The most challenging aspect about innovating is rooted in a concept called fixedness. Fixedness is the inability to realize that something known to have a particular use may also be used to perform other functions. When one is faced with a new problem, fixedness blocks one’s ability to use old tools in novel ways. Psychologist Karl Duncker coined the term functional fixedness for describing the difficulties in visual perception and problem solving that arise when one element of a whole situation has a (fixed) function which has to be changed for making the correct perception or for finding solutions. In his famous “candle problem” the situation was defined by the objects: a box of candles, a box of thumb-tacks and a book of matches. The task was to fix the candles on the wall without any additional elements. The difficulty of this problem arises from the functional fixedness of the candle box. It is a container in the problem situation but must be used as a shelf in the solution situation.
Or was it Mark Twain?
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Fixedness - this concept of people and organizations becoming tied to the beliefs are realities created within. I often call this a Folkloric Construct - a collection of all the "this is the way we have always done it" although when further examined - it is just the way that the person perceives the process with a lack of clear understanding of purpose and boundaries.
When exploring Process innovation the folkloric construct (fixedness) causes a mental block. Thank you for sharing.
Very interesting post. I agree completely, all the way down to: "The way to break fixedness is to use structured innovation tools." You don't have to use structured innovation tools to break functional fixedness, it is only one of an indefinite number of ways to do that. I find it hard to argue for that the best way to break up structure is to use more structure.
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Your article helped me a lot, is there any more related content? Thanks!