Innovation

Business professionals today can lay out different thinking, structures, and solutions to avoid vagueness, select the best alternatives, develop into business competency.

The digital era upon us is about options and people. Though it is important to take a logical and stepwise approach to problem-solving, logic or process shouldn’t stifle creativity. Forethoughtful organizations encourage alternative ways to solve problems; they expect mistakes and still encourage people to make mistakes, yet they need to be able to guide the team to think open mindedly, improve business flexibility, agility, and innovation.

It’s important to evaluate which alternatives might work better than others - that is the realm of logical analysis within systems understanding: The more complex the situation is, the more important it is to apply nonlinear logic via multidimensional thought processes and cross disciplinary boundaries to see underneath the symptoms, take interdisciplinary approach, and come up with alternative perspectives.

In many cases, there are more than one way to solve problems. Make a deep analysis, take the identification of the facts, identify the root cause and mold into solutions based on the objectives and other extenuating circumstances. When analytics can really generate actionable recommendations from the plethora of information, business leaders can begin trusting the analysis more to recommend alternatives.

It takes courage to get out of the conventional thinking box, come up with alternative ways to do things: Organizations and societies are complex; often a problem is seen very differently by different parties. Professionals should become more open to diverse viewpoints, connect the dots in the interdisciplinary domains, broaden thoughts, practice creative thinking to come out with novel ideas, look for alternative ways to do things, and take the unique path to innovate.

There’s nothing wrong with lots of out-of-the-box creative type thinking as long as you couple it with some good analytical skills. We all should broaden our points of interest and try new things to extend our thinking box, gain empathy for others. By stepping outside your own box and getting into others’ box, a solution becomes obvious, then get back in your own box and think how that solution will work for you. So please don't stop speaking out what you are thinking outside the box and share unique insights about it.

Gain contextual understanding of the problem from different angles, and figure out alternative ways to shape better solutions: With continuous disruptions, never assume that you know the real issue is, not just symptoms. People or things may look very different depending on your perspective. Every problem has numerous angles to take into consideration. Thus, in most cases, it boils down to how you view the problem from different outlooks; from inside out or from outside-in. Never think there is a short list of solutions that you can pick from.

Leaders encourage innovation. Business leaders should have a solid grasp on what has been tried before and analyze why those initiatives didn’t succeed, what consequences can be created through actions, etc. True wisdom leads to putting more thought into things and searching for flaws in the current way to do things, and that widens the possibility of coming up with alternative solutions. There is a seamless shift in discovering possibilities and creating multiple pathways to solve problems via interactions, associations, and expansions, etc,

In the "VUCA' new normal with the exponential growth of information, the problem often leads to opportunities because they challenge us to address something that is not working before. Business professionals today can lay out different thinking, structures, and solutions to avoid vagueness, select the best alternatives, develop into business competency where organizations are combining all that is available to them in imaginative ways to produce great outcomes.

Posted in: Innovation,Problem Solving