Enhancing creative thinking within organisations

TLDR

Creative problem solving and innovation are crucial for companies seeking flexibility and competitive advantage, yet selecting the appropriate technique—whether comfortable but less innovative paradigm‑preserving, or novel but potentially uncomfortable paradigm‑breaking—depends on the situation. The article aims to guide organizations in fostering a creative culture and choosing suitable CPS techniques. The authors present a group‑based CPS framework that classifies techniques along a continuum of paradigm‑preserving, paradigm‑stretching, and paradigm‑breaking, and outline six specific methods.

Abstract

Creative problem solving (CPS) and innovation are very important to companies who want to gain flexibility and competitive advantage. This article describes how an organisation can enhance its creativity by developing a creative culture within the company. In addition, the paper discusses group creative problem solving. A creativity continuum is presented which describes three different types of techniques ‐ paradigm preserving, paradigm stretching and paradigm breaking. It is important to know which type of technique should be chosen for a particular type of situation. Paradigm preserving techniques are deemed to be more comfortable but less innovative whereas paradigm breaking techniques encourage participants to develop highly novel ideas. They can, however, be uncomfortable to use and should therefore not be utilised by the unwary. This article describes six different CPS techniques ‐ two paradigm preserving, two paradigm stretching and two paradigm breaking techniques.