Overcoming Inhibitions is the Key to Solving Difficult Problems

Imagine you were at a kids party and you were doing the entertainment, playing the fool and talking nonsense, it probably wouldn’t make you feel awkward.

Now imagine doing the same thing at work.  Feels a bit different doesn’t it?

Talking about stuff that doesn’t make sense is not easy for most people at work – because work is ‘more important’ than a kids party. You either don’t want to look silly in front of your boss, or you don’t want to look silly in front of your subordinates.  It’s probably worse for managers as they are the ones we look to for making sense. 

Creative problem solving sessions can be hampered because sometimes people have difficulty in engaging with a process that requires people to be fanciful.

Our education and upbringing condition our minds to disregard what we see as nonsense or irrelevant to the problem at hand, our minds inhibit irrelevant ideas.  Creative people are known to pay much more attention to ‘irrelevant’ ideas; they are ‘cognitively disinhibited’. 

Therefore to become more productive in creative problem solving, we need to overcome our inhibitions.  Fortunately, there are some exercises that we can do to help.  Storytelling is one example; each member of the group contributes a line to a story, without reference to the preceding line.  Another example, is to read a sentence out and get each member to finish it so that it does not make sense  (this is an exercise that has been used as a test for conditions such as Alzheimer’s, where people have difficulty inhibiting their normal cognitive processes).


When we can feel free to make outlandish suggestions and ask silly questions, we are able to break away from the limitations that logic imposes on our thinking.

Complexity

Finding solutions to difficult problems is not always about struggling to find a novel solution.  Sometimes the difficulty is a matter of complexity.  A problem might comprise of a large number of factors, each of which has a complex interaction with the other factors.  Complex problems may also be difficult to deal with because it may not be clear what the ideal solution looks like.  For example, social mobility is a burning political issue, but how do you measure it, what constitutes success?

The goal is to reveal the key relationship(s) that may be obscured by too many complex interactions. 

There is more than one approach to these problems.  Here is an example from a TED talk detailing the complex problems facing the NATO forces in Afganistan (its amazing what you can get into 3 minutes).  As Eric Berlow stresses, the idea is to see relationships that cause you to ask new questions.  From a highly detailed map of the factors, he extracts three basic principles.

Alternatively, there is an approach called Concept Mapping which was developed by  William M. Trochim.  This endeavours to discover underlying structures and relationships using a ‘qualitative’ statistical approach.   I showed that in Assumption Mapping, the idea was to place factors within a grid depending upon how they rated against defined key parameters.  Concept Mapping enables us to discover the key criteria amongst an array of confusing and complex factors.  Discovering these parameters enables us to simply the problem and gain new insights.

Problems come in all shapes and sizes, and ‘qualitative’ problems are amongst the most intractable.  These are useful tools that can help cut through the confusion and provide clarity and enlightenment.

The Awkward Squad

One of the things that fascinates me about creative problem solving, is its contrary nature. 

For example, over the years I have run countless meetings and I rather pride myself in being quite good at keeping the meeting moving along, sticking to the agenda and getting input from all concerned.  One of the things that I think I am particularly good at, is not letting people wander off the point.  Every now and then someone will have bee in their bonnet about something and want to make a point that is not relevant.  I wish I had a pound for every time I said “we digress”, or “can we deal with that in ‘any other business’” -  I’m sure we all know people who have a bit of a reputation for wandering all over the place. 

This control works well for ‘process driven problems’ which are encountered at most meetings.  But when you need a creative solution to a problem, this is what you DON’T want.  A tight logical process is not helpful.   You want ideas that are not obviously relevant, because they might spark a better idea in someone else.

So, if you need a creative solution to a problem, invite all those people who find it impossible to stick to the point, disrupting peoples thought processes and not sticking to the point is exactly what you want.