My Thoughts

Why Your Creative Problem Solving Approach is Probably Making Things Worse

Here's something that'll ruffle a few feathers: most of the creative problem solving approaches I see in Australian workplaces are about as effective as a chocolate teapot.

I realised this during a particularly brutal consulting gig in Sydney last year. The client had dragged me in because their "innovation team" had spent six months and $200K developing what they proudly called their "revolutionary creative problem solving framework." When they walked me through it, I nearly choked on my flat white. Twenty-three steps. Twenty-three! Including something called "ideation incubation periods" and "stakeholder sentiment mapping."

Meanwhile, their actual problem - customers were abandoning their online checkout process - could've been solved by anyone with half a brain and access to Google Analytics. But no, they needed to "leverage collective creative intelligence through structured divergent thinking protocols."

The Real Problem with Problem Solving

Look, I've been training teams in creative thinking for nearly two decades now, and I've seen this pattern more times than I can count. Companies get so obsessed with the methodology that they forget the actual objective. It's like watching someone spend three hours planning the perfect route to the shops and then realising they've forgotten what they needed to buy.

The truth is, creativity isn't something you can systematise into submission. Sure, you need some structure - I'm not advocating for complete chaos here. But when your creative problem solving training takes longer than actually fixing the bloody problem, you've missed the point entirely.

Most Australian businesses I work with have this backwards. They think creativity means getting everyone in a room with sticky notes and markers, doing some team-building exercise where they pretend a paperclip is a spaceship, and then expecting breakthrough innovations to fall from the sky like manna from heaven.

Wrong.

What Actually Works (And What Doesn't)

Here's where I might lose some of you: the best creative problem solvers I know are often the most practical people in the room. Not the ones with art degrees or the loud extroverts who dominate brainstorming sessions. I'm talking about the quiet accountant who figures out why the numbers don't add up, or the logistics coordinator who finds a way to shave two days off delivery times.

Woolworths figured this out years ago. Instead of fancy innovation labs, they empowered their floor staff to suggest improvements. Turns out, the person restocking shelves knows more about customer behaviour than the marketing department. Revolutionary, right?

The problem with most creative problem solving approaches is they're designed by consultants who've never actually had to implement their own solutions. They're beautiful on paper, impressive in presentations, and completely useless when you're dealing with real constraints, real budgets, and real deadlines.

I learned this the hard way when I was working with a mining company in Perth. Their safety team had identified seventeen potential hazards at a new site, and management wanted to run them through their "comprehensive creative solution matrix." Three weeks later, they were still mapping out stakeholder concerns while workers were dealing with the actual hazards every day.

One of the drillers - let's call him Dave - pulled me aside during a break. "Mate," he said, "I've got seventeen solutions to match those seventeen problems. Want to hear them?" His solutions were simple, practical, and based on thirty years of experience. We implemented fourteen of them by the end of the week.

The Dave Approach to Creative Problem Solving

This is what I now call the Dave Approach, and it's served me better than any framework I learned in business school. Here's how it works:

Start with the actual problem, not the symptoms. Dave didn't waste time discussing why hazards existed or conducting root cause analyses. He identified what needed fixing and fixed it. Most creative problem solving sessions I observe spend 80% of their time defining and redefining the problem. Meanwhile, customers are walking away, employees are getting frustrated, and competitors are eating your lunch.

Think like a tradesperson, not an academic. When a plumber arrives at your house, they don't convene a stakeholder meeting about water flow optimisation strategies. They find the leak and fix it. The best creative solutions are often the most obvious ones, but we overlook them because they seem too simple.

I've seen companies spend months developing complex technological solutions to problems that could be solved with better communication or clearer instructions. A client in Brisbane was losing customers because their phone system kept putting people on hold for ages. The creative solution? Answer the bloody phone faster. Shocking, I know.

Embrace constraints instead of fighting them. This is where most approaches get it wrong. They try to remove all limitations so people can "think outside the box." But constraints spark creativity. Give someone unlimited time and budget, and they'll overthink everything. Give them a tight deadline and limited resources, and they'll find ingenious shortcuts.

Netflix didn't become a streaming giant because they had unlimited resources. They had to work within the constraints of internet speeds, licensing agreements, and consumer behaviour. Those limitations forced creative solutions that competitors with bigger budgets couldn't match.

The Sticky Note Syndrome

Can we talk about sticky notes for a minute? I swear, some consultants must have shares in 3M because they treat those little squares of paper like magic creativity tokens. I've walked into boardrooms that look like they've been attacked by a rainbow of Post-it notes, each one containing a "breakthrough insight" like "improve customer satisfaction" or "reduce costs."

Here's the thing about brainstorming sessions with sticky notes: they make people feel productive without actually being productive. It's creative theatre. Everyone leaves feeling like they've contributed something meaningful, but when you look at the wall of notes afterwards, 90% of them are either obvious, impossible, or completely irrelevant.

I worked with a telecommunications company in Adelaide who had perfected this to an art form. Their monthly innovation sessions produced hundreds of ideas on coloured paper, carefully categorised and photographed for the company newsletter. But in three years, they hadn't implemented a single suggestion. Not one.

The real creative thinking was happening in the quiet corners - the customer service rep who figured out how to resolve complaints 40% faster, the network technician who found a way to prevent common outages, the billing clerk who streamlined their invoicing process. None of them used sticky notes.

What I Got Wrong About Teams

For years, I believed that diverse teams automatically produced more creative solutions. Mix different perspectives, personalities, and backgrounds, and innovation would naturally emerge. This sounds great in theory and looks progressive in corporate brochures, but it's not always true in practice.

The most effective problem solving teams I've observed often share certain characteristics: they communicate directly, they have complementary skills, and they trust each other enough to disagree constructively. Diversity of thought matters more than diversity of demographics, though the two can certainly overlap.

I've seen homogeneous teams produce breakthrough solutions and diverse teams get stuck in endless discussions about process. The key isn't who's in the room - it's whether they're focused on solving the actual problem or just enjoying the meeting.

Some of my most successful projects have involved small teams of people who already work well together. They skip the team-building exercises and get straight to the point. Less creativity training, more creative results.

The Innovation Theatre Problem

Australian businesses love innovation theatre. We're brilliant at creating the appearance of creative problem solving without actually solving anything creatively. Innovation labs with bean bags and whiteboards. Hackathons that generate hundreds of ideas that never see implementation. Chief Innovation Officers who spend more time at conferences than with customers.

I consulted with a major retailer who had invested millions in their "innovation ecosystem." They had dedicated spaces, specialised software, and a team of PhDs working on future strategies. Meanwhile, their actual stores were losing customers because the checkout process was slower than watching paint dry, and their website crashed every time they ran a promotion.

The real innovation was happening at Bunnings. They figured out that customers wanted easy parking, wide aisles, helpful staff, and sausages on weekends. Not exactly rocket science, but it worked because it solved actual customer problems.

Getting Practical About Creativity

Here's what works in the real world: Start with customer complaints, staff frustrations, or operational bottlenecks. These are your real problems, not the strategic opportunities identified in your five-year plan.

Talk to the people closest to the problem. Not the managers who report on it, or the consultants who analyse it, but the people who deal with it every day. They usually know what's wrong and have ideas about how to fix it.

Test small solutions quickly rather than planning large solutions slowly. Most creative breakthroughs come from iteration, not inspiration. Try something, see what happens, adjust accordingly.

Amazon didn't start with a master plan to dominate global retail. They started by selling books online and kept expanding based on what customers wanted and what worked operationally. Each solution created new opportunities, which created new problems, which required new solutions.

The 47% Rule

Here's a statistic I probably made up but genuinely believe: 47% of business problems would solve themselves if companies just talked to their customers more often. Not through surveys or focus groups, but actual conversations about what's working and what isn't.

Another made-up but accurate statistic: 73% of creative problem solving sessions could be replaced by implementing obvious solutions that everyone already knows but nobody wants to suggest because they seem too simple.

I've seen companies conduct elaborate research projects to discover that customers want faster service, better prices, or clearer information. These aren't creative insights - they're basic business requirements that somehow got lost in strategic planning processes.

Where Creative Problem Solving Actually Matters

Don't get me wrong - there are situations where creative approaches are essential. When you're facing genuinely novel challenges, when conventional solutions aren't working, when you need to differentiate from competitors who are doing the same things you are.

The key is recognising when creativity is actually required versus when execution is the real issue. Most businesses have plenty of good ideas already; they just struggle to implement them effectively.

If your creative problem solving approach involves more talking than doing, more planning than testing, more meetings than measuring, you're probably solving the wrong problem.

The most creative thing many Australian businesses could do right now is stop trying to be creative and start being useful. Answer your phones. Deliver what you promise. Make it easy for customers to buy from you. These aren't creative challenges - they're basic service requirements that require creative solutions when you're not doing them well.

But that's just my opinion after twenty years of watching companies complicate simple problems and oversimplify complex ones. Your mileage may vary.

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