The Role Of Creative Problem Solving In Leadership And Effective Management Essay.

Students will explore a contemporary management issue that has attracted national and/or international media attention at some time during the past two years.

1. Choose one of the selected articles.
2. Identify management topics from the lecture program which are relevant to the issue(s) discussed in the article.
3. Identify the company, its context, industry sector etc.
4. Provide a brief summary of the issue that the managers in the case are confronting.
5. Use relevant management concepts and theories as the 'lens' through which you critically evaluate the performance of management in addressing the issue.
6. Make a judgment, based on the critical review you conduct in steps 1-4 above, about the management strategies/ decisions that were or could be tried to resolve the issue, and what worked or didn't work, and why.
7. Recommend any different approach that might be taken to resolve the issue, and explain why. Your ability to link concepts and theories to real life problems, and argue your opinion based on evidence, is important here.

Creative Problem Solving in Business Organizations

In the present challenging and competitive business environment, the business organization faces several complex business issues. It is important for the business organizations to implement dynamic strategies which can reduce the address these business issues. One of the core responsibilities of the business organizations is solving the long-term and the day-to-day problems while running a business. The management and the growth of a business depend on the problem solving capabilities of the administration. Moreover, the problem solving capabilities of the management is independent of the academic credentials and the IQ of the management. The entrepreneurs with high problem solving capabilities are also effective in meeting the needs of their customers effectively. Therefore, the problem-solving is the essence of running a successful business. At present, the business organizations are implementing a number of creative problem solving approaches to address the challenging problems of the business in the best possible manner. The creative problem solving refers to novel approaches which can be used to solve a specific problem. In this approach, several non-obvious approaches are used to find the solution to a specific problem (Proctor, 2010). In this regard, this essay will critically examine the role of creative problem solving in leadership and effective management.

In the present age, a large number of business organizations are facing the problem of creative problem solving. The technical giants such as Google and Microsoft are under constant pressure to present the most advanced products to their customers to attain customer loyalty. It is especially important when the latest technologies are constantly outdated and the technology companies are using enhanced product features to attract new customers. It is important that the companies use creative thinking to address product development challenges and so that the problems can be solved in a better manner.  

In the research article, the issues in the implementation of the creative problem solving approaches are discussed. The traditional brainstorming methods are unsuccessful in establishing a favorable environment for the innovation as it inhibits creativity. The brainstorming session is a technique to enhance the group creativity. In this technique, the conclusion to a specific problem is identified by collecting spontaneous ideas contributed by the team members. The quality of the ideas can be enhanced by the avoiding judgment and asking for more ideas or solution for the problem. These principles are implemented to reduce the social inhibition among the group members and increasing the overall creativity of the group. In the brainstorming sessions, the manager has to be considerate to withhold criticism on the wild ideas and combine two or more ideas to increase the overall productivity. Moreover, it is essential for the business organization to increase the quantity of ideas so that there are more chances for an effective solution (Treffinger, Isaksen and Stead-Dorval, 2006).

The convergent thinking refers to the thinking process wherein a single well-developed answer is identified for a specific problem. The convergent thinking is focused on finding the best and most appropriate answer to a question. It focuses on finding the solution with accuracy and speed by reapplying best techniques or methods. This method is suitable for finding solutions which already exists through decision making techniques. The convergent thinking is used in conjunction with probabilities and standards to make judgments (Zhou, 2016).

The Convergent and Divergent Thinking Approaches

On the other hand, the divergent thinking is a creative problem solving technique wherein all the possible solutions are accepted withholding judgment. The divergent thinking is a spontaneous process in which several creative ideas are generated and evaluated during the process. This process yields several unexpected solutions and connections are drawn between them to find best results (Kasprisin, 2016).

In the creative problem-solving technique, the convergent thinking is used in union with the divergent thinking. In the creative-thinking process, first all the possible solutions are generated from the divergent thinking and then convergent thinking process is used wherein all the possible solution are evaluated for the best possible solution. In the convergent thinking process, several ideas and solutions are examined by using knowledge, logic and probabilities to identify the best answer (Mills, 2008).

All the business organizations face several challenging issues at some point of operations. These issues can be related to the cost containment, recession or some internal problem. The creative problem solving approaches are used by the business organizations to solve the problem in the best possible method (Hull, 2013). However, the implementation of the creative problem solving approaches is difficult for an organization as there is no system in the formal education system which teaches the employees how to become creative and secondly, there is limited research on how to manipulate the group dynamics to maximize the creativity of the organization. Teaching the employees creative thinking is difficult for the management of the organization; however, the management can implement strategies to change the group dynamics to foster creative thinking (Hicks, 2004). There are two basic approaches for the group problem-solving, namely, divergence and convergence. In divergence, the group examines all the different approaches which can be used by the group to solve a specific issue. In contrast to it, in the convergent approaches, the management focuses on aligning the ideas of different people to solve a specific problem. The outcomes attained from these approaches are different and it is important that the business organization implements the strategies which are best suitable for the current problems (Isaken, Dorval and Treffingr, 2011).

Several times, the brainstorming sessions, proposed as an effective problem solving technique, do not yield the best results to the problem. It is due to the fact that the thought process and the creative ideas of a person are influenced by the ideas presented to him earlier. Therefore, it is important for a leader to determine when he wants to diverge or converge in the problem solving skills. The creative problem solving approaches is commonly used by the transformational leaders. The transformational leaders use the intellectual stimulation to encourage the employees to adopt creative thinking to solve business issues and address work-related problems in a creative manner. It is the process of challenging the people to identify new processes and manners to optimize the business processes. The business leaders encourage the followers to take responsibility of their problems and tell them that the accomplishment of the organization is dependent upon them and the team effort. The transformational leaders constantly challenge the status-quo of the employees to enhance their performance and their leadership skills (Wilson, 2013).

Models for Creative Problem Solving

The research article has highlighted the complexities of the creative problem solving approaches and discussed that the business organizations should use the combination of convergent and the divergent problem solving approaches to foster creative thinking in the organization. Along with it, the leadership style and management technique also has a significant role in the development of organization climate which increases the instances of innovation (Wilson, 2013).

There are several models which can be used in the creative problem solving approach of the organizations. The Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem-Solving Process is the most common model which examines the creative process in the business organizations (Villa, Thousand & Nevin, 2010). Osborn posited the process of brainstorming in which the group members share their ideas in an open and unstructured manner and ignore judgment. It is designed to assist the business organizations to come with most novel and useful ideas to solve business problems. There are basically six primary steps in this model (Markman, 2015). These stages are objective finding, fact finding, problem finding, idea-finding, solution finding and acceptance finding. In the first stage, the goals, issues or challenge is identified by exploring the situation. It is done by asking provoking questions and probing so that the underlying problem in the situation can be examined. In the second stage, all the relevant information and data are collected regarding the problem so that problem can be understood clearly. In the third stage, the problem is clarified and reframed based on the collected information in the second stage. It is highly likely that the problem statement and the underlying issues are changed according to the now available information. In the fourth stage, the alternative ideas are explored and developed by using variety of tools and strategies. It includes brainstorming sessions, or using divergent or convergent thinking to find unexpected solutions to the problems. In the next stage, the decision criteria are determined and applied to examine the viability of the ideas and solutions in relation to the problem. It examines whether the ideas or the problems have the capability to solve the current problem. In the last stage, an action plan is developed to implement the solutions identified in the previous stages (Wankel, 2007).

It can be deduced from the above creative thinking model that the divergent and convergent thinking come under the fourth and the fifth stage of this model respectively. According to this model, the use of the combination of different thinking approaches is effective in creative problem solving method. With this method, the companies can brainstorm all the creative approaches which can be used in identifying the effective solution for the problem.  It can be concluded that the transformational leaders commonly use the creative problem solving approaches in their organization. The leaders must be able to recognize accurate problem solving approaches so that the problems can be solved in a precise manner. The combination of divergent and the convergent approaches will be beneficial for the organization in creative problem solving approaches. It is recommended that the business organizations should adopt transformational leadership approaches so that the employees are encourage to generate and put forward creative ideas.

References

Hicks, M.J. (2004). Problem Solving and Decision Making: Hard, Soft and Creative Approaches. Cengage Learning EMEA.

Isaken, S.G., Dorval, K.B. and Treffingr, D.J. (2011). Creative Approaches to Problem Solving: A Framework for Innovation and Change. SAGE.

Kasprisin, R. (2016). Play in Creative Problem-solving for Planners and Architects. Routledge.

Markman, A. (2015). The Problem-Solving Process That Prevents Groupthink. Harvard Business Review.

Mills, M.J. (2008). Leadership and School Reform: The Effects of Transformational Leadership on Missouri Assessments. ProQuest.

Proctor, T. (2010). Creative Problem Solving for Managers: Developing Skills for Decision Making and Innovation. Routledge.

Treffinger, D.J., Isaksen, S.G. and Stead-Dorval, B. (2006). Creative Problem Solving: An Introduction. Prufrock Press Inc.

Wankel, C. (2007). 21st Century Management: A Reference Handbook. SAGE Publications.

Wilson, C. (2013). Brainstorming and Beyond: A User-Centered Design Method. Newnes.

Zhou, C. (2016). Handbook of Research on Creative Problem-Solving Skill Development in Higher Education. IGI Global.

Creativity Land Inc. (2004). Which Creative Problem Solving Model Do You Use? Retrieved on 22 March 2017 from https://www.creativityland.ca/which-creative-problem-solving-model-do-you-use/ 

Hull, P. (2013). Learn To Solve Any Business Challenge Using Creativity. Forbes. Retrieved on 22 March 2017 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickhull/2013/06/28/learn-to-solve-any-business-challenge-using-creativity/#53037a8944fa 

Villa, R.A., Thousand, J.S., & Nevin, A.I. (2010). Collaborating With Students in Instruction and Decision Making: The Untapped Resource. Corwin Press.