Why Creative Problem Solving?
“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” –Elinor Smith
Train
Your People in the Basics of the Creative Process
When Etienne Veber, former president of Nutrasweet Company
was racing to bring a product to market with a potential payoff of close to $1
billion dollars, he sponsored a year-long creativity and innovation
intervention. In order to optimize working relationships and work output, he
trained his team in the fundamentals of the creative process and secured
ongoing coaching and facilitation services throughout the year. Looking back on
the results he says, “The creativity and innovation training has made a world
of difference to our team. It showed us how we could do things differently so
we could be much faster to market and much more creative -- the results have
been amazing.”
Deliberate
Creativity isn’t just about new products or breakthroughs
Last year, after Pernod Ricard Winemakers adopted a new
vision of “Leading Wine Innovation”,
they launched a creative leadership program called Th!nk that is based on
creative problem solving. Paulina Larocca, Creativity and Concept director says,
“in order to live into our new vision, we wanted to empower our people to be
individually creative, to enable them to use deliberate creative tools and
techniques not only for big challenges but also for everyday interactions.” 6
months after the training, Russ Schoen did follow up interviews with the 20
participants. In addition to several real business challenges being solved,
participants reported the biggest impact they saw was how they approached
everyday situations with more creativity.
Tony, a participant from New Zealand in operations said, “Now my
meetings and everyday conversations are more
effective because I am using the principles of deferred judgment and generous
listening.” Anne Marie, a participant from the finance group said – I use one
of the key tools – phrasing problems as questions almost daily in
conversations with co-workers to get unstuck. And
Marie from Marketing said, “the whole understanding of Foursight Preferences,
that people have difference energy for different parts of the Creative Problem
Solving process, has changed how I approach everyday meetings – I am now able
to adapt and actively manage them much better.”
People embracing deliberate creative thinking tools gives an
organization the ability to tap people’s natural creative abilities as soon as
they are faced with a pressing business challenge. According to Paulina, “It
starts with a recognition that everyone is creative. We just need to empower
people with the right tools and the right mindset, so they can start having
more creative conversations and interactions everyday.”
Take the
first step
In the 1950’s, Alex Osborn, an advertising executive,
discovered Creative Problem Solving by observing highly creative people, groups
and teams and documenting the stages they went through to solve challenges.
Osborn realized that problem solving was a natural process and that by making
the problem solving process explicit rather than strictly intuitive, people
would be able to significantly improve their problem solving abilities. He was
right! Hundreds of research studies have
proven its effectiveness; Creative Problem Solving (CPS) provides a common
language and framework for individuals and groups to understand complex
challenges, generate innovative solutions and create deliberate plans of
action.
The result: a process designed to deliver breakthrough
results on real challenges utilizing people’s native abilities and gifts.
So whether you want to have more creative meetings, better
creative conversations, launch new products, or fuel creative leadership
growth, Creative Problem Solving may just be the right engine. Who knows? You
may even find yourself on with some stellar
new ideas!
