Note: This blog post is inspired by the content shared during our recent webinar on Divergent Thinking, which you can watch the recording of here.
Divergent thinking is central to creativity. But what does it really mean to think divergently? And when should you employ divergent thinking as opposed to its opposite, convergent thinking?
We’ve broken down the difference between divergent and convergent thinking, from the work of Alex Osborn and Sidney Parnes, and how you can use both in tandem to improve your creative processes.
What is the difference between convergent thinking and divergent thinking?
Divergent thinking is pure, open-ended idea generation. It involves tossing out ideas as they come to mind while resisting the urge to judge their quality. Brainstorming and freewriting are classic examples of divergent thinking.
Convergent thinking, on the other hand, is analytic and evaluative. It attempts to arrive at the best idea or correct solution. You can think of divergent thinking as ‘expanding outwards’ and convergent thinking as ‘narrowing down’.
Thinking divergently can be hard
While divergent thinking is an essential component of any creative process, it is one that many people struggle with. This may be because it involves a whole lot of being wrong. Nine out of ten ideas generated in a brainstorming session might end up on the scrap heap. But this is a feature, not a bug! When we see the creative outputs of others, we’re not privy to the iterative process that has produced them – instead, we see only the ideas that survive. This can lead to a distorted view of our own idea generation as messier and more mistake-laden than everyone else’s. But this view is the result of survivorship bias (we only see those ideas from others that "survived" their own evaluation process - we don't see the larger set of potential ideas they generated along the way).
There’s also an argument to be made that the modern school system, with its overwhelming emphasis on ‘correct answers’ and standardized testing, may systematically stifle our ability and willingness to think divergently. Some research supports this theory – for example, in a landmark 2011 paper on what she termed ‘the creativity crisis’, researcher Kyung Hee Kim identified a downward trend in scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking among US students since the 1990s, despite IQ scores increasing. Many of us are conditioned to have a fear-based aversion to making mistakes and to internalize a false dichotomy between ‘work’ and ‘play,’ where the former is usually characterized by convergent (rather than divergent) thinking.
Convergent and divergent thinking should be used together
One trap you can fall into regarding convergent and divergent thinking is to conceptualize them as two completely opposing modes with very different use cases. But the truth is that most creative projects involve using a combination of the two. That’s why we recommend a process that alternates between them to maximize creativity and effectiveness:
Step 1: Go Deep (research / define)
Determine the scope of your project
Deepen your knowledge of the relevant area (for example, through customer research or reading the analyses of others)
Step 2: Go Wide (creative / divergent)
Brainstorm without judgment. Give yourself permission to come up with bad ideas!
Consider what you would do with no constraints on time, money, or resources to help with the generative process
Step 3: Go Narrow (analytic / convergent)
Evaluate your ideas and hone in on the best ones
Reintroduce real-world constraints
Step 4: Go Up (synthesize / iterate)
Widen back out from convergent to divergent
Try to look past your first good idea, and try to improve on the ideas you already have
There are a couple of potential pitfalls to avoid when implementing this process. First, don’t simply play to your strengths! People are often more inclined towards either convergent or divergent thinking. Try to put a concerted effort into engaging with the mode that feels less natural to you. Training both muscles is most likely to set you up for success.
Second, resist the temptation to stop at the third stage. It’s easy to become overly attached to the first good idea you land on, but the fourth stage is what can often elevate projects from good to great. Branching back out during this final phase also allows you to synthesize elements of solutions or ideas from subsequent phases. In doing so, you’ll unearth new possibilities that may otherwise have gone undiscovered.
To wrap up, here are five takeaways on divergent thinking:
Divergent thinking will initially produce lots of bad ideas and wrong solutions – and that’s a good thing – it's part of the process!
You may feel resistance to thinking divergently. Overcoming this can lead to a more fruitful creative process.
Divergent and convergent thinking are not in opposition. They should simply be employed at different stages of the creative process.
You should try to train both your divergent and your convergent thinking muscles, even if you feel more naturally inclined towards one or the other.
When starting a new creative project, go deep, wide, narrow, then up.
To help you put these ideas (and many more) into practice, check out Kitted.shop, where you can buy physical prompt cards to boost your collaborative brainstorming sessions.
And if you want to take your creative thinking further, why not try our free, interactive Enhancing Creativity tool: