Why Didn't I Think of That?
Why didn't I Think of That? Better Ideas & Decision Making At Home and At Work, by Roger L. Firestien, Ph.d, Green Tractor Publishing 2021
Face it, we're not always as creative, as innovative as we would like to be. Some of us have crazy production jobs demanding minute by minute attention, and some of us weren't raised to think of new approaches, different dreams. But that does not, according to author Dr. Firestien, mean that we cannot learn a few very positive and energetic new approaches to decision-making. And that's the value of this little book!
Listen to the story Firestein tells of James, the shuffling de-energized worker in a The Big Black and White Company. Like the Tom Hanks' opening scene in the film "Joe Versus the Volcano," he feels doomed, cornered, half dead. He needs something - anything - to change, but he feels powerless to move. In his own mind, James has no more energy and is stuck, moving one foot endlessly in front of the other.
But, says Firestein, it doesn't have to be like this forever for James and his cohorts, as he cites successful examples from General Motors and others who have applied his Creative Problem-Solving (CPS) technique. At GM a typical production machine problem - breakdowns - was costing one plant $50,000 a week. The company needed a solution yesterday, and yet nothing was forthcoming. What was needed was a different, creative approach, and it came from an unlikely source, a CPS meeting with a cross section of workers. The meeting produced the usual reactions, but a few employees pushed some ideas that were different, and one turned out to be the cost-saving solution. By lubricating the machines with a solution made of a mix of soap and oil - at a cost of $1.50 plus a spray bottle - they eliminated this type of machine breakdown and worker frustrations.
At Mead Paper, a customer asked for a different kind of paper, one that was 95% bright. This had seemed like an impossible challenge for Mead, but after assembling a creative problem-solving team, the ideas started to flow. In the end, despite utter initial denial of the possibility of change, the company was able to introduce an entire new line of papers better than the competition's, all while installing a new production process that saved over $500,000 per year.
Not a complicated recipe for creative thinking, Firestien's Creative Problem Solving method breaks the creativity process into 10 rules:
1. Capture ideas whenever and wherever they come.
2. Model openness and acceptance of ideas.
3. Redefine the problem
4. Go outside the problem area
5. Develop creativity habits
6. Separate imaginative thinking from judgmental thinking
7. Evaluate ideas by considering the Pluses or strengths of the idea first, then list the Potentials in the idea, then list the oncerns (PPC)
8. When working to solve a problem, set a quota of at least 40 ideas
9. Creativity, like any skill, requires paractice
10. Look at problems as opportunities
Be especially careful about judgmental thinking; this creativity killer tends to raise its head fairly soon in the process and can easily shut down employees' ideas.
Patricia E. Moody
FORTUNE magazine "Pioneering Woman in Mfg"
IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert
A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers, patriciaemoody@gmail.com