Perhaps the most valuable skill for work and for life is the skill that is least taught, the ability to think. In fact, not only is the ability to think not taught, in some ways what is taught discourages good thinking. What I mean by the ability to think is how people discover new ideas and explore new concepts. This is a highly under valued skill. If we were able to see how some of the great minds think it would really bring great insight into how to approach problems and discover new ideas.

We would be surprised at how much we could learn if we allowed ourselves to think. Read what children can do when given the opportunity,

In 1999, Sugata Mitra was chief scientist at a company in New Delhi that trains software developers. His office was on the edge of a slum, and on a hunch one day, he decided to put a computer into a nook in a wall separating his building from the slum. He was curious to see what the kids would do, particularly if he said nothing. He simply powered the computer on and watched from a distance. To his surprise, the children quickly figured out how to use the machine.
Over the years, Mitra got more ambitious. For a study published in 2010, he loaded a computer with molecular biology materials and set it up in Kalikuppam, a village in southern India. He selected a small group of 10- to 14-year-olds and told them there was some interesting stuff on the computer, and might they take a look? Then he applied his new pedagogical method: He said no more and left.
Over the next 75 days, the children worked out how to use the computer and began to learn. When Mitra returned, he administered a written test on molecular biology. The kids answered about one in four questions correctly. After another 75 days, with the encouragement of a friendly local, they were getting every other question right. “If you put a computer in front of children and remove all other adult restrictions, they will self-organize around it,” Mitra says, “like bees around a flower.”

It was an amazing story a story that is almost unbelievable, except the methods have been shown to work with other children as well, 

In 2009, scientists from the University of Louisville and MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences conducted a study of 48 children between the ages of 3 and 6. The kids were presented with a toy that could squeak, play notes, and reflect images, among other things. For one set of children, a researcher demonstrated a single attribute and then let them play with the toy. Another set of students was given no information about the toy. This group played longer and discovered an average of six attributes of the toy; the group that was told what to do discovered only about four. A similar study at UC Berkeley demonstrated that kids given no instruction were much more likely to come up with novel solutions to a problem. “The science is brand-new, but it’s not as if people didn’t have this intuition before,” says coauthor Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.

These stories show the power of creative thinking. They show that if we were able to take a childlike approach to learning how much more we can learn on our own. I think it would be fascinating to see the search history for Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin,  or Warren Buffett to understand how they approach the exploration of different ideas and concepts. What really distinguishes them as leaders and innovators is the way they work through these ideas. The problem is how to think is not something we teach in schools. Thinking is not something we teach at work. We teach rote learning and not the exploration of ideas.
There is evidence that the more we are told the less we learn.

How does the lack of thinking manifest itself? The two ways I see most prominently are:1. When asked to accomplish a task, the response is either “How do I do this?” or  “That can’t be done.”  I find it very frustrating when I receive one of those responses, yet I am able to find the answer with some simple exploration.
2. The other manifestation is when individuals are asked to contribute ideas.  Most often the response is to think for a few minutes about the issue and then write down some ideas.  While that may appear to be creative thinking, it isn’t.  The lack of curiosity to understand what others have done or to do analysis on past data is a lack of creative of thinking.

I think real creative thinking starts with research and exploration. Is there existing data? What have others done in our space that has been successful? Where have others found success in other areas that may not be related?  While researching you let your mind explore what the data says, what others have done etc… iterate through what it means, how you can apply it to your situation, where else does it take you? Once you have done some real thinking, then start to solve the problem. The work of others and your exploration should bee fuel to the fire not a how to manual.