Authoring the Future Together: An Employee-Centric Innovation Methodology
- Dehumo Bickersteth
- Jan 9, 2024
- 28 min read
Updated: Jan 11, 2024
Adaptive and Innovative Creative Problem-Solving in Organizations
Organizations must build dynamic, creative problem-solving capabilities to drive innovation and stay competitive in today’s complex and rapidly changing business landscape. This paper explores three critical questions that leaders should address:
1. What creative problem-solving capabilities are you building across the organization? Rather than relying solely on external consultants, companies should focus on empowering employees at all levels to identify problems, develop solutions, and test ideas. This internal capacity is vital for agility.
2. What is your organizational tolerance for innovative solutions? Companies need to assess their risk appetite, decision rights framework, and openness to experimentation. This determines how radically new proposed solutions can be. Leadership preferences and team dynamics influence the innovation posture.
3. How are individuals empowered to discover their creative potential? Problem-solving methodologies should center on developing people, not just solving discrete problems. Each project should expand skills and mindsets. The paper proposes an “employee-centric” approach to design thinking where employees and their roles also become a meta-level focus of the creative problem-solving process.
In summary, organizations seeking to foster dynamic innovation should diagnose their creative DNA, clarify innovation guardrails, implement structured approaches to nurture talent and align systems to support problem-solvers. This capacity building, centered around human needs, is essential for generating innovative solutions that are critical for the future.
WHAT CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING CAPABILITIES ARE YOU BUILDING?
Organizations are facing increasingly unprecedented existential challenges. The increasing complexity and dynamism, driven by globalization, technological advancements, access to finance, and changing market demands, require businesses to be more adaptable, innovative, and responsive than ever before. It is no longer about named projects or strategic initiatives; at all levels of organization, from individuals to teams to enterprise-wide, there is a need to encourage continuous creative problem-solving.
In today’s business environment, many organizations rely heavily on consultants for their problem-solving or change initiatives. They often outsource the intellectual and creative aspects of the problem-solving process, leaving their internal staff to focus solely on project administrative elements, implementation and execution.
However, this approach often neglects to test and validate underlying assumptions and hypotheses. As a result, it often fails to account for the contextual adaptation required to ensure the efficacy of the solution across diverse organizational implementation contexts.
Secondly, with an increasingly advanced digital landscape, technology plays a pivotal role in enhancing creative problem-solving capabilities. Technologies like AI, big data analytics, and cloud computing offer new ways to approach and solve problems, enabling organizations to be more agile and innovative. But to leverage these technologies internal staff need to be actively engaged in creative problem-solving.
Creative problem-solving is no longer a luxury but a necessity for organizational survival and success. In a world where change is the only constant, the ability to creatively solve problems determines an organization’s capacity to grow and sustain competitiveness. It is the driving force behind innovation, efficiency, and continuous improvement. Creative problem-solving has emerged as one of the most critical capabilities of team and organizational leaders, both personally as individuals and in their ability to lead creative problem-solving — creating the conditions that make it possible, efficient, and effective. Although creative problem-solving is not commonly discussed in organizations, the concepts of innovation, leadership, and entrepreneurship dominate, and in a way, these refer to the same central idea — how people’s decisions and actions can ensure an organization’s current and continued performance and success.
Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership
Entrepreneurship and innovation are two interconnected yet distinct concepts that play crucial roles in the growth and success of a corporation.
Entrepreneurship primarily involves creating or seizing an opportunity and leveraging it to bring together the necessary resources to launch and run a new venture or initiative. In the context of corporations, this often takes the form of “intrapreneurship,” which encourages employees to behave like entrepreneurs. These individuals identify new opportunities, generate and implement innovative ideas, and take on the accountability (ownership) for the success or failure of their initiatives.
If you are an employee who is leading a new project, new team, or new department, you will find that you can view and approach the experience in the same way an entrepreneur views and approaches starting a brand-new venture. In order to be successful, you will need to possess the same types of skills and mindset. This includes the ability to identify opportunities, the passion and vision for success, the willingness to take calculated risks and think creatively, a high level of resilience, and the ability to recover from setbacks quickly and stronger. Additionally, you will need to be able to motivate and inspire people, build relationships with stakeholders, and manage resources effectively. Overall, the role of an intrapreneur requires a unique blend of leadership, business acumen, and a ‘can-do’ spirit.
Innovation, conversely, is the introduction and application of new ideas, processes, products, or procedures that create value. This could involve transforming or reimagining existing systems or creating completely new ones that can impact the market opportunities or a company’s operational efficiency. In corporations, innovation often involves product development, business process transformations, or even new business model creation. In the business context, the idea is to approach and perceive every role as a business owner. As an individual, you are responsible for the outcomes associated with your role in delivering value to the stakeholders, who are the customers of the product or service that your role offers. If you are leading a team, the same principle applies to the team, and if you are heading a department or a unit, it applies to your department or unit’s offering of value to the stakeholders, who are the customers of your department or unit’s product or service.
While entrepreneurship and innovation differ in their definitions, they are deeply related. Entrepreneurship involves recognizing or creating opportunities and marshaling resources to capitalize on these opportunities. In many cases, these opportunities are derived from innovations. In other words, innovation often provides the material that entrepreneurs work with. Conversely, entrepreneurial activities can spur innovation, as starting a new venture or initiative often requires innovative thinking and problem-solving.
Leadership in Problem-Solving
Effective leadership is crucial in cultivating an environment conducive to creative problem-solving and coming up with creative solutions to problems. Leadership at a personal level powers the passion to try and the will to succeed, which together make creative problem-solving possible. Team and organizational leaders need to encourage experimentation, tolerate risk, and foster open communication to create an atmosphere where people’s capacity and potential for innovation and the ideas they come up with can flourish.
Leadership styles like transformational leadership, which focuses on inspiring and motivating employees, and participative leadership, which involves employees in decision-making, have been shown to positively influence innovation and creativity.
The Organization — Systems, Performance, and People
In understanding the dynamics of organizational problem-solving, it’s crucial to distinguish between people, individuals, and the hard and social systems, as all play a significant role in how solutions are developed and implemented.
Organizational capabilities can be summarised as consisting of the capabilities of its hard and social systems in as much as they enable its people to identify and achieve the right goals for the organization’s performance. The human focus, therefore, is critical here; it is focused on how these hard and social systems currently serve the individuals who interact with and use them on a daily basis. The systems are means to empower people, not ends in their own right. As such, any desire to build organizational capability for creative problem-solving needs to focus on enabling the people who enact and operate within these systems, to solve the problems.
Hard Systems: Technological and Physical Infrastructure
Hard systems in an organization refer to the tangible aspects that employees interact with to perform their roles. These include:
Technological Tools: Software, hardware, and digital platforms (including increasingly powerful AI tools) that employees use for various tasks.
Equipment: Machinery and devices necessary for specific operations.
Infrastructure: The organization’s physical buildings, workspaces, and facilities.
Physical Environments: The overall setting where work is conducted, which can influence productivity and well-being.
Hard systems provide the foundational structure and tools necessary for employees to carry out their work. The effectiveness, reliability, and user-friendliness of these systems can significantly impact organizational performance and employee satisfaction.
Social Systems: Cultural and Processual Framework
Social systems, on the other hand, encompass the intangible elements that shape the workplace environment. They include:
Policies and Processes: Guidelines and procedures that dictate how work is done, decisions are made, and conflicts are resolved.
Cultural Norms: The shared values, beliefs, and behaviors that define the organization’s identity and influence how individuals interact.
Communication Channels: The methods and pathways through which information flows within the organization.
Power Dynamics: The relationships and hierarchies that affect decision-making and resource allocation.
Social systems are critical in shaping the organizational climate and can either enable or restrict individuals’ efforts. They influence how employees engage with each other, their commitment to organizational goals, and their ability to innovate and solve problems.
Employee-Centric View of Organizational Creative Problem-Solving
The key premise of the employee-centric approach outlined in this paper is that sustainable and impactful creative problem-solving requires putting the specific individuals charged with driving results at the center of the process. With this view, rather than seeing these organizational performance gaps abstractly in terms of its systems, the methodology focuses deeply on the relationship between the organizational performance gaps and the performance gaps and unmet potential of the pivotal people with accountabilities and responsibilities related to those systems and performance gaps. This perspective prioritizes the experiences, insights, and contributions of individuals within the problem space, recognizing that the success of any solution is deeply intertwined with the success of specific people responsible for its design and implementation.
Performance Gaps: Bridging Macro and Micro Perspectives: In the realm of organizational problem-solving, performance gaps represent the divide between the current state and the desired outcomes of an organization. The goal here is to examine how these performance gaps, traditionally viewed in the context of individuals, can be used to conceptualize problems in broader systems but still view these system performance gaps as a consequence of the performance gap of the key personnel.
The Organizational Performance Gap: Organizational challenges can be described as performance gaps, which refer to the delta between current metrics and the required metrics for desired success. These gaps, quantified in terms of productivity, efficiency, and quality, are crucial indicators of organizational health (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). The identification of these gaps can be remedial, fixing organizational underperformance, or aspirational, seeking outperformance with current strategy and propositions, or growth, seeking performance in new strategies and propositions. The choice between these approaches depends on the nature of the problem and the strategic objectives of the organization (Amabile, 1996).
Macro vs. Micro Perspectives: When talking about organizational problem-solving, the perspective adopted will be at a macro level, focusing on systemic and process-based gaps. However, an employee-centric approach advocates for a deeper connection between these macro gaps and the micro-level performance gaps of individuals who are accountable for enabling the organizational metrics for desired success. This concept aligns with the principles outlined in human capital theory, emphasizing the importance of individual capabilities in organizational success (Becker, 1964).
Addressing Interconnected Gaps: Sustainable solutions require addressing these interconnected performance gaps simultaneously across people and systems. This involves developing solutions that not only improve systems and processes but also enhance individual capabilities related to the identification and solving for the improvement of the systems and processes. The idea here is that solving the organizational problem should directly mean specific people capabilities were developed, not just system capabilities. Sustainable solutions necessitate addressing performance gaps across both people and systems, a principle echoed in systems thinking in management (Checkland, 1981). In view of this, solutions should integrate individual development plans with organizational problem-solving strategies and processes, ensuring that closing of organizational performance gaps is directly based on improvements in the performance of specific individuals and teams. Aligning individual development with organizational strategy ensures mutual growth and is a key tenet of modern human resource development theories (Swanson & Holton, 2001).
Benefits of this Employee-Centric Approach
Beyond Abstract Underperformance: Instead of vague notions of “underperformance,” this approach emphasizes tangibly mapping the specific gaps in capabilities and outcomes of pivotal talent directly related to the macro gap. It involves identifying where these key individuals currently stand in terms of role clarity (decisions, results and accountability, and actions, deliverables, and responsibilities), gap awareness and diagnosis (skills, knowledge, motivation, and alignment), and comparing this to what is needed to successfully close the macro (organizational) gaps. This alignment has significant benefits for organizational development, especially as it relates to the capability for strategy execution, future skills readiness, and organizational learning culture. This is a concept supported by Lawler III’s work on strategic human resource management (Lawler III, 2008).
Discovering Untapped Potential: This approach also facilitates the uncovering of areas of untapped potential in relation to the organizational performance gap by discovering the talents and capabilities people possess that they might not have realized, have not fully utilized, or have not bothered to develop. Recognizing and tapping into this latent potential can be a significant lever not just for addressing a specific organizational performance gap but also for building organizational capacity and capability for sustainable and adaptive performance. This echoes the sentiments of talent management theories (Collings, 2014).
Engagement: Clearly identifying and articulating the link between macro organizational performance gaps and micro individual performance gaps provides empowering insights into the purpose and value of individual (nodal) contributions to the success of the organization (the system). Making this clarity a key outcome of problem-solving serves the dual purpose of driving intellectual and emotional engagement with the organizational performance gap, which increases the quality and effectiveness of problem-solving decisions and actions and addresses the personal development needs related to the future of the organization as represented by the macro problem to be solved. This approach is in line with integrative problem-solving models that emphasize both organizational systems and individual factors (Senge, 1990).
Shared Vision Creation: With the clarity afforded by this approach, it becomes possible to create shared visions that resonate at both the human and organizational levels. This shared vision fosters alignment and a sense of purpose among employees, which is crucial for driving change and improvement. The development of shared visions that resonate on both human (individual) and organizational (systemic) levels is crucial, a concept central to Kotter’s change management theory (Kotter, 1995).
Solving Problems Through People, Not Just Through Processes: While traditional approaches often focus on adapting processes to solve problems, an Employee-Centric approach emphasizes enabling the right people to adapt the processes to solve the problems. This approach ensures that solutions are not only effective in theory but also practical and sustainable in real-world applications.
So, think about this: with all the various projects and initiatives going on across the organization within teams, units, and organization-wide, what creative problem-solving capabilities are you building? Are you relying on external experts (consultants) to solve the problem, or are you treating every project as an opportunity to develop internal capabilities for creative problem-solving? How might you adjust your approach if you were to embrace this idea?
WHAT IS YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL TOLERANCE FOR INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS?
A key question to ask here is how innovative a solution the organization is able to pursue. The answer to this question centers on how organizations and teams are disposed towards more incremental improvement versus disruptive innovation orientations. To understand this issue, it is important to start with an understanding of the difference between incremental improvement and innovation as framed in this paper.
Adaptive vs. Innovative Creativity
This dichotomy, as articulated by Kirton (1976), and expanded upon by Kim and Pierce (2013), provides a nuanced understanding of the different ways individuals approach problem-solving and creativity within organizational settings.
Adaptive Creativity: Adaptive creativity, as defined by Kirton (1976), refers to a style of thinking that primarily focuses on refining and improving existing systems, processes, and solutions. It involves applying known techniques and ideas to new scenarios or altered conditions. This form of creativity is characterized by a systematic approach, where individuals seek to solve problems within the existing paradigm. Adaptive thinkers are typically disciplined, work well within established structures, and aim to refine and optimize current practices. This mindset is instrumental in ensuring the stability and continuous improvement of organizational processes.
Innovative Creativity: In contrast, innovative creativity is about breaking new ground. Kirton (1976) described innovative thinkers as those who seek novel solutions, often challenging and changing the status quo. This form of creativity involves approaching problems from unique perspectives, uncovering new problems, and questioning existing paradigms. Innovative thinkers are often seen as trailblazers who are less concerned with the existing rules and more focused on revolutionary changes. They thrive in environments where experimentation and risk-taking are encouraged.
Kim and Pierce (2013) further elaborated on these concepts, highlighting that while adaptive creative thinkers excel in refining and applying existing ideas, innovative thinkers are more likely to generate completely original ideas that may challenge existing paradigms. It is important to note that these two types of creativity are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary. Organizations benefit from fostering both adaptive and innovative thinking, as they together provide a balanced approach to problem-solving and creativity.
Solutions can be adaptive or innovative, and so can the people working on the solutions. The type of end state desired and the solutions that emerge require intentionality around whether the problem solvers are to pursue the adaptive or the innovative, based on the organization’s capacity, capability, and tolerance levels.
Organizational Tolerance Considerations
Before applying creative problem-solving methodologies in any situation, it is crucial to assess the organization’s existing appetite for risk-taking, disruption, and experimentation that are inherent to innovative initiatives. Tolerance levels can differ significantly across corporate cultures, teams, and departments. Understanding the levels of tolerance can help guide the appropriate application of these methodologies.
Factors that impact appetite include past openness to program shifts, leadership style, process agility, incentivization of execution, and more.
It is important to adopt or use a methodology in a way that is relevant to the current situation rather than relying on optimistic assumptions. The process stages, speed, and communication approach must be tailored to the innovation mindset of the organization or unit. Uncertainty about the intended results can hinder progress.
Defining Tolerance Levels
A crucial initial step in establishing an organization’s tolerance for innovation involves clearly defining the specific appetite a business unit has for innovative experimentation and risk-taking. This requires analysis along dimensions in the social systems like:
Leadership Preferences — What level of projects do current executives prefer based on their public messaging and implicit priorities? Incremental improvements or bold bets?
Decision Rights — How much autonomy do frontline teams have in pursuing new ideas versus requiring strict permission processes?
Budget Flexibility — How adaptable are resourcing models to fund testing and iterating on promising concepts?
Portfolio Balance — What share of projects tend to focus on enhancing existing products/processes versus introducing net new offerings?
Risk Metrics — Is there rigidity around standard risk management models or openness to considering uncertainty inherent in innovation?
The outputs are not based on subjective guesses but rather on empirical data collected from multiple sources. Leadership then establishes specific tolerance thresholds.
Key Personnel Influencing Appetite
In addition to the systems of formal policies and thresholds, the approach toward innovation is often influenced by the personal preferences of executives or managers who hold significant power. Therefore, the methodology should focus on evaluating the personal characteristics of key leaders. This includes assessing their inherent cognitive styles — whether they are more inclined towards adaptive incremental or innovative radical approaches. It also looks at their style flexibility — their ability to adapt and adjust their approach when required.
Moreover, leaders who embrace inclusive and empowering management models rather than old-school command-and-control mentalities can create greater opportunities for power-sharing, signaling space for innovation.
To pursue innovation, it is important for leaders to have the ability to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity. This requires a higher level of preparedness than regular business operations. By analyzing both formal and informal factors that affect the appetite for innovation, the adopted methodology and approach can adjust decision-making processes, communication strategies, and human empowerment efforts to fit the specific environment.
Navigating Alignments and Mismatches
After defining the organizational-level orientation and clarifying individual leader perspectives, the analysis may uncover discrepancies between formal risk tolerance policies and actual executive tendencies. For example, executives may indicate a willingness to experiment, but budget models may not be fully aligned.
Additionally, inconsistencies could emerge between senior leader preferences and willingness expressed by on-ground teams. There may be the appetite to take chances without requisite air cover.
In such cases of misalignment, the methodology should include:
Having transparent dialogues led by leadership, naming disconnects between formal and informal postures towards innovative initiatives rather than ignoring them. This provides the basis to address misalignment.
Having structured negotiations on expectations, decision authority, and resourcing guardrails so teams have clear boundaries within which to operate. This removes the risks associated with uncertainty.
Having gradual reciprocal shifts — here, leadership incrementally increases tolerance (raising risk stakes further) in exchange for teams demonstrating disciplined innovation muscles. This builds trust iteratively.
The ultimate aim is calibrating the application of the methodology to the organizational realities, not detached theory around ideal innovative cultures, and doing this with transparent navigation of named disconnects.
Accommodating Individual Differences
Beyond structural factors, applying the employee-centric methodology effectively also requires accommodating the diversity of individual cognitive styles, motivations, and inherent preferences seen amongst teams (not leaders) tackling innovation initiatives. Personal attributes influence the effectiveness of certain process stages. Enabling their success while also encouraging creative abrasion enables overall progress suited to organizational goals.
Styles and motivations
Key personal factors shaping orientation include:
Inherent Cognitive Styles: As described earlier, tendencies towards more adaptive incremental improvement versus innovative radical thinking. Assessment tools can help here to raise self-awareness.
Risk Threshold: Level of personal comfort with uncertainty, ambiguity, and roster experimentation based on experience.
Motivational Drivers: Whether individuals lean more towards stability versus problem-solving, power-seeking versus affiliation, etc. This has a direct impact on the effectiveness of teams.
Change Resilience: Their ability to positively adapt to flux and upheaval. This requires (and thus develops) emotional intelligence and resilience.
Equipped with insights into key talent, the methodology allows matching individuals to stages based on strengths:
Adaptive styles are more suited to tightly defining existing problems, controlled small tests, and orderly scaling.
Innovative styles thrive in exploring entirely new frames on conventions, designing disruptive prototypes, and elevating user inclusion.
Gaining insights into individual styles and motivations makes blending styles and motivations across phases possible, which can foster productive abrasion. It also becomes possible to tailor the inclusion process to each unique talent, ensuring that everyone’s strengths are utilized, leading to a more successful outcome.
Customizing Process Stages
Further to the point above, the methodology should enable deliberate customization of touchpoints to play to the inherent strengths of key talent:
Problem Conceptualization:
Adaptors: Leverage their systematic approach for tightly mapping existing activity systems and locating performance gaps. Detail oriented.
Innovators: Enable their questioning of traditional assumptions on root causes and reframing perceived constraints.
Solution Conceptualization:
Adaptors: Harness their ability to formulate incremental improvements aligned to real-world feasibility constraints using current tools. Pragmatic.
Innovators: Empower them to dream big without initial judgment, floating radical visions and possibilities. Ideational.
Testing and Validation:
Adaptors: Align with their preference for structured small experiments with clear KPIs monitoring incremental progress. Disciplined.
Innovators: Satisfy their curiosity to freely explore uncertainties, initial failure acceptance, iterative chaotic tinkering. Creative.
Structured choreography between phases allows each style to maximize contributions.
Enhancing Creative Abrasion
While optimizing process stages to individual profiles has benefits, taken to extremes, it can reinforce homogeneity and suppress constructive dissent. Therefore, the methodology should equally value creative abrasion across groups via multiple techniques:
Rotation: Swapping more adaptive and innovative team members across stages to encourage new perspectives. The innovators detail test protocols while adaptors envision futures.
Reverse Thinking: Those with adaptive orientations purposefully challenge their own underlying conventional assumptions, while innovators advocate for incremental moves. This widens lenses.
Mixed Small Groups: Forming subgroups comprised of both cognitive styles to debate solution ideas fosters integration. This prevents polarization.
Devil’s Advocacy: Assigning an innovator the role of relentlessly questioning solution feasibility concerns grounds radical concepts while adaptors voice limitations to forge balanced proposals.
Co-Creation: Teams comprised of both styles jointly engage executive leaders or users to incorporate multiple views in forming proposals and avoid narrowness.
In total, accounting for individual strengths and intermixing traits and worldviews accelerates collective creativity through abrasion. Diversity powers innovation.
Achieving Innovation Goals
Finally, and this cannot be overstated, it is crucial to consider the varying levels of risk tolerance within the organization and among individuals when using any methodology. Clear communication from leadership regarding the desired outcomes and expectations of innovation is crucial. Ambiguity can decrease motivation and lead to avoidance of risks. By providing transparency about goals and guidelines, teams will be encouraged to take action.
Clarifying Desired Outcomes
The first step involves leadership unambiguously defining what the specific innovation success metrics look like for a particular initiative where the methodology gets deployed. This includes:
Intended Scope: Is the focus on improving existing products/processes or introducing entirely new offers? Incremental or disruptive change?
Expected Timeframes: Are there clear milestones for achieving proof of concepts, minimum viable tests, and scaled launches?
Risk Appetite: How much variance from projections is acceptable? Will failures meeting learning outcomes still be judged positively?
Resource Commitments: To signal priorities, are there dedicated budgets or specialized teams formed rather than ad hoc efforts?
Being explicit on intended destinations while framing guardrails provides the middle ground where innovators feel inspired by purposeful challenges while adaptors feel the security of concrete goals.
Leadership works with teams to create clarity and encourage ownership rather than dictating from above. This formation of a shared vision then drives progress.
Structuring Appropriately
Once clear outcomes are established, teams can make structured decisions to organize for success within aligned constraints:
Group Composition: Staffing initiatives with a blend of cognitive styles and motivations fitting the challenges at hand.
Leadership Selection: Choosing experienced innovation project leaders able to handle uncertainty yet drive rigorous accountability.
Decision Governance: Empowering teams with clear authority guidelines balanced with appropriate executive oversight and guardrails for risk management. This enables autonomy.
Target Setting: Allowing teams to co-create success by defining success measures aligned with leadership and organizational goals. Doing this enhances ownership.
Resource Commitments: It is important to not just pay lip service to providing dedicated budgets, talent allocation, and platforms. Actually providing these resources can go a long way in motivating individuals to perform their best.
Organizations can empower teams working on ambitious innovation efforts by providing appropriate structural support and guidance to steer progress.
Monitoring and Pacing Progress
With aligned vision and structural support established, executing innovation initiatives further relies on balancing ambitious urgency with patient pacing, given inherent uncertainties. Therefore, leaders play a crucial role in maintaining momentum by:
Establishing Clear Milestones: Grounds big visions with disciplined plans by Cco-creating staging checkpoints on key prototypes, target trial phases, and go-to-market steps with teams.
Tracking Leading Indicators: Signals cultural shift by identifying early momentum measures of risk-taking, experiments run, and lessons learned regardless of short-term outcomes.
Quick Sensing: Enable agility through skip-level check-ins and team surveys and monitor real-time morale, barriers, and feature requests.
Driving Accountability: Avoid complacency while embracing failures by ensuring teams demonstrate crisp execution of learning and adaptation.
Removing Roadblocks: Empower by clearing away systemic hurdles highlighted by teams in real-time, like frozen budgets or outdated policies suffocating innovation instincts.
Leaders can balance patience and urgency for innovation through strong vision-setting, structural support, and consistent blocking and tackling.
So, think about your tolerance for innovation. How are you going to assess and confirm it? How does it relate to projects and initiatives currently on hand and those planned? What can you take away from what you just read that you can immediately apply to be intentional and deliberate about your innovation tolerance?
HOW ARE INDIVIDUALS EMPOWERED TO DISCOVER THEIR CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING POTENTIAL?
Creative problem-solving happens at three levels within an organization, namely,
The organization level
The team level
The individual level
At the organizational level, teams and individuals must collaborate to come up with creative solutions. At the team level, individuals must collaborate to find solutions, while at the individual level, it is within the scope and authority of the individual contributor to be as creative as they can be in order to ensure maximum efficacy of their contribution to the overall problem-solving goal.
Given the focus of this paper is on the individual and their role in problem-solving, the organizational and team levels focus on the leaders of the initiative at that level. An individual can choose to focus on a scope that has limited impact on their actual contribution to the overall goal (for example, focusing on personal process increases personal efficiency, but focusing on the nature of the product or deliverable will have a greater impact on the goal). Individual potential for creative problem-solving tends to develop best when the individual focuses on what they produce or contribute to the whole, hence, it is crucial that problem-solving at the team or organizational level is conducted in an environment that empowers individuals to generate and pursue ideas and in a way that emphasizes the individual’s contributions.
The Employee-Centric Emphasis in Organizational Problem Solving — The Creative Problem Solvers
This paper posits an employee-centric perspective that focuses on the problem-solvers as the humans at the center of the process instead of just the traditional focus on the “customers”. The paper posits that integrating this employee-centric perspective into problem-solving processes like the double diamond can significantly enhance the efficacy and sustainability of solutions in organizational settings.
The thesis is grounded in the belief that there is no such thing as ‘the organization’ understanding and framing problems and developing and implementing solutions. It is the people who are accountable for achieving results — the specific individuals within an organization — they are the ones who need to understand and frame problems and develop and implement solutions. When organizations hire external experts to use these methodologies and run problem-solving processes there is an implicit assumption that ‘the organization’ (without a specific human reference) is solving the problem. As a result, in most cases, when the experts leave, they take with them the ability to solve problems, i.e., use these methodologies and run these processes. All that’s left are the artifacts of the process they ran which those accountable for solving the problem use to focus on implementation, as stated in the introduction.
The employee-centric approach takes a different perspective; it emphasizes the integral role the intellectual and emotional contributions of employees play in problem framing, solution generation, and scaled implementation. By focusing on the people responsible for making decisions and taking action, ‘the organization’ will not only solve problems but expand capacity and build capability for problem-solving, especially given the criticality of this capability for enterprise survival.
Typically, experts are brought in for organizational-level problems to solve or large teams or departments. The idea here is to see these projects and working with these experts not just as solving organizational problems but, more importantly, as expanding the capacity and building the capability for problem-solving in the people working with these experts.
This perspective aligns with recent shifts in organizational development, where there is an increasing recognition of the value of human factors in driving innovation and adaptation (Norman & Verganti, 2014). By marrying the systematic approach of creative solutions processes like the double diamond with an added focus on developing individuals through that experience, organizations can foster environments where adaptive and innovative solutions thrive.
Overview of the Employee-Centric Emphasis in the Methodology
The approach proposes four main cycles of activity that are based on the double-diamond approach but with a multi-layered process and a stronger emphasis on the difference and relationship between conceptualization, testing and scaling.
Conceptualizing the Problem with Operationalized Variables and a Conceptual Framework
Conceptualizing a problem involves operationalizing variables and creating a conceptual framework. This process requires researching and identifying the organizational gap. By viewing the problem as a gap, intentional research can be conducted to define the current state (metrics) and desired end state (metrics) and perform analysis to identify the actual nature of the gap.
As part of analyzing the performance gap in the organization, we also use a meta-process to identify and address gaps in problem solvers’ ability to conceptualize organizational problems.
By placing emphasis on identifying the specific activities and results that individuals must deliver in order to properly conceptualize an organizational problem, we are better able to pinpoint the people who are responsible for these tasks and determine whether or not they are capable of completing them. With this knowledge, we can then focus on enabling these individuals to close any personal performance gaps that may exist, making it a key goal of the process.
The key idea here is that when individuals participate in the process of creative problem-solving and conceptualize the organizational problem, they also get to clarify their roles, specifically their accountabilities and responsibilities with respect to the problem. They get to identify any personal performance gaps related to these accountabilities and responsibilities and work towards addressing them. Their success in bridging these personal gaps will ultimately reflect in the quality of their contribution to the conceptualization of the organizational problem.
Therefore, for all employees, as a result of any opportunity to experience conceptualizing problems within a structured creative problem-solving process, they not only get to conceptualize the problem but also develop and demonstrate their ability to conceptualize problems.
The key outcomes of this conceptualizing the problem phase include the following:
1. At the Organizational-Level
Carefully identified and mapped the activity system of the problem space, considering both the systems (hard and social) and the people involved. The people involved include not only the ‘customers’ — a standard view — but also the problem solvers responsible for coming up with and implementing a solution. For these problem solvers, it is crucial to understand how gaps in their capabilities are related to the organizational gap and the problem space and how closing this gap will produce a more useful and effective conceptualization of the organizational problem space.
Clearly identified variables that are defined in a measurable and observable way and integrated into a conceptual framework of the problem space.
2. For the Problem Solvers
Leveraging the process and outputs of the problem conceptualization process to identify and address the decisions, actions, results, and motivation of the problem solvers. Success is determined by the quality of their contribution. The approach adopted is to augment and scaffold deliberate and reflective practice across the process.
Conceptualizing the Solution as Hypotheses to be Tested via Experiments
Conceptualizing the solution involves researching and generating ideas for how the problem variables can be manipulated to produce the desired results (problem-solved state). The focus here is the solution ideas and hypotheses.
Again, the macro layer focuses on doing this for the “customer’’ which focuses on the solution to the organizational gap. However, just like when conceptualizing the problem, the approach should include a meta-process to identify and address gaps in problem solvers’ ability to conceptualize the solution.
Again, as a result of this experience, they not only conceptualize the solution but also demonstrate that they have developed the ability to conceptualize solutions to problems and appreciate what it means when these solutions are viewed as hypotheses to be tested via prototypes and experiments.
The key outcomes of this conceptualizing the solution phase include the following:
1. At the Organizational-Level
Ideas for which variables in the conceptual framework of the problem space can be worked on and ways to manipulate various variables to achieve the desired results (problem-solved state as defined by measurable variables)
Decision on the specific variables to manipulate and development of the solution hypotheses that identify specific ways to manipulate those variables to produce the desired results (as defined in the conceptualization of the problem).
Developing a solution framework and hypotheses in a way that supports the designing and running of the experiments. The framework will need to include a robust information and technology architecture that integrates the solution ideas with the implementation contexts and accounts for possible changes in the nature of variables in the different implementation contexts as the scale is expanded.
2. For the Problem Solvers
Leveraging the process and outputs of the solution conceptualization process to identify and address the decisions, actions, results, and motivation of the problem solvers. Success is determined by the quality of their contribution. The approach adopted is to augment and scaffold deliberate and reflective practice across the process.
Testing the Solutions by Running Experiments
This phase is where various ideas for solution prototypes are developed and experiments are designed and run to test them. The key activity here is developing prototypes and designing and running experiments to test the hypotheses from the solution conceptualization.
Again, the idea here is to go beyond the macro level, which looks only at designing experiments to test the hypotheses related to solutions for the organizational problem but to do this by focusing on the effectiveness of the problem solvers in designing and running these experiments. As this is framed as running experiments to test hypotheses, it requires the ability to make decisions and perform relevant actions related to understanding the conceptualization of the problems, the solution, the hypotheses, the development of related prototypes, and designing and running experiments. The key here is designing and running experiments to test the prototypes and the hypotheses, the data collection, and data analysis to validate the hypothesis or refine the experiment.
As in prior phases, the macro layer focuses on doing this for the “customer’’ which focuses on the solution to the organizational gap. However, just like with conceptualizing the problem and solution, the approach should include a meta-process to identify and address gaps in problem solvers’ ability to run experiments to test the solutions.
Once again, as a result of this experience, they not only test solution ideas but also demonstrate that they have developed the ability to run experiments to test solution ideas, but more than that, they also appreciate what it means to view solutions as hypotheses and the importance of the validity of the experiments testing the viability of these solution ideas and underlying assumptions, and an awareness of how variables impact solution efficacy.
The key outcomes of this testing solutions by running experiments phase include the following:
1. At the Organizational-Level
Solution prototypes are built to specifications as determined by the hypotheses and solution framework
Experiments are designed with clear questions to answer, data to collect, data collection methods, and the approach for data analysis.
Experiments are run and insights from analysis are applied to refining the solution framework, hypotheses and prototypes
2. For the Problem Solvers
Leveraging the process and outputs of the solution prototyping, running experiments, and testing process to identify and address the decisions, actions, results, and motivation of the problem solvers. Success is determined by the quality of their contribution. The approach adopted is to augment and scaffold deliberate and reflective practice across the process.
Scaling the solutions with context-responsive iterations (ongoing experimentation)
This scaling of the solutions phase is about implementation and Iteration. The goal is to scale the tested solutions without sacrificing efficacy. Context-responsive iteration means the scaling process retains some of the testing the solution (experiment) processes where a rapid version of the testing phase experiments are run with any new implementation context where specific variables are believed to have changed enough to significantly impact the hypotheses and outcome.
Again, the approach is to develop the ability of the people to scale the solution through a meta-process that identifies and addresses the gaps in problem solvers’ ability to scale solutions with contextual responsiveness.
Through this experience, they are able to stay focused on contextual changes and nuances as they relate to the assumptions in the solution framework and hypotheses. This way, as they scale the solutions, they ensure the solutions maintain their efficacy across contexts. This experience also strengthens their appreciation for viewing solutions as hypotheses to be tested even during scaling, highlighting the importance of contextual awareness and responsiveness as addressed in the solution framework.
The key outcomes of this scaling solutions phase include the following:
1. At the Organizational-Level
Manipulating the hard systems variables at scale with context-responsiveness and continuous improvement built-in
Manipulating the social systems variables at scale with context-responsiveness and continuous improvement built-in
2. The Problem Solvers
Leveraging the process and outputs of the scaling with context responsiveness process to identify and address the decisions, actions, results, and motivation of the problem solvers. Success is determined by the quality of their contribution. The approach adopted is to augment and scaffold deliberate and reflective practice across the process.
Similarities and Differences with Double Diamond
The Employee-Centric approach is a methodology that builds upon some of the core concepts of the double diamond while providing important enhancements. The essence of this approach is to focus on treating the people involved in the double diamond process as an end in themselves rather than just as contributors and enablers. These individuals are the ones whose decisions and actions determine how effective the double-diamond process will be. Therefore, the shift means analyzing the realities faced by these members, delivering the required value expected of their role and contribution, and providing them with customized support to close any gaps in delivering that value. This will enable their personal success and ultimately, the closure of the organizational performance gap. This approach combines organizational-level systems changes with individual-level adoption and behavior change for a more comprehensive solution.
This requires a deliberate effort to develop individuals by using each project, program or strategic initiative opportunity to enable them to proactively identify, define, and close not only the gap for the current project or initiative but also future gaps. Utilizing this approach consistently for every strategic initiative or agenda at team or organizational levels will promote a culture of collaboration, continuous learning, and innovation. This will result in individuals adopting similar thinking and behavior in their personal and individual contribution space, carrying out the same approach within the scope of their individual accountabilities and responsibilities.
As you think about all the various initiatives and agendas going on in your organization, do you get a sense that people are deliberately developing creative problem-solving skills, especially in those projects that involve external experts, or are they just focused on execution? Based on the ideas covered here, is there anything you can do or change to increase the focus on skill development through these experiences, both for yourself and for others involved in these projects?
Conclusion
Creative problem-solving excellence is increasingly an imperative for organizational resilience. However, truly embedding this capability requires a fundamental mindset shift — from viewing innovation projects as one-off consulting engagements to seeing them as platforms for empowering teams.
The key ideas this paper emphasizes are:
Take an employee-centric perspective that focuses on developing people’s skills and sparking their creative potential through hands-on problem-solving challenges.
Assess tolerance for innovation across units, Clarify the specific appetite for experimentation and risk-taking before applying methodologies.
Customize process design and individual support to team member strengths and motivations while encouraging creative abrasion.
Use each collaborative problem-solving initiative, at either team or enterprise levels, to expand skills in framing issues, hypothesizing solutions, prototyping ideas, and contextual scaling.
By continuing to nurture our problem-solvers, we build the creative muscle and leadership bench critical for repeatedly tackling complex issues ahead with speed and ingenuity. The ultimate solutions emerge when our systems enable our talented teams to thrive.
This intentional focus on empowering teams through applied innovation opportunities unlocks enduring organizational agility.
If you’d like to have a conversation about this or anything else of mine you’ve seen or read that triggered your interest, please use the link below to find a time that works for you for us to have a conversation. I am looking forward to it.
This article incorporates text generated with the assistance of GPT & Claude, advanced language models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic, respectively, and Grammarly Go.
References
Amabile, T. (1996). Creativity in context. Westview Press Boulder, Colo.
Becker, G. S. (1964). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, First Edition. NBER. https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/human-capital-theoretical-and-empirical-analysis-special-reference-education-first-edition
Checkland, P. (1981). Systems thinking, systems practice.
Collings, D. G. (2014). Toward Mature Talent Management: Beyond Shareholder Value. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 25(3), 301–319. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21198
Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (2005). The balanced scorecard: measures that drive performance (Vol. 70). Harvard Business Review US.
Kim, K. H., & Pierce, R. A. (2013). Adaptive Creativity and Innovative Creativity. In E. G. Carayannis (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (pp. 35–40). Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3858-8_21
Kirton, M. (1976). Adaptors and innovators: A description and measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61(5), 622.
Kotter, J. (2007). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Engineering Management Review, IEEE, 37. https://doi.org/10.1109/EMR.2009.5235501
Lawler III, E. E. (2010). Talent: Making people your competitive advantage. John Wiley & Sons.
Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Broadway Business.
Swanson, R., & Holton, E. (2001). Foundations of Human Resource Development.
Commentaires