JAMES R. CALVIN, PhD.

“INNOVATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING:GETTING UNSTUCK IN YOUR

THINKING”

“THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT THAT WAS EVER PAID ME WAS WHEN SOMEONE ASKED ME WHAT I

THOUGHT, AND ATTENDED TO MY ANSWER.”

- HENRY DAVID THOREAU

LET’S GET STARTED THINKING• Guideline #1: This session will be an interactive practice

and learning experience in which your facilitator will engage you in active thinking and problem solving practice individually and collectively. So, I want you to participate fully and actively by sharing your stories, thoughts, ideas, and reflections because the practice in this session-workshop is ultimately about connecting thinking and problem solving that yield ideas for real-time business activity.

• Guideline #2: This session and exploration together, we will see one or two short videos related to a fast changing world and environment where science and business is going, and we will engage in thinking role plays, and explore together via individual and group activities contained inside The Innovative Problem Solving Workbook.

GOING FORWARD AT MLMS THIS FRIDAY …

A) Problem-Solving/Getting Unstuck Videos:

1-’Eddie Obeng on Smart Failure for a Fast - Changing World’

2 - Edward de Bono on Creative Thinking

3 -’What Motivates Us Is’- Daniel Pink

B) Conversation, Exploration and Hands-on

C) How Do You Explain a New Product Category? Connecting With Your Innovator’s DNA? Problem Solving in the World, Finding Competitive Advantage?

D) Active Feedback & Wrap-up Thoughts

NOTES AND REFLECTIONS PAGE

THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING FOR FUTURE INNOVATION PRACTICE AND EXECUTION FRAMEWORK

• Our activity during this session at the MLMS focused on selected Innovation Practices for the Execution of ideas, approaches, knowledge and skill in Business.

• In our exploration, we engaged in Reflective Thought Practice linked to Experiential Applications and activities toward a better understanding of Execution for Innovation.

• In this workshop, the premise and approach is that 21st Century Innovation Practice is essential for being mid-level managers who are able to adapt mind, thought and ideas toward achievable business oriented outcomes that are essential to sustain one’s future and viability as a manager.

• The operating premise is why should you think about practicing, enhancing and expanding your thought capacity to become more deliberate and effective in the execution of innovative ideas, and as a contributor who creates and is better able to sustain new and future value in the organization.

INTRODUCING NEW BUSINESS IDEAS, WHAT ARE CURRENT TRENDS?

• In 2013 the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued a first-ever international comparison of the labor force in 23 industrialized nations which shows that Americans ages 16 to 65 fall below international averages in basic problem-solving, reading and math skills. Paul Petersen, co-author of Endangering Prosperity, a book on education and international competitiveness offers that the results are “quite distressing because other countries have been catching up for some time.”

• Stanford Business School’s Jespar Sorenson says “truly innovative products are the ones that bring ideas across categorical boundaries. But doing so creates potential confusion, and people devalue what confuses them. The solution, difficult as it may seem, is to adopt a crisp identity instead.” A primary example of this is the company ZipCar that Avis Budget Group now owns. Imagine if Avis Budget Group had tried to invent the concept from the start. It likely would have been an uphill climb because consumers existing mental model for “Avis” is tied up in associations with-car rental counters, liability forms, tack-on prices for gasoline, and airports.

Among The 2013 Thomson Reuters Top 100 Global Innovator Companies are: #’s 1-6 3M Company (Chemicals), ABB (Industrial), Abbott Laboratories (Pharmaceuticals), Advanced Micro Devices (Semiconductor & Electronic Components), Air Products (Chemicals), Alcatel-Lucent (Telecommunication & Equipment), #14 Blackberry (Telecommunication & Equipment), #15 Boeing (Aerospace), #17 Canon (Computer Hardware).

THE LIVING ORGANIZATION – THE PHYSICS

• Building on the foundation that a corporation is a complex living entity that follows the rules of all complex living systems, let’s create a new model, a map that includes all the old terrain and adds the necessary details that enables us to navigate the terrain of the 21st century. This new map explains how The Living Organization™ directs and transforms the flow of energy into desired results.

• The following diagram shows these energy flows and the role each organizational element plays in the transformational processes.

SOURCE: NORMAN WOLFE, THE LIVING ORGANIZATION™ - THE FLOW OF ENERGY (2008-2009)

THOUGHT AND PRACTICE ACTIVITY: NO. 1

What Do I Want To Learn As Practice As An Innovative Leader?

Time: Five MinutesFollowed by Discussion and Exchange

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO GET UNSTUCK IN MY THINKING AS PRACTICE TO ENGAGE INNOVATION FOR BUSINESS EXECUTION?

• What Forces Drive My Thinking?

• What Forces Impede My Thinking?

• What Am I Doing to Focus My Thinking and Actions as Practices Toward Execution?

THOUGHT AND PRACTICE ACTIVITY: NO. 2

‘Nature’s Inventions’ A Game to Stimulate Innovation Activity by Involving Creativity in

Thinking?

Time: Five MinutesFollowed by Discussion and Exchange

Biology and Zoology are considered by many to be rich sources of analogies from which significant inventions can be derived when one thinks about Innovation. One of the most celebrated cases is the invention of the telephone. As Alexander Graham Bell wrote: “It struck me that the bones of the human ear were very massive as compared with the delicate thin membrane that operated them; and the thought occurred to me that if a membrane so delicate could move bones so relatively massive, why should not a thicker and stouter piece of membrane move a piece of steel (associative thinking).” Thus, was the telephone conceived.

Here is a list of animals and the inventions they exemplify. In groups of five -10 match the animal with the invention.

1. Bat ( ) Parachute

2. Armadillo ( ) Snowshoes

3. Chameleon ( ) Anesthetic

4. Fish ( ) Helicopter

5. Flying Squirrel ( ) Suction Cup

6. Squid ( ) Hypodermic

7. Hummingbird ( ) Radar

8. Scorpion ( ) Camouflage

9. Snake ( ) Electricity

10. Abalone ( ) Tank

11. Caribou ( ) Jet Propulsion

MORE OPTIONS FOR PROBLEM SOLVING PRACTICE

• Accessing Crucible Knowledge to Share — Knowledge from meaningful experiences in the workplace may stem from adversity, and can be illuminating because a crucible is a transformative opportunity to learn and sharpen one’s skills because innovation minded practice trumps talent alone.

• Collaboration As Strengths Based Practice — As an individual and manager your talents are enduring and unique. Moreover, for an activity to be a strength you need to be able to do it consistently and well. Second, you do not have to have strength in every aspect of your role to excel. Third, you most often will excel by maximizing your strengths, i.e. delivering on vision, inspiring others, initiating and sustaining change.

• Results Based Thinking and Problem Solving — Exceptional collaboration behaviors can lead to outstanding results because the quality of shared leadership can sustain results, and allows organizations to align changing strategies, and builds confidence with employees, customers and investors.

THOUGHT AND PRACTICE ACTIVITY: NO. 3

More Thinking, Unsticking, More Thinking, Presenting and Building an Idea as Innovation

Time: 10-15 MinutesFollowed by Discussion and Exchange

MORE OPTIONS FOR PROBLEM SOLVING PRACTICE

• Engaging Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership - James Kouzes and Barry Posner offer as leadership practice to Model the Way (It’s your behavior that wins you respect, align actions with shared values); Inspire a Shared Vision (imagine a highly attractive future for the organization and you are there); Challenge the Process (Taking on a innovative new product, a cutting-edge service, a start-up, or something groundbreaking); Enable Others to Act (what is done and accomplished requires a team effort, trust, and strong relationships); Encourage the Heart (being genuine in your care of others, celebrate, build community).

• USE EQ & IQ - Daniel Goleman, & Richard Boyatzis contend and report out that the rules for work are changing as people in organizations are being judged by a new yardstick; not just how smart you are by IQ, but by how you handle yourself and others—to which I add is further influenced by globalization and talent needs as key contributing factors. In brief, EQ is more broadly focused on whole life that includes work.

WHERE (EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE EQ MEETS IQ AS A POTENTIAL BENEFIT TO YOU FOR 21ST CENTURY PROBLEM, SOLVING TO INITIATE AND SUSTAIN BUSINESS PURPOSES THROUGH PRACTICE.

THOUGHT AND PRACTICE ACTIVITY: NO. 4

The Six Thinking Hats

Time: 15-20 MinutesFollowed by Discussion and Exchange

ATTITUDE, BELIEF AND PERCEPTION ALL MATTER

• Attitude- is a constellation of beliefs that aggregate to predispose an individual to a specific behavioral response to an event.

• A Belief- is a mental element that predisposes a person to specific behavior without the occurrence of an event.

• Perception- is your recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli based primarily on memory and the capacity for insight, intuition, knowledge, and...

THINKING: KEY COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDEE

Components

Definition Example

Cognitive Beliefs, knowledge, understanding

The workers’ beliefs about performance standards and supervision

Affective Where ideas are linked to favorable and unfavorable feelings and associated with emotion

Workers feelings about a new regulation or an organizational change initiative

Behavior Human actions The workers’ performance

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS MLMS SESSION

Questions, Comments and Closure

INNOVATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING: GETTING UNSTUCK IN YOUR THINKING WORKBOOK EXTERNAL RESOURCES

• Crucibles of Leadership (2008). Author: Robert J. Thomas. Harvard Business Press.

• Edward de Bono (August 18, 1999). Six Thinking Hats. 2nd Edition. Back Bay Books.

• Drive (The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us) (2009). Author: Daniel H. Pink.

• Jasper Sorensen: How Do You Explain a New Product Category (October 2013). Stanford Business RE:THINK.

• Nature’s Inventions (2013) Glencoe Online. www.glencoe.com• Richard Perez-Pena (October 9, 2013). U.S. Adults Fare Poorly in a Study of

Skills. The New York Times. • Strengths Finder 2.0 (2007). Author: Rom Rath. Gallup Press.• The Innovator’s DNA (October 19, 2011). Mastering the Five Skills of

Disruptive Innovators. Featuring Clay Christensen and Hal Gregersen. Harvard Business Review.

• The Leadership Challenge-The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership (July 2012) Authors: Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner, Jossey-Bass.

• Thomson Reuters (2013). Top 100 Global Innovators/2013 Winners. Top100innovators.com