Creative Problem Solving

Study all the problems identified in the problem bank together. And then ensure that each one is turned into a problem statement in the form of a question. Identifying and formulating the problem is the most difficult part of creative problem solving. Very often we state symptoms of the problems and end up wasting scarce resources chasing the illusionary ‘golden deer of the epics’. Management then becomes so emotionally committed to the wrong path that we can end up moving faster and faster along the wrong road. It is like a man who drills an oil well, in a bad spot. More and more money is spent with no resulting strike. But those involved, refuse to fill up the unproductive well and move on to a new location. They continue throwing good money after bad, because they do not want to admit that a mistake had been made initially. Problem as first stated: How to improve the brakes supplied to the car maker? Creative analysis: Why do we want to improve the brakes? Answer: To stop cars at a shorter distance Creative Analysis: How else can we stop a car at a shorter distance? Why do we want to stop the car at a shorter distance? Answer: To increase safety of occupants of the car. Restatement of problem: How might we improve safety in a car’s stopping system? Result: This is much broader than the original challenge and opens a wider door to novel ideas. At one of my early creativity laboratories for mothers, twenty-two years ago, one of the participants said, ‘My problem is how I get my son to eat eggs for breakfast.’ A rigorous analysis of the problem uncovered the real quandary, ’How do I get my son to eat a nutritious breakfast?’ The restatement of the problem enabled the mother to give the child a variety of foods ranging from cheese and idlis, to cutlets and samosas, instead of forcing the child to eat the hated eggs. Redefining the problem statement is the challenging part of the process, as all of us who have struggled with the task of arriving at a hypothesis know. Stating and understanding the problem correctly is the key to the Innovation Initiative.

Flexibility and adaptability is key to Innovation

Adapting to change and proactively responding to opportunities are daunting tasks. Top management needs to handhold teams through these risky processes. Failures need to be dealt with in a way that protects and encourages risk taking. Only CEOs can provide the time and resources required for companies to be outwardly focused, scanning the environment of competitors, customers, academicians, suppliers and even different industries. Such companies have a better chance of becoming innovation stars. CEOs can provide courage, zest, enthusiasm and speed to the whole organization. It is this energy that will drive an Innovation Initiative. Large, traditional companies have a tendency to become more bureaucratic. Bureaucracy produces politics, red tape and power struggles. People find a hundred rules to protect themselves from acting. This can repress the natural energy and enthusiasm of the organization. CEOs can prevent this deadening disease.

The Feminine Principle

Many men question the need for empathy in a bottomline- oriented workplace. Toughness is respected and empathy is considered a sign of weakness. Goodness and kindness are rejected as ‘older person’ feelings.’ I would like to propose the installation of the so called feminine qualities into the workplace. This would probably make the workplace more creative and right brained. And, as we generally fear our fathers and love our mothers, the concept of a mother-Goddess appeals more to our hearts than that of a father-God. Women are trained to be lovingly supportive, of listening to a child struggling to say his first word. Patience is a culturally celebrated feminine virtue. “As patient as the earth” is the phrase used for a good mother. Unconditional acceptance is ordained in a verse, which says, “Whether he is hard hearted as a stone or useless as a leaf of grass, he is to be loved and supported as a husband, within the circle of a lifetime relationship like marriage.” Empathy becomes easier in such a relationship, protected by the possibility of a lifetime bond. Traditionally, women are comfortable with the care of the old and the infirm. They are patient with stumbling or lack of competence. Today this is changing because women have to operate in the workplace where the rules are different. Can the feminine principle become part of the charter of human hood in the workplace? Here are the new rules for holistic humanity for managers, including women managers: 1. The Mind is central to success in business today. Carl Segan wrote of the Mind: “Every human being has the capacity to store the equivalent of 7550 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Women managers like men need to develop the powers of their mind. The Indian ethos gives us key answers in this journey towards having a razor sharp mind, that can cut through all that is superfluous to the heart of Truth. Develop the ability to wipe your mind clean through silent meditation, because great concepts can be created only when the mindspace is clear of mindless static. 2. Managers must conquer fear and overcome the need for instructions or guidance. Pursue the ability to adapt and be a leader of proactive change. The New World is not for those who are what Nehru called, unwilling victims, dragged to be sacrificed on the alter of change. It is for the promoters of change. Those who dictate the unknown future. Managers must be leaders to be accepted as such. They need to banish forever, their fear of being centerstage, their reluctance to accept that they are where the buck stops. 3. Relearn and reinstall the ultimate software of the human heart that our mothers embodied. The matchless Navarasa of emotional intelligence, explored by Bharata’s 2000 year old Natya Shastra, predates Daniel Goleman by several centuries. The New Human of the past decade has often forsaken her heritage of loving, caring and affirmation for the tough, hard bitten, so called “male boss model.” Both men and women managers need to put the human being at the center of all business processes. Substance is winning the battle that style has waged on corporate battlefields. 4. Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. Women managers need to appreciate that it takes heroic energy to rock the cradle and rock the corporate world. First pin a badge for bravery on yourself for attempting it. Then, promise you will not even begin to tread the path that leads to the joyless land of being a Super Woman or Super Mom. Enlist your men and families as willing accomplices in the challenging task of reconstructing a corporate workplace that lovingly accommodates the needs of humans, for families, for music, poetry and time for just standing and watching the world go by! 5. Health is the car you are given to complete life’s journey. The body too needs preventive maintenance. Look after your health. As group Vice President of the Apollo Hospitals group, we tried to launch the Well Woman Check Up in the same way as the predominantly male Master Health Check Up. “Is your wife overworked, tired, stressed out? Bring her for a Well Woman Check Up,” our advertisement said. The marketplace administered a sharp rap on the knuckles, when not a single woman responded.

Cross Functional Teams (CFT)

These teams help break down turf protection. However, they need to be carefully managed. Just including people from many departments does not automatically make a CFT more effective. Too much information can just confuse everybody. Clarity of goals and top management support as well as recognition and rewards are critical to the process. Managing cross-functional teams is one of the challenges of new product development. Yet, how members from different functional areas come together, interact, and arrive at consensus, is a poorly understood process.

Key Elements in an Innovation Initiative

Stimulating Identifying people to be included in innovation initiative Help in selecting projects for creative problem solving Making available teams to work on projects Nurturing Officially recognize the teams and scope of activity. Schedule presentation to top management Provide a budget, Organize Innovation symposiums. Provide space and time for innovation spirals to meet Sustaining Start a MINDSPOWER club to meet once a month. Give innovation awards Celebrate good ideas. Prepare reports and publish success stories Use the innovation club for self development Reinstating Communicate results of Innovation Initiative Have annual awards for Best Teams

BRIDGING THE INNOVATION GAP

Innovation turns problems and inconveniences into profitable elements of a business. The mightiest of modern organizations has been built in a few short years through the power of information and the human mind. Helping to manage human imagination to develop creative solutions will be the secret of winners in the future. Innovation can be seen in every field and every sector. When the first pre-paid telephone cards were released in Japan, it was heralded as the best innovation of the year. It was an example of a simple innovation offering tremendous benefits, both to the consumer and the telephone companies. There are no limitations to the possibilities of the human mind. “Microsoft’s only factory asset is the human imagination,” wrote Frank Moody. Corporations that adopt innovation as a way of life never need to compete. Theirs is the path where no one has gone before; the path which leads to untold success. Consistent innovation leading to profitability is what corporate India needs. This will not happen through mere rhetoric. An Innovation Initiative, which embraces everyone from the doorman to chairman, will create a culture of Innovation. This initiative is for those who are willing to dive in and stay the course of a long-term organizational development intervention. The gaps in achieving this goal for Indian companies are clear. There is a lack of interest in investing resources to build a culture of innovation, a certain reluctance to install the innovation thinking tools.

Organizational Culture and the Emphasis on Innovation

Without the oxygen of support and applause, ideas often die in infancy. The creativity improvement program can be the foundation that enables all other company programs to be effective. There are a number of steps to ensure that the program encourages innovation. IBM whose motto is ‘Think,’ believes in ‘More intellect, less materials.’

Innovation champion

An innovation champion, accredited to be a Four Ace MindsPower trainer with the necessary training and attitude, is critical to the success of the Innovation Initiative. The champion should have Innovation facilitators in every department. In addition, leaders of innovation spirals hold together the structural network required for the process to work. Top management support and empowerment of the champion are needed to provide autonomy and delegation, which are key to innovation.

Flexibility and adaptability is key to Innovation

Adapting to change and proactively responding to opportunities are daunting tasks. Top management needs to handhold teams through these risky processes. Failures need to be dealt with in a way that protects and encourages risk taking. Only CEOs can provide the time and resources required for companies to be outwardly focused, scanning the environment of competitors, customers, academicians, suppliers and even different industries. Such companies have a better chance of becoming innovation stars. CEOs can provide courage, zest, enthusiasm and speed to the whole organization. It is this energy that will drive an Innovation Initiative. Large, traditional companies have a tendency to become more bureaucratic. Bureaucracy produces politics, red tape and power struggles. People find a hundred rules to protect themselves from acting. This can repress the natural energy and enthusiasm of the organization. CEOs can prevent this deadening disease.

The Power of CEO

CEOs can ensure a culture of innovation that highlights the importance of harnessing the talent of the entire organization. Only CEOs can lead such quantum shifts in strategy. They alone can create an organizational climate, where fundamental assumptions are open to question. A real gap in Indian companies seems to be CEOs who nurture companywide innovation. While many CEOs are ‘visionary leaders,’ most are not enthusiastic champions of company-wide innovation. Both financial and psychological support from top management is critical for the culture of innovation. One of the main inhibitors of innovation is the attitude of the ‘Do it my way.’ Leaders need an effective communication system to share their business vision with the grassroots. This helps to empower all levels of the organization.

Consistent Innovation

Once the returns from an innovation start to pour in, the organization may begin to focus on maximizing the returns through routine implementation. Harvesting is a mechanical and essential process. Perhaps every organization requires a section of its people to focus on creativity and innovation. An Innovation Center could provide the foundation for a long-term initiative. Large, tradition bound, successful organizations, tend to prefer the stability that formalized procedures provide. Older organizations tend to become more bureaucratic. Large companies may have more resources, while smaller companies may find it easier to change course. Even though most companies accept the idea of innovation being important for success, most are not committed enough to practice it on a long-term basis. Most are not aware of the underlying process required to make it work on a consistent basis. In the Innovation Movement itself, there are not enough clearly defined structures and processes that a company could follow. There are few consultant organizations, which can handhold and support long-term innovation initiatives. There is a feeling that innovation and creativity is for intellectuals or geniuses. Innovation as a concept needs to be demystified for use across the organization. Management is bottom-line driven. They are extremely result oriented in the short term and lose faith in concepts very fast. Innovation is a concept that requires a long-term buy-in and takes time to be fully ingrained in the organizational culture.

Innovation in the various stages of organizational development

The metamorphosis model of organizational development, passing through the cycles of growth and decline, describes the organizational life cycle of companies: Emergence-Growth-Decay-Death Focus on innovation, may rescue an organization in the declining phase of the organizational life cycle. Re-innovation or renovation becomes important when an old, traditional company goes into decline. The first phase is often entrepreneurial and innovative with a sudden burst of energy capturing a new space in the market. This creative phase is terminated in a leadership crisis. It was Schumpeter who said, “It is rare for anyone always to remain an entrepreneur throughout the decades of his active life.” This cycle progresses from entrepreneurship to an organization that becomes slow and complacent.

Innovation Spirals

The word ‘spiral’ grew out of the MindsPower belief that an idea is like a stone thrown into the still surface of the lake. The ripples spread across the lake. Just as the flutter of a butterfly wing in the rain forests in Brazil can cause an earthquake in Indonesia, or when New York Stock Exchange sneezes, the Asian economies catch pneumonia, every new idea changes the company. Innovation spirals are cross-functional teams, created to design and implement corporate strategies. Kanter writes of factors that inhibit the culture of innovation. Dominance of restrictive vertical relationships Poor lateral communications Limited tools and resources Top-down dictates Formal, restricted vehicles for change Reinforcing a culture of inferiority Unfocused innovative activity Building an organizational culture supportive of creativity is not something which can be done in a hurry. It takes time to build trust between individuals and to reinforce the beliefs and norms we wish to encourage. Despite the obstacles, continuous efforts must be undertaken to ensure the development and maintenance of a creative culture in order to ensure systematic innovation.

A Wish List for Innovation

1. The government could play a major role in making innovation a key factor in economic leadership. There should be a Department of Innovation in the Central government with units in all State governments. 2. Industry bodies like CII should set up innovation centers. 3. IIM Ahmedabad has a center for Innovation, Incubation and Environment. 4. Anna University in Chennai has an Innovation Centre. There is space and a need for hundreds of such centers, especially in academic institutions. 5. As an aid to formulating the research design for this study, the researcher visited the Society for Innovation and Development (SID) at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for interaction with commerce and industry. This organization helps companies by providing them with incubators for new ideas. However much more needs to be done. 6. Innovators should be honored with national awards. Indian companies should have better facilities for filing patents for innovations and inventions. Many young inventors fall by the wayside because the procedure is so expensive, time consuming and complicated. Government should have a more enabling attitude to protect the nation’s wealth of ideas. 7. The educational system should be based on developing creative and innovative thinking. Thinking tools and methodologies should be part of the syllabus. 8. All technical institutions should have innovation and creativity taught as a subject. Companies should recruit innovative people and support them through the process of development. Textbooks on innovation and creativity should be written. 9. All induction programs in organizations should include creativity and innovation. 10. The new trend in business is that people do not stay in jobs over a lifetime. Most respondents in the survey had been in their jobs only for five years. An intensive program to awaken organizational innovativeness and the possibility of enrolling new employees as organizational change agents should be presented early in the process.