One way to look at creative thinking, is as local-maxima vs global-maxima searches. Someone who's searching for a local maxima, very close to the current state of the world, will produce ideas and work that show steady and consistent improvements. At some point, these finding-local-maxima will hit diminishing returns, but at least the process is predictable and very likely to bear some fruit.<p>In contrast, attempting to jump far away from the current state, and finding a brand new global-maxima, is a much more risky endeavor. The first couple iterations may produce results that are even worse than the current state of the world. But in the long run, it avoids the problem of diminishing returns, and can lead to occasional breakthroughs that are vast improvements over the status quo.<p>It seems to me that creativity is basically about foregoing the easy and predictable local-maxima-search, in favor of a more adventurous global-maxima-search. The first few iterations of your bold new idea may sound kooky and klunky, but once it's been developed with sufficient rigor and polish, it has the chance to give a much bigger payoff. Someone who's too focused on the small details, and getting every detail ironed out before committing to something, may find such an endeavor far too uncertain to undertake, thus missing out on what could be the next big thing to change things up.