Long story short, it’s through thinking creatively through great frameworks.

A frameworks is an organized way to breakdown a complex question.

Contrary to common intuition, constraints create creativity.

(I couldn’t resist the alliteration.)

For example, if I ask you to come up with a new recipe on the spot, you’ll likely find it much more challenging than if I asked you to create a dish for my pescatarian friend with only basil, shrimp, flour, and spaghetti.

Having a specific framework to think through helps you be more creative.

One of the core frameworks is an issue tree.

Here’s a great resource to dive into issue trees in more depth.

To summarize, issues trees can be any kind of tree you want! A problem tree, a how tree, a solution tree, or maybe a why tree!

But how does Elon Musk come into all of this?

Great question.

Elon frequently starts with a problem and then dives deep into the possibilities to solve it.

Another item worth mentioning when going through frameworks is MECE (Mutually Exclusive – each “part” is different/independent from each other & Collectively Exhaustive –every “part” of the problem is here).

This helps you have a holistic approach to the problem, and generate some great ideas, like Elon Musk.

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash.