FIVE TIPS FOR DISCOVERING CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

During the next few weeks we will consider five tips for people and organizations
with complex problems.  As you read, see how many of these apply to you or your
organization, so that you can use them at every opportunity.

Here are the first four tips…

1.  Identify the Right Problem

You may have wondered why problems often don't stay solved, or solutions never
quite work out as expected, despite your best efforts.  Many times it's because the
wrong problem was defined.  

For example, consider the case of a major food retailer with long checkout queues... 

The company's management originally sponsored a project to help find new till
technologies to speed Customers through their checkouts as fast as possible.

But the Project Manager was a creative thinker and encouraged his team to apply its
creative thinking.  Between them they developed a highly successful way to shorten
the queues AND improve Customer Service at the same time.

How were they able to change their focus in this way? 

They simply examined the problem within the broader context of the Customer’s
in-store experience, and discovered that the real problem was doing too many things
at the checkout that could be done much better elsewhere!

They also avoided spending thousands of pounds on new technology!

2.  Avoid judging ideas too quickly

You may have noticed that adults tend toward convergent thinking when the task calls
for individuals to be divergent.  This tendency always leads people to judge ideas too quickly,
thereby effectively stifling the creative process.
 
In our food retailer example from Tip 1 the company’s management had already converged
on the idea that they needed to speed people through the supermarket checkouts.  I have 
this hilarious image of my 82 year old mum being hurried though the checkout without the 
opportunity for her weekly social chat with her favourite assistant.  She would have more than
a few choice words to say about that!
 
All your employees (and especially, the experts) need to understand the distinction between 
divergent and convergent thinking.  They need to learn to put their tendency to converge 
"on hold" at certain times, to allow new ideas to flourish.  
 
Children are naturally divergent in their thinking because they don't yet have a great storehouse
of knowledge and experience against which to judge new ideas. 
 
We must learn to become more "child-like" by putting our strong tendency to converge "on hold"
for a little while, asking, as children do, "What's right about this idea?"
 
 
 
3.  Don't stop at your first good idea
 
The first good idea is never the best.  
 
This is because it was the easiest to come up with.  So it’s pretty likely that your competitors
have already thought of it too.
 
Also, your first idea is generally derived from brainstorming.  Although good brainstorming is
effective it isn't set up to change your thinking patterns.  Most often during a brainstorming
session, the "usual ideas" emerge.  Perhaps they are slightly rearranged, but they are almost
never the truly unexpected ideas that are needed to beat the competition.  By contrast, the very
best ideas - the ones you need to choose and get implemented - are two to three times more
likely to come from thoughts that occur after the ability to generate ideas via brainstorming has
been exhausted.
 
In my experience, allowing some incubation time after a brainstorming session – e.g. relaxing
over dinner, a good night’s sleep and some quiet time for your mind to make new connections
– will allow your subconscious to build on what has already surfaced through previous brainstorming
sessions.
 
On the second morning of a two day Customer Services workshop with the above ingredients
participants were literally bursting with original ideas. 
 
 
 
4.  Failing to get the "Bandit on the Train"
 
Imagine you are on a train in the American West in the late 1800s.  Your train is travelling from
Laramie to Tombstone, and you fear that bandits will come from behind tall rocks and dynamite
the track.  How can you keep that from happening?
 
One answer is to "get the bandits on the train."  In an organizational sense, this means figuring
out whose support you must have or who could derail your project, and finding a way to get them
on the train - to have them become part of the project early on.
 
At DuPont's Centre for Creativity and Innovation, leaders confirmed that when a manager
(or managers) with the authority to commit money and people actively participates throughout
the creative solution finding process (from complex situation definition through idea generation
and action planning), he or she does not "dynamite the track."
 
In my experience, keeping ‘snipers’ within your own sight allows you to understand their point of
view and influence them much more easily.