CHAPTER
14

Solving Problems and Finding Solutions

In This Chapter

• Six innovative thinking techniques
• How changing your routine can have positive results
• Being willing to create change before it’s necessary
• How finding the positive in mishaps makes failure more acceptable

The one thing that’s predictable about the workplace is that it’s unpredictable. You may come into work one day with a set plan, only to be greeted with an unexpected issue. Maybe your boss emails you a document that shows a significant drop in revenue for third quarter in a row and says it’s mandatory for you and your team to develop a new strategy that will turn things around—and not one that the company has tried before. If she is looking for innovative ideas at a time when you’re already feeling overwhelmed, being creative may seem impossible. Where do you start? How do you start?

By building on some of the creative thinking techniques that were presented in previous chapters, this chapter helps you find solutions whenever you’re feeling challenged in the workplace.

Innovative Thinking Techniques

Getting in the habit of shifting your point of view in different ways will help you develop your character, courage, and creativity in the workplace (and in all areas of your life). This means being willing to get away from the way you’re used to doing things, seeing with a fresh set of eyes, and thinking in ways to which you’re not accustomed. Thinking differently is what can lead to ideas that might not come to you otherwise. In reading about these different techniques, think about problems you’ve experienced on the job that called for an innovative solution or a situation you might be facing right now where one of these methods will be useful.

Looking Beyond Logic

Your brain naturally wants to think logically because it provides safety and comfort. Logic helps you understand things. But how do you generate off-the-wall ideas or think in ways that fall outside of the norm? As I discussed in Chapter 4, sometimes lightning strikes and you exclaim “That’s it!” But that is more the exception than the rule. If you can incorporate some different ways to think when looking for innovative solutions, you won’t feel stuck within the confines of that well-known box—the one you’re supposed to think outside of.

To move your brain into a different mode, throw logic out the window the next time you’re in the idea generation mode. This means using your imagination 100 percent by discarding your assumptions, looking at the opposite of what makes sense, breaking rules, and asking “Why not?” and “What if?” questions. For example, the Pet Rock and its accompanying Pet Rock Training Manual, a product developed by ad man Gary Dahl in the 1970s, may not have seemed conceptually logical. However, he sold more than a million of them and became a millionaire. This is something that might have been considered a “crazy notion” for people thinking logically, but in a different thinking mode, it delivered something that was financially successful.

Now stop for a minute to consider your own workplace. What’s one aspect of your job that could be improved? Look beyond logic to consider how you might accomplish that. Maybe you don’t like the way meetings are conducted and consider them to be a waste of time. How do you move your mind beyond logic and into more imaginative thinking? One way is to think in terms of opposites. Using the meeting example, what would be the opposite of holding a meeting? Never holding a meeting. Does that make sense to your organization? Perhaps, but probably not. But just the thought of that could lead you to think of ways to conduct meetings in which time could be better managed.

You may run in to some resistance from co-workers or management when using this new perspective. Beware of the age-old statement, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” The only positive aspect of that statement is that it’s an opportunity to respond by saying to the co-worker who said it, “Well then, it’s about time we look for more innovative ways to do it.” Oftentimes, when a certain business practice is traced to its origin, the reason for it no longer applies, yet the procedure continues because no one ever stopped long enough to question it to see if there’s a better way.

INSPIRATIONAL INSIGHT

“If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.”

—Charles Kettering

While everyone’s situation is different, if you think of an idea that prompts you to think “That doesn’t make sense,” stay with it. Break the problem down further. Keep asking questions and proposing answers until you find at least one idea that will work. It’s about digging deeper and looking at problems from a new perspective. You never know what may come of it!

Putting Yourself in Their Shoes

Sometimes in an idea-generating session, you may hold back from saying what you’re thinking because you fear how you may be perceived. Do you think you would be more likely to share a new idea if you were acting as if you were actor Jack Nicolson or actor/comedian Tina Fey? Enter the creative thinking technique of role storming, where you produce ideas from another person’s point of view. Rick Griggs developed role storming in the 1980s as a way for people participating in brainstorming sessions to get past their inhibitions. The supposition is you’ll be more comfortable with putting yourself “out there” if you’re assuming someone else’s identity. After all, that’s not you speaking, so you (or whoever you decide to be) can have fun with this!

The way the process works best is to first participate in a regular brainstorming gathering with co-workers to produce the initial ideas. You can then determine as a group what roles you’ll use. Each person can play a different role, or the role may be played collectively as a group. The person doesn’t have to be famous. You may choose a co-worker, your boss, a friend, a competitor, or anyone you know, as long as the person isn’t in the room. You should know the person well enough to assume her identity or mimic her perspective, being mindful of keeping the characterization respectful. The better you understand the person, the more this technique will work in spawning new ideas.

Next, the fun part begins. You assume your character and start throwing out ideas using the character’s perspectives. You can start your sentence by saying “My character or person thinks we should do it this way.” As with brainstorming, everyone should be encouraged to speak. The process may be repeated as often as necessary, and new roles can be assigned.

Think about what character you would like to play during a role storming session. Would you assume the role of someone famous? If so, would it be an actor, musician, business executive, inventor, a professional athlete, or some other profession? Or would you opt for someone you know—a colleague, a mentor, a friend, your mother or father, or your boss? Pick a work situation and select an individual to role-play. Now imagine yourself presenting that person’s point of view. Do you feel differently? Do you think this technique could work for you in a real work session? Would you feel less intimidated and more confident to share what others may feel is an off-the-wall idea? If so, perhaps you can be the one to suggest this technique the next time you and your co-workers engage in a brainstorm gathering. You can even play around with this technique in your own mind as you look at different situations as they arise. For example, you can ask yourself “How would Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg see this?,” inserting different names as needed.

CREATIVITY KEY

Aside from role storming, another way to change your perspective is to change the time period. Take yourself out of the present time period and look backward. Think about how the situation might have been solved in the 1800s. Are you familiar with the saying “Everything old is new again”? That idiom pertains to trends that were once popular becoming in vogue again. Taking a page from history may prompt new ideas. Or you can look ahead and imagine how a problem might be handled 50 years from now. Imagine new inventions or how popular tools, such as the internet, might evolve in the future and how different answers could materialize with these new innovations.

Brainwriting Your Way to an Answer

Brainwriting, originally developed by Professor Bernd Rohrbach in 1968, provides an alternative to brainstorming. Like role storming, it works especially well when you have individuals in your group who may be more reserved and hesitant about speaking up in a brainstorming session. Its goal is to produce 108 new ideas in 30 minutes. Unlike brainstorming, in which ideas are recorded one at a time, brainwriting produces many ideas simultaneously.

There are two different variations of the process. The first, the 6-3-5 technique, refers to “6 people who write 3 ideas in 5 minutes.” The process begins with the six people who are supervised by a moderator. The participants are given a sheet of paper with a statement describing the situation or are asked to write the statement at the top of the paper themselves. Each person is then asked to write up to three ideas in five minutes that address the situation statement. An example statement would be “How to increase our sales in 60 days.” At the end of five minutes, they pass their sheet on to the next person. The participants silently read and play off of the ideas before them and write three more ideas. The method is designed so the players can draw inspiration from each other. After 30 minutes of six rounds, the group will have generated 108 ideas.

Another variation of brainwriting is conducted using index cards (sticky notes also work). After the participants write down one idea per card, they put the card in the center of the table or another conveniently designated spot. Group members have the choice of selecting one of the cards to trigger another idea, which they write on another card, or they can take a blank card and write another idea without referencing the other cards. This process can even be done with hundreds of people, for example, at a conference. Each attendee could be given one or more index cards as they enter the room, or the cards could be placed in advance at each person’s seat. The prompt could then be projected onto a screen in the front of the auditorium. Each person could be instructed to write one idea per card in one minute and, at the end of 60 seconds, directed to pass their card to the person on their right. The particulars of this activity can vary. It’s only limited by your imagination!

If you’re the one setting up the brainwriting session, you can decide whether to use preprinted numbered sheets of paper, blank pages, index cards, or sticky notes; which direction to pass the ideas around; and how much time to allot. When it comes to the 6-3-5 version, you can also consider whether it’s best to divide the participants into groups of six. One thing I would recommend for both versions of brainwriting is that you ask the participants to print neatly so time is not lost in trying to decipher sloppy handwriting.

As with brainstorming, the ideas for brainwriting should be generated quickly and without judgment. Do not worry about spelling or grammar or using complete sentences. As with many of the other techniques already discussed, writing down thoughts that seem to elude the subject is perfectly okay. Remember, sometimes it’s those paradoxical or unlikely combinations that work. Some of them can and should be quirky, silly, and seemingly illogical. If you really want to encourage unusual thoughts, you could set up the brainwriting session as a competition. Normally, competition can deflate creativity, but if it’s set up properly as a fun gathering, you could announce that the winner is the person who comes up with the most far-fetched solution. It’s yet another opportunity for you and your co-workers to use imagination in the workplace!

Changing Your Wording

Sometimes creative thinking stalls because you can’t get away from the way you’re looking at your challenge. Hard as you try, you keep asking the same questions … and keep getting the same answers. Edward Glassman, PhD, former president of the Creativity College (a division of Leadership Consulting Services, Inc.), recommends a process he calls reversal-dereversal in which you turn your problem upside-down to help point you in a new direction. The way it works is as follows:

1. State the opposite of the key verb of your problem statement. For example, attract becomes detract, entertain becomes bore, or increase becomes decrease.
2. Without judgment, write solutions to the reversed problem statement.
3. Dereverse each reversed statement by adding the words “How to” in front of each solution. Rework the wording of the new problem statement until it makes sense.
4. Select a suitable new problem statement to use while generating ideas.

The following demonstrates this technique. I use only one possible solution in the example that follows. However, when you use this method, you’ll want to generate as many ideas as possible.

Problem statement: We want to increase our ticket sales.

1. Change the verb increase to decrease. The reverse problem statement becomes “We want to decrease our ticket sales.”
2. A possible solution to decrease ticket sales is to double ticket prices.
3. Dereverse the reversed statement by adding “How to” before the proposed solution. It now reads “How to increase our ticket sales by doubling our prices.”
4. The new problem statement becomes “We want to increase our ticket sales by doubling our prices.”

It is from this new problem statement you start to generate more ideas—insights that may not have come to you when only looking at the original statement. In the preceding example, the initial belief might be that ticket sales would plummet if you doubled their cost. By reversing that thought to how to increase sales by doubling prices, it might lead you to think of reasons people would pay that much more money. That could lead you to thinking about the value you’re offering.

The scenario used in the example happened in the 1990s, when a local music festival’s admission increased from $5 to $10. Although I do not know what creative strategy or tool was used by the people who made that decision, I do know that many people protested the increase, yet in the end, the festival attracted the largest crowd in its history. This was a risk the organization took that paid off. Organizers justified the more expensive admission fee by changing their entertainment focus from booking lesser-known jazz groups to well-known rock and pop music bands.

The point is to keep your mind open to ideas that may seem to be the opposite of what you want. With this technique, you are using a reversal process to flip the problem on its head before turning it back around as a means to help you think in a new direction. Think of a workplace situation in which you could use this technique, and go through the steps as outlined to see how it feels to use this tool. Expect it to feel unnatural. It’s not unusual for something you’re doing for the first time to feel that way. If it doesn’t work for you this time, you can come back to it on another day. It’s all about challenging your mind to think in ways that take your thinking in new directions.

INSPIRATIONAL INSIGHT

“There’s no good idea that cannot be improved on.”

–Michael Eisner

Maximizing or Miniaturizing

Think big and think small—literally. When you apply this creative thinking practice, you are going to take your concept or physical product and look at it from these two perspectives. You don’t need to keep your thoughts realistic. In fact, using exaggeration can really open you up creatively. Remember, at this stage, you’re not trying to come up with a final answer; you’re simply trying to think of different possibilities.

What are examples of enlargements? Have you ever had the experience of going into a fast-food restaurant and being asked “Would you like to supersize that?” Some things may even start off large, get smaller, and then increase in size again, such as mobile phones, which were once bigger than soda pop cans. I can remember what a status symbol it was to later have the much smaller, compact flip phone. Now smartphones in larger sizes are becoming commonplace.

The flip side of this is products that have been miniaturized, decreased, or reduced. For example, one of the first products that came to my mind as I thought about this process is when Ty, Inc. introduced the world to Beanie Babies in the mid-1990s. These inexpensive, small plush animals took on a life of their own as the values on certain critters began to escalate among collectors due to limited quantities, availability, and retiring designs. To add to the craze, Ty began offering Teenie Beanies—smaller versions of the original Beanies—as part of McDonald’s Happy Meals. Some people were so enthusiastic about getting the Teenie Beanies that I actually witnessed them completely discarding the meals and keeping just the toys.

There are numerous other examples of going small: mini iPads, minipads, miniskirts, and Mini Coopers. Music has shrunken from 12-inch vinyl albums, to eight-track and cassette tapes, to compact discs, to the smallest yet—MP3s. They’re not even physical objects! Mini guitars have become even more compact travel guitars. Even dogs have gotten smaller. It wasn’t enough for a Chihuahua to be miniature; now there are teacup sizes.

So how do you come up with ideas for products like the ones I’ve mentioned? Two simple words—what if—drive the process of maximizing and miniaturizing. For example, let’s say you own an Italian restaurant and you and your employees are trying to come up with ways to get more attention. One of your waitstaff asks “What if we made a pizza the size of a shopping mall?” Of course, that’s not very reasonable, but an idea like that could lead to having a pizza-making competition at your local mall that’s sponsored by your restaurant. No notion is too absurd when trying to generate as many ideas as possible. Some of the crazier ideas will prompt laughter and a light, lively feeling—perfect for idea production!

Can you think of how you might apply this creative thinking technique to a situation in your line of work? You can begin to experiment with this method by starting with simple ideas to see how it works. Pick one aspect of your work—either within your particular job responsibilities or something that is more broad-based that affects your whole department. Start to notice products and services in the marketplace that could potentially be maximized or minimized. This will enhance your awareness and will help you when you want to use this tool in a real-life workplace situation.

CREATIVITY KEY

This concept doesn’t have to be limited to the physical size of an object. For example, if you’re a retailer who has a gift shop that has “something for everyone” with a large inventory yet sales are slow, you might ask “What if I got rid of my current inventory and only offered blue items?” On the surface, that idea may sound crazy and limiting. However, you begin to research the color blue and learn that it is known to have a soothing effect. You also learn that there are thousands of people with sleep disorders. Therefore, you decide to shift your entire retail focus by having a limited, specialized inventory and becoming a boutique shop called “True Blue.” Everything in your shop is blue, including the painted walls, and you only offer items that are calming, relaxing, and sleep inducing. This illustrates how one idea, however impractical it seems at first, can actually lead to a viable concept.

Looking for More Than One Answer

Students are brought up through the educational system to look for the one and only right answer. So it’s no wonder that as adults, that pattern continues. As I covered in Chapter 4, that’s what happens when thinking convergently. The quickest way to end an idea-generating session, regardless of what technique is employed, is when you start by thinking there’s only one correct solution.

This limited thinking can even hamper you with everyday work situations. For example, if you work in an open office environment and you’re having to deal with an obnoxious co-worker who is loud, you might think the solution is to speak with her. But what if she doesn’t get it and continues this behavior? Are there other solutions? Yes, if you allow yourself to look for more than one answer. You could put in ear plugs, wear your ear buds and listen to relaxing music, use noise-cancelling headphones, ask your boss to speak with her, request a different office, or discuss the possibility of working from home when you’re under deadline and can’t be distracted.

So whether you’re dealing with a situation that involves only you or a group of your colleagues, make it a practice to look for more than one answer. Use one of the methods from this chapter or previous chapters to help you think more divergently. If you’ve spent hours trying to come up with answers, it’s no wonder when one emerges that has any kind of value, you want to stop and accept it. Resist this temptation to stop the process just because you may be tired or frustrated. In fact, you’ll read in the next section why this may be the very time to keep going.

Consciously Changing Your Routine

Shifting your perspective to one that’s more creative doesn’t always have to involve actively engaging in new thinking patterns. Sometimes it can be as simple as altering your normal routine, which opens your mind to new opportunities that can lead to creative ideas. This requires conscious attention; otherwise, you may find you’re frequently in autopilot mode from the time you get up and go to work until you return home and retire to bed.

A slight tweak of your routines can also help you capture the right mood for the day. For example, if your morning routine includes reading the newspaper, which tends to be negative in nature, you may want to hold off on doing that if you’re hoping to have a creative day at work. In a study, participants who were shown sad video clips were not as capable of solving problems creatively compared to those who watched uplifting videos. So if hearing about or reading negative news puts you in a downbeat mode, you would be better off watching a funny video or listening to comedy radio instead on your morning commute. When you’re feeling positive, your mental processes are more flexible, whereas being in a bad mood decreases your cognitive ability.

Another reason to consciously change your routine is to expose yourself to new possibilities. In Chapter 9, one of the suggestions I made was to take the wrong way home. Think of other changes, however subtle, you can make that might open your mind to new horizons. For example, consider meditating for five minutes when you first wake. You may not consider yourself to be a good meditator, but if you give it a chance, you may find it helps to elevate your mood so you can start your day on a positive note. Plus, people are known to have creative insights hit them right in the middle of a meditation.

What can you add or take away from your daily routines that might help shift you to a more creative space? Examine your normal patterns both in the morning and throughout the day to see if releasing them would point you in a more creative direction.

If It’s Not Broken, Break It

Why mess with success? Isn’t that how the saying “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it” came about? However, now more than ever, with innovative technology changing the landscape of the workplace faster than any other time period, it’s important to anticipate and act upon the need for change before it’s obvious. If you don’t, you better believe one or more of your competitors will. That’s why that same adage has been adapted to “If it’s not broken, break it.” Keeping things as they are is playing it safe and is unlikely to lead to innovation.

The best time to implement change is when you’re not under the gun to do so. Why wait for a crisis when you can use your creative thinking to proactively produce ideas that can lead to improvements in the workplace? This goes back to the importance of being willing to take risks. Yes, it’s much easier to maintain the status quo, but you and your co-workers should not become complacent and then be burdened with a lot of forced changes down the line.

A quick look at some of the industries that have completely changed reinforces the point of initiating changes before they’re forced upon you. For example, the newspaper industry has vastly changed now that people can get their news online. Or think Blockbuster, Netflix, Borders, and Amazon. Why are Netflix and Amazon still around, while Borders and most Blockbusters have gone under? The music industry has also seen massive changes. You can still find a record store, but not like you used to. Now most people prefer to buy their music online and download MP3s. In all of these cases, the ones who thought ahead and were able to prepare for and adapt to changes in the market still survive, while the ones who were more reactive saw marked declines or even went out of business.

When it comes to your workplace, what’s happening or not yet happening in your industry? What is the next stage of development for your line of work? How do you determine what may benefit from your attention when everything seems to be going smoothly? Following your gut instincts is one way. If you know your business or your job position well and you sense it’s just a matter of time before some kind of changes will need to occur, don’t wait to act, even if others don’t see it coming. This is where you may have to challenge convention. Be ready for co-workers or even management to point out every reason why things should stay the same.

INSPIRATIONAL INSIGHT

“If it ain’t broke, break it (or someone else will break it for you).”

—Tom Peters

Getting in the Habit of Asking Questions

You’ve probably seen your share of ego clashes both at work and in personal situations. It’s that feeling of “I’m right” and “You’re wrong.” Both people are hanging on tightly to their own beliefs and progress comes to a grinding halt. In reality, one of the best practices you can incorporate into your work is to learn how to ask questions and not stick to thinking you have all the answers. This can lead to self-discovery and insights that may lead to innovative ideas. In creativity coaching, the whole premise behind it is asking the client powerful questions to help her gain clarity. This same principle applies in business.

The following are some tips for how to put this into practice in your workplace:

• Slow down. Asking questions gives you a chance to really think about the issue at hand and not brush it off or move ahead before you or your co-workers understand it completely.
• Don’t go into situations thinking you have all of the answers or be intimidated that others will look at you with less respect if you don’t know everything there is to know about the given topic.
• When asking questions, be sure you are doing so in a way that is not undermining authority or being invasive. If you’re asking questions as part of an ideation session, your intentions should be understood.
• Let go of your assumptions and be open minded as you pose your questions. You can start by asking broad questions and then narrow your focus as you gain more clarity.
• Answer questions with another question in order to make sure you cover all bases with the issue.

For example, as a freelance journalist, if I go into an interview thinking I have all of the answers, I’m not going to even hear what the interviewee has to say. I certainly do my homework before doing an interview, but I remain open as I ask questions. I listen intently because oftentimes the person’s responses are what prompt me to ask questions that weren’t even on my list and lead to a much more interesting discussion and story. You can do the same in your line of work.

Accepting Failure as Part of the Process

Being okay with taking risks when the situation is unpredictable ultimately means being okay with making mistakes. While there are known risks, there are also those that are unforeseen.

Throughout this book, I’ve given examples of how failure has been turned into success and how learning lessons emerge from mistakes. As I addressed in Chapter 13, a lack of success can occur when you take a risk that doesn’t pay off. But even when there is no risk involved—you’re simply acting on a new idea—you may experience a negative outcome. If you’re going to be creative in the workplace, you must accept failure as part of the process. If you’re a manager, it’s imperative you also realize the importance of this; otherwise, your employees will be too afraid to try any of the creative techniques presented in this book. When the results don’t pan out as you had desired or expected, you can look at them together as a team with an attitude of “We’re all in this together.” This is similar to the adage of finding a silver lining, which means finding the positive aspects in every situation despite disappointing results or downright failure.

As one who has been involved in the creation of numerous special events, the team of people with whom I worked made it a practice to thoroughly dissect each affair soon after it ended. There was always room for improvement for future events. Sometimes some of the biggest challenges prompted solutions that wouldn’t have otherwise happened and made the events that followed even better. When you pursue ideas that don’t work out, look for the blessing in disguise. If you can make that a practice, you’ll start to look at failure in a different light.

Can you recall work-related times in your life when you were upset the outcome was different from what you wanted, only to realize later it was all for the best? Maybe you didn’t get the promotion you wanted, but then you were offered an even better job by the competition. Or maybe you pitched your boss on a new idea that he turned down, which motivated you to rethink the situation and come up with an even better idea that was so great, the president of the company personally congratulated you. So it is when you accept failure as part of the process. Some ideas will fall flat on their face, while others can catapult the company to achieving financial success or superior customer satisfaction. Keep exercising your creative muscles. You can’t lose!

The Least You Need to Know

• Using creative thinking techniques will help you generate innovative ideas by opening your eyes to seeing things in new ways. Looking beyond logic, brainwriting, role storming, changing your wording, and maximizing and miniaturizing are among the methods you can use.
• Don’t wait for a crisis to implement change within your organization. Proactively pursue ideas that will put you ahead of the competition.
• Develop the habit of asking questions while discarding the need to be right. If you think you already have all of the answers, you’re less likely to be creative.
• If you look at failure as a learning opportunity, you’ll be more likely to take risks in finding and implementing innovative solutions.