Reflection -- Week 8

This week, we read about creative problem solving, and especially the idea that it is valuable to approach creativity as a process and a series of activities and tools -- rather than an innate ability. I appreciated that so much effort was extended in the Basadur et al and Puccio et al articles to fully validate the benefits of treating creative problem solving as a process. At the same time, it was surprising to me to realize the level of work required to do this kind of research. I have read many business, organizational development, and leadership books, and taken a fair amount of training on the subject. I often wondered how much research had validated what was being proposed by the trainer, consultant, coach, author, etc. Because the authors of these articles had taken such a data-driven approach to accompany their theories and recommendations, I found the material to be tremendously exciting. All week I found opportunities to share what I had learned with friends and colleagues.

The class discussion on the nature of innovation -- and the rather unusual structure of the class that left all of us doing a bit of creative problem solving ourselves -- was very interesting as well. I appreciated the opportunity to have a somewhat more freewheeling discussion with my classmates. The process of collectively coming to understand the nature of innovation that Professor David was proposing was highly interactive and felt quite 'constructivist'. I think that what I learned about process, and during that process, will definitely stick with me longer because of the kind of efforts we all made to make that meaning together.

One idea that I had in response to this week's materials is about the creative process for writers. I can't speak to true writers' block -- which I'll define as a kind of absolute frozenness and misery that feels more like a symptom of a mental condition like depression than a cognitive speed bump. But I think it's fair to say that most writers experience points where we are stuck -- unable to figure out what comes next, or not sure how to solve a particular problem. Thus creative problem solving techniques for writers seems like a significant application and audience for what has been learned about this topic.

The 'incubation' article is a good example of this. The meaning of incubation in a work context has shifted toward 'environment to foster business' rather than 'let this idea cook for a while', but in the older sense, the advice to 'take a break and let your subconscious work on it' is a longstanding adage. The second half of this adage -- the notion that your brain is somehow still working on the problem while you are doing something else -- seemed to be disproven by the study.

But the first half, the notion that taking a break will help you to become 'unstuck' on a problem, seems validated both by the study data and by reported individual experiences. Segal goes on to explore the idea that what you do when you're taking a break really matters -- the crossword puzzle wins out over leafing through the newspaper.

Reading this particular study opened a lot of questions in my mind. What might happen if the participants took a walk, a nap, a shower, etc. Would students who intensely read the newspaper perform the same the idly-paging-through group? What correspondences might be found between certain kinds of puzzles and certain kinds of idle activities? I would also like to see the comparison with television-watching, although it might be harder to control for certain kinds of external stimuli encouraging people to think about the right answer inadvertently. Maybe if they showed old episodes of Seinfeld -- although perhaps the humor would shake something loose. At any rate, the idea that it matters what you do when you take your break -- that not all breaks are created equal, struck me as particularly useful for writers as they try to solve problems.

Segal also proposes that the benefit of the break is not in the length of it, but rather in the ability to break away from certain organizing assumptions, also seems to have direct applications for writers. If the task is truly to break your organizing assumption, and the break is the means to that end, then presumably other kinds of means might be effective as well. Collaborating with others, free writing, or seeking an outside perspective might be just as helpful. I suspect that what matters most is finding the amount of time you need in order to gain distance from your past solution, and that the duration probably varies by the amount of time spent with the work (measured in months or years, rather than minutes), the length of the work (perhaps a hundred thousand or more words, versus a single math problem), and the individual disposition of the writer.

Also of great interest to me were the articles about workplace application of CPS and the notion that people with certain problem-solving techniques might feel more at home and efficacious in certain professions because of both the style of problem presented within it, and the type of colleagues found in that area. I have not done a formal evaluation, but I would guess that my problem solving style is somewhere in the Conceptualizing and Generating area. I am in the process of shifting gears from being a middle-manager in a fairly creative area of Information Technology (Academic Technology & Digital Media), heading toward a more academically-oriented area (Education Research). It was validating of my choices to see my style reflected in Basadur's data.

Another observation I had about the Basadur article is that so many Generators seem to be schoolteachers. I've met some very creative teachers, and I often find myself feeling very comfortable with them when I'm in a Generator sort of mindset, so it was not a large surprise to read -- or at least, it feels quite correct once someone points it out. This makes me wonder if perhaps those industries which are seeking more innovation ought to be hunting for advice among teachers, perhaps through advisory panels if not by bringing them in as consultants.