Innovate, Solve Problems, and Invent

“When employees are curious, they feel more connected, engaged, and driven to explore new solutions,” writes Diane Hamilton in her article in Forbes, “How to Re-Energize Unmotivated Employees: Strategies to Combat Burnout.” Research from Harvard Business School shows that curiosity enhances learning, problem-solving, and teamwork. For HR, the key is to cultivate an environment where curiosity is encouraged daily, making employees more invested in their work.”

Problem solving. Teamwork. Engagement. Those are critical elements for today’s employees and workplaces. So how do talent development practitioners foster an environment that furthers those characteristics?

In “Cultivate Creative Thinking for the Future of Work,” Gerard J. Puccio and Pamela A. Szalay share a framework for growing and developing creativity and problem-solving skills in employees so they can be more innovative individually and as part of a team.

The Creativity Formula

Puccio and Szalay point out that coming up with creative ideas isn’t just about being intelligent. Instead, according to Noller’s Creativity Formula, creativity is a function of attitude that requires knowledge, imagination, and the ability to evaluate.

In sharing how creativity can be learned, the authors describe the FourSight Model, a four-stage framework for problem solving:

• Clarify, which goes to understanding the problem

• Ideate, during which individuals or teams brainstorm ideas

• Develop, which involves choosing the most promising ideas

• Implement, where participants complete and evaluate the solution

Six Strategies for Getting There

Individuals and teams need a framework to get to the solution. They also need strategies to improve the chances of success.

As Puccio and Szalay share, these include:

• Diverge first

• Solve the right problem

• Extend your effort

• POINt to evaluate

• Stakeholder analysis

• Incubate

“Human brains perform two fundamental types of thinking: generative and evaluative,” explain the authors. Generative thinking is when we come up with ideas, which can be likened to divergent thinking. It’s important to not perform generative and evaluative (or convergent) thinking simultaneously, or we will shut down potential ideas by evaluating them too quickly. We’ve all been in meetings where colleagues or leaders have said something to the effect of “that’ll never work” or “we’ve tried that.”

Divergent thinking calls for coming up with a number of ideas, either alone or as a team, without judging them. Try to develop ideas that are new and build on existing options. The divergent thinking strategy can be used at all stages of problem solving: clarify, ideate, develop, and implement.

Have you ever tried to fix something one way, only to find out that you’re not addressing the real problem? Learning and development professionals are familiar with this when they are asked to create a training module when the root cause of the problem isn’t about a lack of knowledge. We aren’t seeking to solve the right problem.

The authors write, “To prime your brain for creativity, frame problems using invitational stems such as:

• How to ...?

• How might ...?

• What might be all the ways to ...?

• In what ways might ...?”

Research has consistently shown that the language used to frame a challenge statement has a direct impact on facilitating thinking.”

Asking questions like these will help clarify the problem and is appropriate during that stage of the framework.

The first ideas that come to us when we try to solve a problem tend to be familiar ones. That is why, to innovate, we need to extend our efforts. Doubling the number of ideas you come up with will push the envelope and is helpful during the ideation portion of the creative problem-solving process.

POINt to evaluate involves looking at pluses or strengths of a solution; opportunities or potential benefits; “refining ideas with constructive evaluation;” and using new ways of thinking to prioritize the most critical ideas. This strategy is useful during the development stage.

Who is or could be affected by the solution? What leader or other stakeholder could be a supporter or someone who slows your implementation? Conduct a stakeholder analysis to reflect on the individuals’ importance and how you might be able to win them over to your idea or at least get them to oppose it to a lesser degree. This is helpful as you implement.

A final strategy that individuals or teams can use during all stages of problem solving is incubation. Readers will be familiar with the concept of some of their best ideas coming to them while they’re in the shower or performing a mundane task. When you step away from the problem, “you’re no longer actively working on it, but your mind keeps tinkering in the background. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, an insight appears,” write Puccio and Szalay.

If you’re working in a team, ensure that everyone is at the same stage of the framework. You don’t, for example, want someone ideating while another person is trying to implement.

You can also use artificial intelligence, prompting it to develop ideas and weigh in on their pluses and new ways of looking at possible solutions, for example.