Roni’s story in his latest post reminded me of what was probably the most dramatic moment in my 15+ years of facilitating innovation. I’ve told this to people a few times (not many, because I am pretty ashamed of my role in the event), and they often don’t believe me, but I swear that this happened exactly as it is told here. 
It was a pro-bono session in a city in the US MidWest, and the objective was to find innovative ways to improve communications and understanding in the local community, which had been stressed to the point of intermittent violence. The organizers had attempted to statistically represent, within the 16 participants, all segments of the local population according to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and what not, and had done an excellent job. It was the heterogeneous-est group you could imagine, all of them good intentioned active citizens.
The first day went well, and on the morning of the second day, we opened with an exercise: the group sat on chairs in a circle, except for one person who stood in the middle. This person was asked by me to mention something he remembered from the first day, then pick another participant, ask them to stand up, and sit in their place, and so on.
Continue reading ‘Blind.’
Posted in Fixednesses and
Insights categories |
Share:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Our lives are full of cases of cognitive fixedness that prevent us from making changes, including changes to our careers. Some rules of creative thinking can help us see beyond the well-known and the familiar.
I have been working at SIT for 13 years, facilitating thought processes for new products and services for companies and organizations around the world. The invention of new products is a fascinating process, but just between us – how many of us get to dabble in it? How relevant is it to our everyday lives? On the other hand, perhaps we could use inventive thinking not merely for the development of new products, services and strategies, but also to reinvent ourselves?
After all, one of the major challenges of creative thinking is in the ability to overcome cognitive fixedness – the tendency to perceive things in a particular way, and the inability to notice their other facets. And we all have fixedness. We attribute certain roles to given situations or to their components and tend to be blind to other possibilities. The more we get used to certain presumptions, the more they become axiomatic in our minds, and difficult for us to abandon.
But our instances of fixedness are not restricted to our view of our environment; they also exist in how we think of ourselves. For example, we don’t like ambiguous situations. We already know what our own role is. We know what is required of us; we are acquainted with our responsibilities and know how to address them. But facing a vague situation, one where we don’t know what to expect, is no easy thing, especially when our career is at stake. I am not saying this to dishearten you. On the contrary: if you cannot predict the future, invent it.
Continue reading ‘How to reinvent yourself?’
Share:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Amnon and I presented last week in Greener by Design (GbD) in San Francisco, subtitled “Greener Products for Leaner Times”. Our innovation message for companies working on going greener was to focus on finding and tackling their fixedness.
Cognitive Fixedness, first defined by psychologist Karl Duncker, prevents individuals and companies from creating new configurations in the systems they manage. This often blocks us from seeing potential efficiencies and material reduction, and breakthrough solutions to problems. SIT tools help break 3 kinds of cognitive fixedness:
1. Structural – The tendency to view products and systems as a complete gestalt. Many of SIT’s tools help break this particular fixedness. The following water saving toilet (click to check out the cool animation!) was developed by Villeroy-Boch in an SIT workshop. Multiplying the water streams resulted in more pressure in each stream, therefore requiring less water. This product won the ISH Innovation Prize and was chosen by Deutsche Bank in its transformation of its HQ to be the most environmentally friendly high-rises in Europe.
2. Functional – Seeing objects as capable only of fulfilling their original function. SIT uses the Task Unification tool to help innovators find new uses for existing resources, thus forcing them find new functions for available objects and tackle functional fixedness. My previous post described several such uses of unexpected resources for generating energy.
Continue reading ‘Become greener by breaking fixedness’
Posted in Fixednesses and
Greenovation categories |
Share:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
This is the first of a series of posts discussing innovation barriers. This series will not encompass all that can be said on the subject. That would take a series of books. It will describe, however, several types of barriers we face when we try to innovate. It will also discuss these barriers in relation to the innovation methodologies that have been developed to address them.
Dr. Gadi Segal, a business partner and a good friend, told me once that “the more therapeutic options you have for a disease, the more likely it is that none of them is really effective.”
When I make the analogy to the realm of innovation I hesitate to conclude that none of the innovation methodologies available is really effective… Let’s just agree that the abundance of approaches and technique is indicative of the magnitude of the challenges posed by innovation.
Continue reading ‘Innovation Barriers | Chapter 1: Why We Struggle’
Posted in Fixednesses and
Ideation categories |
Share:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
“Cogito ergo sum” or “I think, therefore I am” is a famous philosophical quote from René Descartes. 
I have my own version of this statement:
“I think, therefore I am fixated”.
What I mean is that it’s almost impossible for the human brain to produce a really fresh and unique thought. Every thought, opinion or idea is somehow connected to previous concepts stored in the brain.
There are many definitions for fixedness, but I like this one: “The inability to see the solution to a problem although it stares us in the face.”
When we decide or when we are asked to think uniquely or creatively, the fixation intensifies. (So if you want to kill someone’s creativity, just ask him/her to think creatively. I can guarantee you that it works every time!)
So how can we fight fixedness?
Continue reading ‘I think, therefore I am fixated’
Posted in Fixednesses categories |
Share:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
