Creativity Techniques and Team Effectiveness

with Edward Glassman, PhD

Explore the work of Edward Glassman, PhD, a pioneer in applied creativity, creative problem solving, and team effectiveness. His practical approach shows individuals and organizations how to generate more ideas, break out of habitual thinking, solve problems creatively, and build environments where innovation can flourish. This collection brings together Glassman’s articles on creativity techniques, brainstorming and brainwriting, paradigm shifting, idea development, leadership, team interaction, and organizational innovation.

20 Questions with Edward Glassman, PhD

Why is creativity important to you?

Creativity: Foundations & Principles

What is Creativity?

Learn what creativity is, how creativity triggers generate new ideas, and practical techniques for strengthening creative thinking.

Creativity is a Learnable Skill

Learn why creativity is a learnable skill and how training can strengthen creative thinking, idea generation, and problem-solving.

Linear and Nonlinear Creativity

Learn how linear and nonlinear creativity, bizarre ideas, and creative connections can lead to useful innovations.

Creative Problem-Solving & Innovation Process

Climb the Problem-Solving Ladder

An eight-step creative problem-solving process for defining problems, generating ideas, developing solutions, and creating action plans.

Creativity & Innovation Meetings

Solve Organizational Problems
Bring diverse people together to define problems, generate ideas, develop solutions, and create action plans.
Design the Meeting
Create the right environment, involve the right people, and support productive creative thinking.
Creativity Techniques for Problem Solving and Innovation
Help participants generate, combine, develop, and improve ideas during innovation meetings.

Creativity Techniques & Exercises

Brainwriting Techniques for Creative Idea Generation

Brainwriting techniques for generating ideas privately, triggering new connections, and strengthening creative thinking in groups or alone.

Future Fantasy Techniques

Creativity techniques and problem-solving methods covering creativity triggers, idea generation, team effectiveness, paradigm shifts, and innovative approaches to solving complex problems.

Like-Improve Analysis: Evaluate and Improve Creative Ideas

Practical creativity techniques for generating, evaluating, improving, and applying ideas to problems at work, school, and everyday life.

9 Magic Dots Puzzle: Thinking Outside the Box

Creative thinking puzzles and practical techniques for challenging assumptions, shifting perspectives, generating ideas, and solving problems in new ways.

Creativity in Organizations & Teams

Management Habits That Stifle Creativity at Work

Practical insights into workplace creativity, creative management, idea generation, motivation, collaboration, and strategies for creating an environment that supports innovative thinking.

Team Interaction Patterns That Affect Creativity at Work

Building creative teams, improving meeting communication, recognizing unproductive interaction patterns, and creating conditions that support participation and new ideas.

Good Relationships Improve Creative Output

Research on team creativity, creative leadership, innovation, collaboration, and building workplace environments where people can contribute their best ideas.

Can Government Be Creative and Innovative?

Practical ideas on creativity, innovation, brainstorming, problem solving, and building environments where unconventional ideas can lead to useful solutions.

Creativity, Culture

A Paradigm Shift: The Sound of One Hand Clapping

Creativity techniques and thinking tools that challenge assumptions, shift perspectives, generate ideas, and lead to more original solutions.

The Dark Side of Creativity

The surprising ways creative behavior can affect decisions and problem solving.

Everyday Creativity and Card Magic

There I was, writing about the secret behind a fine trick, and it finally struck me as immensely creative.

20 Questions with Edward Glassman, PhD

Posted 9/13/11 | Updated 8/29/26

1. What's your name?

Ed Glassman.

2. Where are you from?

I was born and raised in NYC.

3. Who are you today?

I am a writer and publisher of multiple books on creativity.
I also am a father of 4 daughters and grandfather of 16 grandchildren
writer of a monthly column on magic ("The Amateur Conjuror") for the Magic Roadshow
retired Professor of Biochemistry & Nutrition
retired management creativity consultant
retired president of the Creativity College®

4. What do you do?

Besides my writing and creating (and doing) magic tricks for my family, I work out with a personal trainer two times a week and on my own twice a week.

5. What's your story?

My education (Ph.D.) allowed me to become a scientist and a professor of biochemistry and nutrition.

My lifelong learning in the form of workshops, courses, extensive reading, and other self-taught efforts enabled me to become a consultant and/or writer in education, creativity, magic, nutrition, and columns for local newspapers.

6. Why is creativity important to you?

WOW. Creativity provides an inherent part of human nature. We all explode with creativity. That is how we humans survived nature and developed our civilizations and diverse cultures. The difficulty for each individual consists of preserving the process and getting it out into a critical environment.

Creativity is the basis of almost everything I do: science, teaching, consulting, writing, living a full life with my family and friends.

7. When did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill?

When I was about 8, I read Microbe Hunters by Paul DeKruif. From that time I decreed that 'I am a scientist,' similar to when I pretended 'I am a cowboy' when I was five. However, from that moment, I was a scientist and focused on developing the skills and tools to becoming a better scientist.

Later in life, I became a Visiting Fellow of the Center For Creative Leadership in Greensboro, NC, and stumbled into creativity training.

8. How did you embrace it?

From that experience I announced to myself: 'I am a creativity consultant.' I went on to read extensively, attend courses and workshops, and eventually lead workshops for many large and small corporations, and write columns, articles, and books.

When I turned 80 years old, I declared: 'I am a writer,' and in five months wrote two books on magic, two on creativity, and one on nutrition and weight loss. All that information I had learned and stored throughout my life came gushing out and I didn't stop until I wrote it all down.

9. How did that feel?

Great.

10. Where has your journey taken you?

I have been a scientist and professor, an educational consultant, a creativity consultant, newspaper columnist, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, and a writer always.

I have traveled extensively as a scientist, and later as a consultant. I have a wonderful family and close friends. I live modestly so I can do the creative things I want to do. A great journey, and still moving forward.

11. What challenges have you faced?

Life is a challenge, the ultimate challenge. Passing exams and getting my PhD was my greatest challenge. After that, my professorship, my consulting, my relationships: it seems that I was challenged by myself and others all along the way. And here I am. Who knew.

12. What worked for you?

Announcing to myself and a few trusted others that "I am …" (a scientist, a consultant, a teacher) from the beginning, living as though that declaration were true, and working very hard to develop the skills and tools to become successful worked well for me.

I was able to have a succession of fascinating careers and have fun along the way. And I am still doing it. After all, "I am now a writer."

I call this approach 'forceful goal setting.'

13. What didn't work for you?

Setting goals by declaring what I wanted to 'become,' (tepid goal setting) rather than decreeing that I 'am' that person and living that new reality (forceful goal setting).

14. What three tips can you share with those starting on a similar path?

In no particular order ...

Get the highest college degree that you can. It can open new doors.
Start lifelong, independent learning early. Read. Take courses. Attend workshops. Learn meditation. Keep expanding your mind. Follow your passions and interests.
Exercise regularly. Get fit and stay fit. Eat for health. Control your weight. Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.
Use forceful goal setting when you really mean it, not the tepid kind.
Don't mention that there are more than three tips here. Such negativity harms creativity.

15. What are you working on now?

Another creativity book.

16. What's coming up for you in the next year?

Finishing my book.

17. What else do you desire/dream to do?

Write a book with my daughter who is a leader of meditation

18. How will you make that happen?

She and I already discuss the core elements of the book.

19. What question do you want to answer that's not on this list?

What's in your book Creativity Triggers For College Students: A Frolicking Guide To Light Up Your Life?

This book brings together the modern, targeted creativity triggers that focus on the real issues within a problem and on its quality solution.

You will find three types of creativity triggers to help solve problems creatively when working alone or in groups:

First, creativity triggers to shift paradigms and produce unexpected ideas).
Second, creativity triggers that change the creative climate so new ideas flourish.
Third, creativity triggers to stop pigeonholing people, including yourself, so you stop stifling creative thinking.

Here's what else you will find:

What creativity really is and the many reasons to be creative, including the fun involved).
How to unblock yourself from 'writer's block' and 'idea generating block' using "automatic writing".
Advanced targeted creativity triggers to carry out the three key creative steps to shift paradigms and solve problems more creatively.
Creativity triggers for permanent creativity groups formed from students in your college.
Puzzles that illuminate your habits and traps that block you from unexpected, new ideas.
How low and high conformers approach creativity differently, and how to get along with both types (Appendices IV & V).
Habits that spoil creative thinking, and the triggers to avoid them.

So alter habits and apply new creativity triggers to your problems. Start making new connections from old bits & pieces in your mind, and be more successful and creative.

20. Where are you online?

Books are available on Amazon