CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING
HISTORYCreative Problem Solving was born in the 50s, when Alex Osborn, the originator of the famous “brainstorming” technique and a co-founder of one of the largest advertising agencies BBDO, formed the Creative Education Foundation that later gave birth to the International Center for Studies in Creativity in Buffalo (US). The names of the greatest researchers of the nature of creative thinking, like Sid Parnes, Ruth Noller, Scott Isaksen, are linked to the evolution history of this revolutionary thinking methodology. Throughout these decades the companies like IBM, Nestlé, Johnson
& Johnson, Novartis, Pfizer, ING, PepsiCo among many others, have used Creative Problem Solving in search for innovative solutions to the challenges that the market presents.
|  |
 | WHY?
According to a recent IBM CEO Executive study creative thinking is considered by the majority of the CEOs of the largest corporations in the world as the most important competency for a XXI century leader. According to another study executed by the Society for Human Resource Management, creativity is the competency with the highest deficit in the companies nowadays. The experts have announced our entrance to the creative economy era. This means that now every individual should act as an entrepreneur, so each individual, as well as each enterprise, needs to overcome this creativity shortage through developing creative thinking skills. |
FUNDAMENTALSCreative Problem Solving is based on two principles: affirmative attitude and suspending judgment. Both principles are backed by numerous research studies in the area of neuroscience, especially by the Triune Brain concept.
Affirmative thinking makes our brain's limbic system activate the neocortex, responsible for cognition. It's the part of the brain that we use to think, create, ideate, solve problems. Suspending judgment refers to the separation of two cognitive processes: creating options (divergent thinking) and evaluating options (convergent thinking). It doesn't mean we have to eliminate judgment and evaluation, the key is to learn doing it at the right moment. Those who train themselves in suspending judgment techniques increase their capacity of seeing options outside of the common thinking zone. This is exactly what the actual reality of constant changes requires from us, isn't it? |  |
