Problems are part of business life and how one solves problems is a true measure of team cohesion, management technique and individual creativity and reason. With common business problems there are tried and tested ways of dealing with issues; however, business really take off when problems are looked at more creatively.
Creative problem solving is thus taking a new, fresh look at any problem and only rejecting ideas that do not work. This involves the suspension of judgement and the acceptance that no idea is a silly idea. A good brainstorming session will include the wildest and mist outrages ideas; the only rejection process then is one of practicality of implementation.
As an example, let us look at PR and the problems faced with poor PR or none at all. It was not too long ago that Facebook was thought to be the realm of teenagers; now business are using Facebook for product news, splash pages for customers and updates on the business itself. Twitter is now also being used by business to highlight services and to put forward mission statements. Perhaps a few years ago these would have been seen as silly ideas, yet nowadays business now the value of social media for promotion.
Creative problem solving thus allows all ideas to be considered without prejudice. As part of a team building exercise one can give team members a problem to solve; this would need to be a real problem that needs rectifying. The group collaboration brings team cohesion and allows different viewpoints to be heard.
Often board members will rely on a select few to solve problems so why not take the issue farther down and ask staff members for ideas. You never know who the office cleaner really is and what their true potential is. Creative problem solving thus involves humility; who cares where the idea comes from as long as the problem is solved! One could even try thinking of the problem before going to sleep and asking for the solution as one drifts off; the resulting dreams may be very revealing and something that the writer has experienced.
Another key point in creative problem solving is looking at the problem itself, in other words is this really the problem. Often the problem is a superficial effect of a deeper cause so as we look deeper we can find the underlying root cause and by eliminating this, we may in fact eliminate many other problems at the same time.
Creative problem solving is thus about honesty, humility, acceptance and the beginner’s mind; these tools can be a powerhouse of problem solving creativity.
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