Below is a lesson from Harvard Business Review on seeing the world differently to drive creativity and innovation, as well as our key learnings.

The Blue Courage team is dedicated to continual learning and growth.  We have adopted a concept from Simon Sinek’s Start With Why team called “Learn, Share, Grow”.  We are constantly finding great articles, videos, and readings that have so much learning.  As we learn new and great things, this new knowledge should be shared for everyone to then grow from.

To Change the Way You Think, Change the Way You See

by Adam Brandenburger

April 16, 2019

Summary.  Part of thinking differently is learning to see differently. We can learn to do that from various sources — people like Robert Taylor, who invented Softsoap after he saw how goopy bar soap became after a few uses; film directors like Jean-Luc Godard, who popularized the jump cut, literary critics such as Viktor Shklovsky, who wrote about “de-familiarization”; and even Sherlock Holmes, who made many of his discoveries while telling Dr. Watson (out loud, with great condescension) exactly what he was looking at. Seeing differently is a way of countering our built-in tendency to habituate, to sink in to the familiar way of seeing and experiencing. It’s also how the future is built.

“Think Different,” said the famous 1997 Apple advertisement. Excellent advice, obviously, to all creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs.

But, along with thinking differently in order to come up with revolutionary new ideas or products, there is also seeing differently. Great creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs look at the world in ways that are different from how many of us look at things. This is why they see opportunities that other people miss.

Continue reading here.

Key Learnings:

• Thinking differently is key to innovation, but so is seeing differently.
• Great innovators spot opportunities others miss by observing the world in new ways.
• Example: George de Mestral invented Velcro after observing how burrs stuck to his clothing, leading to biomimetics.
• Innovators often succeed by examining familiar things with an unfamiliar perspective.
• De-familiarization is the process of seeing the familiar in new ways, popularized by Russian theorist Viktor Shklovsky and filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.
• To see differently, one must examine things from a new perspective, give new names, and break things down into parts.
• Maria Konnikova emphasizes separating situation from interpretation to truly observe, inspired by Sherlock Holmes.
• Describing observations out loud or writing them down can reveal new insights.
• The brain’s tendency to habituate, demonstrated by Troxler fading, can make us miss important details.
• Seeing differently is a way to counter habituation, allowing innovators to spot new opportunities and create the future.