Beyond the Impasse

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick, and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today, we're delighted to be speaking with Roger Firestien, Ph.D., who has trained more people to lead the creative process than anyone else in the world. He is a senior faculty and associate professor at the Center of Applied Imagination at Suny Buffalo State. As president of Innovation Resources, Inc., he consults, creates training programs, runs Breakthrough Labs, and has created a series of courses for Open Sesame. He is the author of several popular books, including Create In A Flash: A Leader's Recipe For Breakthrough Innovation. Roger, thank you so much. I know you're a really busy guy. Thanks for making time for us today.

Roger Firestien: My pleasure. It's a delight to be with you, Anita.

Anita Brick: Well, you know the world of creativity and innovation. Everybody has a different opinion, but I think that both scare people. And in fact, the very first MBA student who asked the very first question. Maybe we can help him solve this. Hi, Roger. You talk about how it's not possible to solve a problem or in my case, get beyond an impasse without creativity. How could a quant like me, who's not creative, still succeed?

Roger Firestien: I love that question because not being creative is a myth. We're human. We're hardwired to be creative, so we're all creative. But the thing is that we create in different ways, and there's basically four ways that we talk about being creative and creating a flash. If we take a look at it from big C, little C, mini C, pro C, of course, C being creative, let's take a look at big C. And this is what most people focus on. And the big C creators are the people like Einstein, Marie Curie, Helen Keller, Grace Hopper, Charles Darwin. We hold those people up there as they're the creatives. And that's what we many cases measure ourself against. There's another type of creativity. This is little C creativity. This is finding a way to fix a piece of machinery on your farm with just wire and duct tape, creating a delicious meal using only leftovers in the refrigerator. That's little C creativity. Now there's another type of creativity and this is called mini C creativity. And this focuses on the essence of when a new idea is generated. Bang. There's a new idea. That's just the beginning of the idea. That's mini C. And then the other type of creativity is called pro C. And these are professional creators that haven't necessarily reached their eminent status yet. And these are musicians who are composers, write new music, art directors, or illustrate books. College professor creates lesson plans to make dynamic class experiences so they are all creative. All of those things are creative.

The other thing about creativity, maybe you haven't created a major formula for life-changing things, but have you made an already tight budget to go further. That's creative. Have you found a better way to feed the homeless people in your city? That's creative. Where have you found a new way to tell someone that you love them? That's creative. So we need to kind of get rid of this myth that we need to measure ourselves against those major creators, because every day we are creating in various and useful ways.

Anita Brick: So for this student at an impasse, where does he even start?

Roger Firestien: So how do you get beyond that impasse? Well, the first thing is to figure out what the real problem is. Oftentimes it's a symptom of the problem or what the boss thinks is a problem or a knee jerk reaction to the problem. And so the way to get beyond that impasse is to ask questions. But not just any types of questions, creative questions. So what's the difference between a fact finding question or a judgment question or a creative question? What creative questions are phrased in a unique way. And they begin with the words like how to or how might. So, for example, say the student has an impasse. They're working on a project and they don't have any money. So you can define the problem as we don't have any money. That's not a problem definition. That's a statement. And it tells your brain that there aren't any ideas out there, so why bother looking for those ideas? We suggest creating a creative question out of that. So your impasse is, I don't have any money to start this project. Your creative question is how might we raise the money? How might we reduce the cost? How might we find investors to do this? How might we get other people involved? How might we create a joint venture? All of a sudden, your mind begins to open up and you be able to approach that problem from an entirely different perspective.

And so one of the things that we focus on is the language that we use, and the language that we use to define a problem is going to determine the kinds of ideas that we generate, ask creative questions, and that will move you beyond that impasse incredibly fast.

Anita Brick: I like that a lot when you ask how questions. And you give people ideas, they start flowing. Then you have options. However, there was someone who said, I love new ideas and develop lots of options. Sounds like he's already doing that work that you're talking about. However, I create too many options. What is a way to filter and decide which ones to pursue?

Roger Firestien: I love that question. So here's the thing. This person has got a real advantage going for them, because the more ideas you come up with, the better your chances of getting a breakthrough. If you're good at coming up with ideas, give yourself equal time for evaluating those ideas. And when we have about an hour meeting or so and we want to do some idea generation, we spend the first ten minutes generating those ideas and the last 15 minutes evaluating them. I see this happening in organizations lots of times, and people will say it's called the shiny penny syndrome. You come around and go, I got this great new idea. It's a shiny penny. And the reason why it doesn't get accepted in the organization is because what is the problem we're trying to solve? So this person might be great at coming up with ideas, but what I would encourage this person to do is just back off just a little bit and use that skill you have to come up with lots of ideas to come up with, lots of creative questions first. And then when you identify the best problem to solve, you set the filter before you start generating ideas because it doesn't make any sense to generate ideas for solving the wrong problem. So first, figure out what the problems are and you can use the same divergent thinking skills, the same skills of coming up with ideas to come up with creative questions.

So I just like to move it a little bit. So I'd like to have the student think about this alum think about what are all the creative questions out there that we need to focus on and then the value comes when you find a creative question that really resonates with the organization or the best problem to solve. So back up just a little bit. Use that wonderful skill. You have to come up with ideas, but first come up with some creative questions, then pick the best ones to generate ideas on.

Anita Brick: I love that I think that what happens, though, sometimes is come up with the ideas, refine them, bring them to the team, and then they get killed, just like the ogre, why didn't I think of that? An alum asked this question. She said, I am one of those people you talk about in the book. She's like, full disclosure here, right? I'm one of those people you talk about in the book who kills ideas with criticism. Can you walk us through how to socialize the whole frame that you have about pluses, potentials, concerns, and overcoming in a group who challenges ideas with criticism?

Roger Firestien: First off, stop that.

Anita Brick: That's not really easy to do. Roger.

Roger Firestien: Here's where we're going to go with that. The first thing is good. You've recognized it. You kill the ideas okay. So that is really really good. First you've recognized that. So you're halfway there. The problem is halfway solved. So socially this pluses, potentials concerns technique overcoming concerns. And just to kind of get into that a little bit, the way that we evaluate ideas is we first take a look at what's good about the idea. The pluses, what's good about the idea right now, the potentials. What might be the result in the future. These are positive spin offs, possible future gains, and then the concerns about the idea. But the concerns we do something very unique with them. We phrase them like a creative question. So once again, back to our money issue. If your concern is that your idea is going to cost a lot of money, well, phrase your concerns like how to reduce the cost, how to find the money for it that sets your brain up to then generate ideas for solving that. And that's overcoming the concerns.

That's a really terrific framework to use, but you don't want to walk into a meeting and say, now I'm going to do pluses, potentials, concerns in your idea. It's like, oh, that's right, that's right. You might want to try this: the next time an idea comes up instead of destroying it, and you know that you do that. You might want to say something like, well, you know, Anita, what I like about that idea is you might be the CEO. The conversations just stop. you know, what I like about that idea is this and this and this and potential we might have. And this is it might concern I have, you know, how to. And all of a sudden it changes the room. Now the first time you do this, it's going to feel contrived, okay, it's not comfortable. But the more you practice the better you get at it. Just practice it first, try it out and you don't have to say, I'm going to do this technique on you. The main thing is to start with the pluses first. What I like about that idea, bang, and it changes the conversation. And it gives you a structure that you can use to take a look at what's good about an idea. But the key thing is that this alone does recognize that they're an idea. Okay, okay. You've recognized that. Now here's a tool to help you to overcome.

Anita Brick: One thing that you shift just a little bit, but not really too far is the idea of forced connections. By the way, I have been a fan of forced connections long before I read your book, and I just love the idea because it creates new things. Yes. So here is an alum and he said, I love the idea of forced connections, but it's not so accepted in my organization. How can I make it more comfortable so that leadership doesn't immediately shut everything down?

Roger Firestien: That's a really interesting question because not accepting that's that's interesting. I didn't know it was controversial. Wow. To be clear, what a forced connection is, is you're you're working on a particular problem. You find yourself getting stuck. You take a look at something else. I'm in my office right now. If I was to take a look at the clock, what ideas might I get from this clock to solve this problem? What ideas do I get from my glass of water here to solve the problem? And it's really kind of an internal process. You can just do forced connections on your own. Hey, what about this? Or what about this? Individuals make the connection. But when you're working in groups, you know, everybody's making connections with different stuff. Here's something that's really, really helpful. We like to use pictures. And so we have a deck of pictures that we use. And we just toss them out on the table. And we say to people, look, if you find yourself getting stuck, take a look at the pictures and see what ideas might come to you from that. That's it. The idea that you get using forced connections might not be the breakthrough that you're looking for, but what it does do is it gets the idea generating process going again. And it might spur an idea that will spur an idea that will lead to another idea. So Force connections isn't sort of an alien sort of thing. We do it all the time. The idea of Velcro came from a cocklebur; the idea of the pacemaker there was inspired by a flashing traffic signal. And the big one is the Nike Waffle trainer was inspired by, oh, waffle, Bang! There it is. We're doing it all the time.

Anita Brick: Aside question to that, sometimes things are very well refined and very successful. In one context. Let's say it is in marketing. And then someone in operations looks at it and says, well, can we use some of this because it seems to be working. That's not really a forced connection, but do you find that taking something that has been successful and maybe is even like the status quo at this point, is brand new and creative in another context, how would you bring that kind of creative idea into a new and a new part of the organization?

Roger Firestien: This is great because this is talking about networks. Okay? The best source of new ideas is not from the people that you talk to all the time. The best source of new ideas is from other people and other groups. And so it's very natural. Hey look, this seems to be working great over here in marketing this method. Let's see if we can apply this over here. But the key to this is it goes right back to what you were talking about, an idea from marketing that might fit over here in engineering, folks that didn't know what couldn't be done. And this is the key. They don't know what can't be done. So they provide this whole fresh perspective. Yes.

Anita Brick: And that's great because you allow you have so many wonderful videos and resources on your site that allows people to DIY it. It's awesome.That's really.

Roger Firestien: Yeah. If you recreate the flash, you can go right there and it'll take you through the creative process. It's on rogerfirestien.com also the Open Sesame series that are Open Sesame, just put in Roger Firestein, and you'll find a series of nine videos that we did. Really brings a lot of these things up in a very visual and active form. So yeah.

Anita Brick: Well, it should be right. Got to be fun. All right. So let's shift gears a little bit. Yeah. And myself at times as well. People are afraid of making mistakes. And one MBA student said she said I am not fond of making mistakes. How would you advise someone like me to start reframing a mistake from a menace into a marvel?

Roger Firestien: The reframing is absolutely beautiful. And so here's the reframe. Any day you know that phrase trial and error share course, right? Yeah. Change your thinking from trial and error to trial and learn, trial and error to trial and learn. Because whenever we do anything, we create a result. It might not be the result that we anticipated. The question then becomes, what can we learn from that result?

A few things about this. Great examples. You know, Thomas Edison invented light bulb. This reporter interviewed him and he said, you know, Mr. Edison, you've tried about 8000 ways to invent a light bulb. They've all failed. Edison goes, he goes, I haven't failed. I just know 8000 ways not to invent a light bulb. And I'm halfway there. It took him 14,000 tries.

Okay, the electrical storage battery was the same thing. He tried 12,000 ways to get the storage battery until he came up with a 24,000 won. He finally made it. The whole thing is that just changing that attitude, to quote my mother here, who's going to be 92 next week if you're not making any mistakes, you sure as heck aren't going to make any discoveries.

Anita Brick: This is true. This is, if a person is really scared. They've been ingrained that a mistake of any kind is a huge failure. How do you support people like that to, I would say, experiment a little bit. How would you suggest someone experiment? They can make a mistake and it's not a disaster.

Roger Firestien: Well, I think your word experiment is great with that little baby steps. And we have opportunities every day to try and make those little mistakes. The key is to separate the imagination from the judgment. So don't judge your ideas when you're generating them. This whole thing about making mistakes, little baby steps, try that. Try that first and see how that works. The key is all inventors have failed and all great people have failed a lot. And it's a matter of just trial and error to trial and learn.

Anita Brick: I like that. So here's a big question and a big question from a friend of CareerCast. They said there are many really big problems out there. Even with your process, they seem too big to solve. Where can a person, one person like me, make a difference on things that feel monumental and really out of reach?

Roger Firestien: Excellent. I love that question. One of the questions that people have asked me, has this process ever failed? That's the risks. And there's three things that need to be in place for creative problem solving or the creative process to work: ownership, motivation, and imagination. You need to have ownership over the problem that you're working on. In other words, your actions have to be able to affect some change.

Motivation. You need to be motivated to do something about it. You want to do something about it. And then the third thing is imagination. You want lots of ideas for that. You're not quite sure what the real problem is. I mean, you don't use the creative problem solving process to figure out what movie you're going to see tonight. You use the creative process, and you use this whole process that we talked about to solve tough problems. So this question that this person is talking about goes to a question around ownership. So you've got big problems out there. How do you own that. You might not be able to solve world hunger. But what can you do to solve the hunger problem in your neighborhood or your community?

And let me give you an example of another one. You might not be able to solve domestic violence, but what might you be able to do to create legislation, to work with families to deal with that? One of my students did that. She was a victim of domestic violence. She actually developed a proposal. And there's a law now on the books in New York State that came right from the work that she did in the creative problem solving class. She redefined it. So she owned the problem. And then change your language back again. It's changing your language. So maybe you can't solve world hunger. How can you solve the hunger problem in your neighborhood? You know, how can you create actions in your sphere of influence to deal with domestic violence? Those sorts of things. Ownership.

Anita Brick: It's a good way to think about it, because we can own something. We can own some part of that bigger problem, even if it is how we treat the person sitting in front of us.

Roger Firestien: Exactly. It starts someplace and might as well start with you.

Anita Brick: Absolutely. If we don't take ownership and expect someone else to solve the little and the big problem, right? Not going to happen.

Roger Firestien: And there's stories after stories after time after time after time where people have taken tough problems and they've made a difference in their community, then it goes viral. People hear about that, they make those changes. You know, it's extraordinary what you can do, but you first have to be able to own something from it and then build it from there.

Anita Brick: Sounds good. Roger, do you have time for one more question?

Roger Firestien: I have time for as many as you want to ask me, Anita

Anita Brick: Okay, great. So here is the part where we want to get really concrete and actionable. Yeah. So what are three things that you would advise a person to do to get beyond an impasse for greater success, meaning and contribution in one's career and life?

Roger Firestien: I love that question. First, use your language to change your thinking. And this goes back to what we've been talking about earlier. Ask creative questions. Instead of saying we don't have enough money, ask how might we raise the money? How might we reduce the cost? So first, change your thinking, use creative questions.

Second, generate lots of ideas. We've talked about that a little bit, and there's some guidelines to follow. Don't judge your ideas while you're generating them. Come up with a lot of ideas to choose from. Make some forced connections, build and other ideas, and then change your mindset. In the new book I'm working on called Solve the Real Problem, we've come up with four distinct mindsets that we can use: challenge your assumptions, get an outside perspective. If and. This goes back to what we talked about earlier, about getting people from other parts of the organization to contribute ideas to yours. See the big picture: oftentimes people focus so much on the little details that they don't see the overall picture. And then also look for all the details, because sometimes the devil might be in the details. So use language to change your thinking. Instead of saying we don't have enough money. How to reduce the cost? Generate lots of ideas, don't judge your ideas where you're generating them, and then change your mindset about how you approach those problems.

Anita Brick: It's great. Before we go, any final words of wisdom you want to share with us?

Roger Firestien: Yeah, you know what? It's really interesting. Oftentimes when people will say to me, I don't come up with a lot of ideas. I think the best advice, here's the analogy. You don't go out and drive a car with your foot on the gas pedal and on the brake at the same time. It's not very good for the car. You don't get very far. So when you're generating ideas, separate your judgment from your evaluation. Press the accelerator, turn off judgment, come up with lots of ideas, then break when you have to. I think that's probably the most important thing to keep in mind is to separate your imagination from your judgment and you'll come up with lots, lots, lots more ideas.

Anita Brick: Sounds wonderful. And ideas into action is what you're all about and I appreciate that. Keep up the good work and have fun with mom next week.

Roger Firestien: Thanks indeed, it was an absolute pleasure spending time with you. I really appreciate it.

Anita Brick: Thanks a lot Roger. It was really fun. So I recommend that you look at Roger's site, which is rogerfirestein.com and you'll find videos and worksheets and all kinds of wonderful things that can support you becoming even better at both the idea generation and the evaluations, that you have really good ideas that you can put into action.So Roger, thanks so much for doing this and really appreciate your making the time.

Roger Firestien: It was my pleasure, Anita. Thank you very much.

Anita Brick: And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.