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.