¶ … director organization tasked training management team creative problem solving, leadership, employee motivation. Create bullet-point PAGES/handouts (1 bullet-point PER PAGE / 275 WORDS). The handouts address topics: • Creative problem solving: Describe approaches creative problem solving ways encourage creative problem solving employees.
Approaches to creative problem-solving
One of the most vitally important obstacles to overcome to engage in truly creative problem-solving is the need to break the fear barrier. In a group setting, people are often fearful of transgressing group norms of acceptable behavior. This can severely inhibit creative problem-solving. That is why using brainstorming can be such an important icebreaker when generating new ideas about a particular issue. The group writes down all possible solutions to a problem, no matter how silly, and then reviews them and picks one or two. The lack of anticipated judgment is intended to be freeing.
Brainstorming can be free-flowing or it can make use of slightly more directive techniques, if members of the group are initially reluctant. For example, through the technique of 'cubing,' members are asked to consider the topic "from six different directions… [to] take a sheet of paper, consider your topic, and respond to these six commands" (The writing center, 2010, UNC).
1. Describe it.
2. Compare it.
3. Associate it.
4. Analyze it.
5. Apply it.
6. Argue for and against it (The writing center, 2010, UNC).
As well as saying ideas aloud, other creative-problem solving techniques include imaginative ice-breaking...
Even going outside and taking a walk to shift the perspective of the group can be useful and stimulating to idea-production. Or, the group can engage in possibly silly perspective-shifting exercises like 'imagine if' (for example, imagine if someone from a different historical era was confronting this problem).
• Employee motivation: Identify ways to generate motivation during times of organizational change
It has been observed that employees are often by nature change-resistant. During periods of major organizational change, employee motivation can be particularly problematic. Employees may consciously or subconsciously attempt to subvert the proposed change given the inevitable discomfort of the transitional process. To motivate employees to cope with these stressors, it is helpful to keep in mind a simple model of the change process entitled unfreeze-change-freeze. The unfreezing process is often the most difficult. Employees must be aware of the need for change in a concrete fashion. They should also be aware of how the change benefits them. "Leaders can begin to highlight gaps between the current and desired states and present a vision as it needs to be. Then further begin to convey the change in terms of specific outcomes that the company expects from the operation and employees and their confidence and belief that these changes are possible" (Kurt Lewin three phases change theory, 2011,…
