One Solution to All Your Problems — Creativity & Innovation
Anything & everything takes time in world.
Be it the in growing Fruits & Vegetables to the so called corporate learning curve. Even the most large organizations like GM or even Amazon for that matter keeps innovating not only the product offerings but also the services which directly or indirectly affect the end consumer.
We know in this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) one needs to innovate continuously in order to stay in the game.
Hence, while solving any problem one must keep three rules in mind: -
- Understand the problem well before attempting to solve it
- Generate as many ideas without trying to be critical about your or other’s ideas
- Be objective while evaluating ideas while making the process democratic
Now for an Indian to follow these rules will be difficult due to various reasons but the current government have started changing the same through implementing — Education Policy 2020 which aims to nurture students and help them develop holistically, and better attuned to real-world challenges.
This might in turn help in reducing the soo called Jugaad which we follow daily in our lives in order to solve a problem. But it would have it limitations and can backfire. So, what should we do further ? The answer lies in Design Thinking which puts a premium on empathy and getting to the core of the problem, something that Jugaad would skip.
Another problem a person would face is how do we train our mind for design thinking ? We can refer to one of the known author Pavan Soni who is the founder of Inflexion Point, an innovation and strategy consultancy have explained us in three steps: -
- Keep some “my time”. Away from people, away from gadgets, and away from activities. This would help you get comfortable with yourself, without much of an agenda
- Narrow down your challenge set, in other words, prioritize. There’s no point in dispersing your energy into numerous activities. Pick your challenges
- Don’t impress anyone with your achievements. You would once again get into the anxiety loop. Let it be. Keep it boring.
Now another question comes to our mind: -
- How do we sell our creative solution to our boss ?
- Where and how should I inspire other people to be creative ?
- How do I find people who are creative to solve problems in a crisis ?
— — How do we sell our creative solution to our boss ?
- Sell the problem first
- Never take an idea directly to your boss — ask your peer and through their feedback refine your idea
- Include all stakeholders
— — How do I find people who are creative to solve problems in a crisis ?
- A typical interview will revolve around common questions like Tell me about yourself?, or more bluntly, Who are you?
- Instead we must focus on asking the question differently like Who all are you?
- A creative person who have multiple affiliations is more creative than a person who identifies life in limited dimensions
If you define yourself narrowly in terms of professional affiliation, you are very much limited by those and it limits your learning. If that one key affiliation goes down for some reason, you are left with nothing.
- Hence, it is critical that you fill-in your life with multiple affiliations, such as taking up a music class, teaching children how to code, playing badminton, writing short stories, learning to cook, and also making time for your day job
- This in life translate into being a T-shaped personality at work
A T-shaped person has significant depth in a subject matter along with an ability to relate to several other domains. The stem of the “T” represents expertise, while the bar indicates empathy
- Hence, research has suggested that such a person would be far more proficient at solving problems than an I-shaped (read deep expert), or a dash-shaped (read pure generalist)
Last but not the least in order to inspire others in your team or even in your organization one must allow their team member / employees to try new stuff, offer them critical resources and time……
