behavior,” she added.

明尼苏达大学的凯思林•沃赫尔斯在报告中写道：“杂乱的环境能够启发人们打破传统，进而产生新鲜的见解。”让办公室变得凌乱“会让人们的行为产生巨大的变化，”她补充道。

2. Get them to play liar’s poker first

2. 玩“说谎者的扑克牌”游戏

“Liar’s Poker,” a game of bluff and double-bluff played with dollar bills, was made famous by the writer Michael Lewis 25 years ago. His book of the same name chronicled the dishonesty of Wall Street, where the game is popular.

“说谎者的扑克牌”(Liar’s Poker)是用美钞玩的一种充满欺诈的扑克牌游戏，25年前，作家迈克尔•刘易斯提高了这种游戏的知名度。他的同名图书记录了流行这种游戏的华尔街的各种欺诈行为。

The game puts a premium on lying. Basically, you have to lie to win.

这种游戏鼓励撒谎。基本上，你只有撒谎才能赢。

If you can’t get enough fresh ideas out of your team, maybe you should play a few rounds. Or play any other game where participants have absolute carte blanche to lie, cheat, and steal as much as possible.

如果你的团队没有足够新鲜的创意，不妨他们玩几把这种游戏，或者能够让参与者随心所欲撒谎、欺骗和偷窃的其他游戏。

The reason? According to Francesca Gino at Harvard Business School and Scott Wiltermuth at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, there is a clear link between dishonesty and creativity.

推荐此类游戏的原因何在?哈佛商学院(Harvard Business School)的弗朗西斯卡•吉诺和南加州大学(University of Southern California)马歇尔商学院(Marshall School of Business)的斯科特•维尔特姆斯发现，欺诈与创造力之间有明确的联系。

It isn’t just that the dishonest also tend to be creative, they found. It’s that even the honest become more creative if you can first persuade them to do a little lying, cheating, and stealing.

当然，他们不仅发现不诚实的人更有创造力。即便诚实的人，只要你能说服他们进行一定程度的撒谎、欺诈和偷窃，他们也可以变得更有创造力。

The pair conducted a series of experiments in which they tested participants’ honesty and then their creativity. They also conducted experiments in which they induced the honest to behave more dishonestly.

两人进行了一系列实验，相继对参与者的诚实度和创造力进行了测试。此外，他们还进行了一些实验，旨在诱使诚实的人做出一些不太诚实的行为。

Releasing people from their ethical boundaries seems to help free their minds from abiding other rules as well, the researchers concluded.

研究人员得出的结论是，让人们突破自己的道德界限，似乎可以帮助他们解放思想，摆脱其他规则的约束。

3. Send them out for a walk

3. 让他们去散散步。

Get out of the project room. Stop sitting around that table staring at the whiteboard. Stop thinking that the more hours you are all sitting in the same room eating doughnuts the more productive you’re being.

走出办公室。不要整天坐在桌子前盯着白板。别再以为吃着甜甜圈坐在办公室里的时间越长，工作效率便越高。

People are most likely to do their best creative thinking while in motion—whether outdoors, down a corridor, or even just on a treadmill, according to research conducted recently at Stanford University.

斯坦福大学(Stanford University)近期进行的一项研究发现，人们在运动中最有可能进行最有效的创意思考——不论是在户外，在走廊里还是在跑步机上。

In a series of experiments, participants were given a variety of tests to see how well they were able to come up with creative solutions to problems. Those who answered while walking, or just after walking, fared much better. Indeed, making participants walk while answering questions doubled the number of creative responses.

在一系列实验中，参与者接受了各种测试，研究他们提出创造性解决方案的能力。在走路过程中或刚刚结束走路后回答的参与者，表现更好。事实上，让参与者在走路的同时回答问题，得到的创造性回答增加了一倍。

The research was conducted by MarilyOppezzo, now a psychologist at Santa Clara University, and was published earlier this year in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Experimental Psychology.

该项研究由圣克拉拉大学(Santa Clara University)的心理学家玛丽莉•奥佩佐主持，并已于今年早些时候在美国心理学协会(American Psychological Association)的《实验心理学》杂志(Journal of Experimental Psychology)上发表。

4. Make them read the phone book first

4. 首先让他们阅读电话簿。

Yes, really.

是的，没错。

If you want to get people to think creatively, first make them bored. Really bored. The more bored they are, the more they will daydream, and good things will follow.

如果你想让员工的思维更有创造性，首先要让他们变得无聊。真正感到无聊。他们越无聊，就越可能幻想，产生好的想法自然就水到渠成。

It sounds like a spoof, but a couple of years ago British researchers found it was no joke.

听起来像是恶搞，但几年前，英国研究人员发现这并非玩笑。

Sandi Mann and Rebekah Cadman at the University of Central Lancashire conducted experiments in which participants had to come up with creative uses for a pair of styrofoam cups.

中央兰开夏大学(University of Central Lancashire)的桑蒂•曼恩和丽贝卡•卡德曼进行了多项实验，让参与者想出两个泡沫塑料杯子的创意用途。

Those who had to copy out the phone book first for 15 minutes performed better than those who didn’t. Those who just had to read the phone book first did even better. Researchers believed that reading the phone book was even more boring than copying it out.

首先抄写15分钟电话簿的参与者，表现好于没有抄写的参与者。而首先阅读电话簿的参与者，甚至表现得更好。研究人员相信，阅读电话簿比抄写更无聊。

“Boredom at work has always been seen as something to be eliminated,” Mann said when announcing the results early last year, “but perhaps we should be embracing it in order to enhance our creativity.”

去年年初，曼恩在宣布研究结果时表示：“在工作中，无聊一直是必须被杜绝的状态之一，但为了提高创造力，我们或许应该接受它。”

外语

[发布者：yezi]

• 相关阅读：
• 职场英语：离职不是我的错！老板如何把你逼走
• 职场英语：面试你来赛 如何有效地介绍自己？
• 职场英语：英语电话面试你准备充分了吗？
• 职场英语：该睡觉时就睡觉！床上办公坏处多
• 职场英语：高效工作的15个秘诀帮助你事半功倍