Guiding Principles: Foundation, Process, and Creativity

Uniqueness

Initially, treat every situation as unique.

Ask: How can we capitalize on the uniqueness of the situation (people, organization, department, community, technology, and so forth) to assure the effectiveness and use of the solution we are creating?

Purposeful Information

All data, information, and knowledge are inaccurate, imprecise, and incomplete.

Ask: What information should be obtained to serve our needs for developing a creative, effective, and timely solution?

Systems

Everything is a system, every system is part of larger systems, every system is comprised of smaller systems, and every system exists in parallel with other systems.

Ask: How can a systems view assure the workability of the solution we are creating?

People Involvement

All people possess creative abilities, want to be treated respectfully, and will adopt changes they help to develop.

Ask: How can we give people who will be affected by and can contribute to the solution many opportunities to take part in the development of the solution?

Purposes

Expand the purposes of the situation to be sure you are working on the right issue.

Ask: How can we consider and expand a number of possible purposes and choose those that provide the largest feasible 'creative thinking space'?

Future Solution

Use the 'ideal' solution you would like to have in the future time frame that fits the chosen purposes.

Ask: What is a future ideal solution target we can develop to use as a guide to determine what we should do now to achieve our chosen purposes?

Living Solution

Develop a solution that will work now and stays as close as possible to the Future Solution.

Ask: How can we develop a 'living solution' -- what can we do now in our environment and other systems that stays as close as possible and can lead in successive changes to reach the Future Solution for achieving the chosen purposes?

For each process phase, use these three steps in being creative along with the Foundation Principles.

List

Ask: What are as many ideas as possible for determining (who to involve, purposes to achieve, ideal future solutions, or living solutions)?

Organize

Ask: How can we organize all the ideas into 3-5 major alternative options?

Decide

Ask: Which option most effectively and creatively meets the importance factors for this selection?

Successful leaders take their organizations on trips that are a process of purposeful discovery. Their intent is to find ideas that will enable them to engage their organizations in a constant movement towards the destination. This creativity process enables them to sustain a leadership position in their sector. The discovery process an inherent part of this.

Paul C. Nutt explored this in some detail in Why Decisions Fail (San Francisco CA: Berrett Koehler, 2002). He concluded in a follow-up paper that a discovery process of reasoning - which is what our approaches represent - are more apt to be successful than imposing an idea from elsewhere or arbitrarily presented. This is true regardless of the situation - high vs. low urgency, high vs. low importance, high vs. low resources, and top vs. middle manager involvement. Even abandoning a discovery process for what appears to be a new opportunity causes success to decline.

The key concept here is to make decisions that succeed rather than merely avoiding the pitfalls of failure. Professor Nutt provides some summative answers in his book and additional insights in his paper.

One important thing to remember is that this is not only about problem solving. Rather, it is most important solution finding. Our concepts and processes expand these to enable leaders to take their organizations on truly exciting journeys. The questioning process enables them to engage others in order to create a multiplier effect upon execution. We not only help them to discover and execute the solutions. This is the essence of leadership.

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