Wednesday, January 25, 2017

A520.3.3.RB - Constraints on Creative Problem Solving


The Creativity of the Phoenix

Pablo Picasso said “every act of creation is, first of all, an act of destruction. The mythical Phoenix comes to mind when I first hear that statement. The Phoenix lives for a time, then the old bird is destroyed in a fiery display, and a new, young Phoenix arises from the ashes to take the old bird’s place and begin the cycle again. Nature, or Creation, is replete with similar examples. After a forest fire kills or destroys all of the trees, plants, and even animals over a wide swath, soon there are new, green shoots sprouting from the blackened ground. In time, the charred land is filled with young trees and vegetation; animals return to live in a place that was once beautiful and teaming with life, then dead, and once more full of beauty and life. Or witness the familiar caterpillar that undergoes a complete metamorphosis to emerge as moth or butterfly from its cocoon. Likewise, anyone who has lived, or spent time, on a farm is indeed familiar with the cycle of planting, cultivating, harvesting, turning the earth and destroying the remnants of the previous crop (thereby enriching the soil), and replanting again in the spring. After the leaves change color and fall from the trees, there ensues a dormant season where all is seemingly dead, only to witness re-birth and renewal once the snow melts and the warmth returns.

But each of these re-birth or regeneration processes and cycles may be arrested. A warm spring where trees begin to bud, followed by an unexpected harsh freeze can kill young fruit, new leaves, or even the entire tree. Mudslides or bulldozers after a forest fire can prevent new life from arising and the return of the animals. New crops may likewise experience a killing frost if planted too soon. Like the interruption of creation or rebirth in nature, we too can arrest or kill off our creativity, personally or in the workplace. We either constrain our own creativity through self-doubt or fear, or find it constrained by organizational bureaucracy that won’t tolerate one who does not conform. It would follow from Picasso’s statement that to be creative, we must first destroy that which prevents us from performing creatively and allow something new to be created within us.

To become creative, we may find it necessary to destroy or supplant our existing management and leadership techniques, processes, or understanding to replace these with the creation of new and different leadership and management skills. In her TED talk, “How to Manage for Collective Creativity” Linda Hill (2014), stated that, “If we want to build organizations that can innovate, we must unlearn conventional notions of leadership”. In other words, we must first tear down or destroy what we think we know (or have learned) about great leadership to enable ourselves and the organizations which we lead to become creative.

One thing that we need to destroy is the idea that no one can argue, even constructively, with the boss. Creativity requires the airing of different, even contradictory ideas; healthy, even heated, debate is essential for creativity and innovation. Another thing that we must discard is the notion that the boss tells the subordinates what to do and the subordinates do what they are told. Creativity and innovation are instead about working with the unique talents and perspectives of everyone in the work group. Experimentation is required, even if it means going down some blind alleys. A third construct that we must unlearn for the creative organization to flourish is that it is the leader who sets the vision for everyone else to follow. In a creative organization, the vision is something that is collectively developed by all members. As Linda says, leading innovation is not about creating a vision and inspiring others to execute it. Instead, leaders of innovation bring together people with great diversity and passion, to create a “public square” type of interaction where all of the “disruptors” and “minority voices can speak up and be heard.

If the common precepts of leadership must be effectively destroyed for organizations to be creative and innovative, it would follow that each of us as individuals must also destroy the manner in which we are accustomed to functioning within the typical organization and replace our own habits and self-imposed constraints with new ways of thinking, contributing, and interacting within the workplace. We must rid ourselves of the fear of speaking up and out for our ideas. We must discard the notion that we cannot have ideas, opinions, or perspectives that differ from the boss and from other members of the organization. Probably most importantly, we must train ourselves to think and solve problems creatively. Whetten and Cameron (2017) discuss this need to learn how to solve problems creatively, citing four “conceptual blocks that inhibit creative problem solving”. Those blocks are: 1) Constancy, or the tendency to define a problem in one way without considering all of the alternatives; 2) Commitment, which is the tendency to define new problems as mere variations of problems that we have already encountered and are used to seeing; 3) Compression, or not filtering out irrelevant information and; 4) Complacency, which is failure to be inquisitive and ask questions – in short, the failure to actively think about the problem. These then are some of our personal tendencies or traits that we must destroy if we are to become creative and innovative.

Many times, I have missed essential information about a new problem because I have defined it using the familiar terms and patterns that I learned from years of experience. Such experience is not an inherently bad thing, provided it doesn’t blind you to new information. Right here, in the second week of this course, I approached an assignment with the thought pattern that I have used repeatedly in my schoolwork and in so doing, I read right past one key requirement: to pose “intriguing questions” about the topic in my presentation. When I read the assignment, I said to myself “Got it; I need to build a Prezi presentation about the topic”. And that is what I did, completely overlooking the last piece of instruction; the part of the assignment that required some creativity at that. Lesson learned. I fell victim to constancy and commitment (and perhaps a bit of complacency). In the future, I will read (as I’m doing now) and re-read the assignment and ensure that I have covered each, individual requirement therein. I crashed and burned on one assignment because I thought I had done everything that I was supposed to do, without carefully examining and double-checking each requirement.

Each time the Phoenix arises from its ashes, it is faced with the opportunity to begin anew, to experience life differently than it did in its prior incarnation. Its destruction enables the possibility of a fresh perspective, of different ways of accomplishing tasks than it may have learned in past lives. Like that Phoenix, if we are to become innovative and creative when called upon to do so, we must first destroy our old selves (figuratively, of course) and become new in our habits, thoughts, and interactions within our organizations.

No comments:

Post a Comment