Ron Huey, ECD Huey+Partners – One of the Southeast’s most widely-acclaimed creative agencies with over 300 local, regional and international awards.

I agreed to have my thinking patterns assessed and to participate in a training program to integrate genius-thinking patterns in my creative process with a bit of skepticism. What could I possibly learn in a couple of hours to improve my approach to creativity? I have been living, creating and producing in the creative world for over 25 years.

The way I described my approach to creative problem solving and the profile of my thinking patterns from the EdgeDweller assessment meshed. They were able to tell me the significance of my patterns relative to transformational thinking. (News to me!) What I realized from the review of these two pieces is that I too quickly discarded creative solutions that were not firmly grounded, I put up critical filters too early in my own process. The work with the EdgeDweller team helped me identify those filters and gave me exercises that allowed me to essentially bypass those filters early in the creative concepting stage. Instead of feeling creatively stifled, I was able to get more ideas on paper without really thinking through if they were right or not. Applying my more critical filters could always come later.

As I sit here one week later, I find myself going back to one exercise in particular that helps advance my thinking more quickly and more imaginatively. I understand better the significance of the balance of creative and critical thinking and even more importantly when to use creative process and when to use critical process. Now I get to a wider range of creative ideas more quickly. Even if some seem irrelevant initially, I have the ability to revisit them, tweak and ground them with critical thinking. The process is not as mysterious as it was. Understanding how my mind works was a real eye-opener. The ability to pull different thinking patterns up on command is a great tool. I can only think this could be of benefit to anyone who gets paid to come up with ideas for a living.