Beverly Moore

I’m Beverly Moore I am President of a company called Choice Point, I live in the Boston area, but I work all over the United States, and soon I am going to be going to South Africa, to be a part of the CPSI there, and I think maybe, as of this week, I am a part of an initiative, for an Institute, that will happen in Israel.

11:01:30:00

11:02:01:09

[…Why is CPS important in business world?]

If people in the business world were allowed and empowered to be creative, many of the things that they see as problems today would simply be challenges that would allow them to constantly recreate themselves.

11:03:11:25

11:03:59:06

[How do you teach people in the business world to be creative?]

To train people in the business world to be creative, they have to recognize they have a problem. And they have to see problems as something that are exciting and motivating, rather than something you want to get rid of. The Creative Problem solving process changes what a problem is to an opportunity. Sometimes I get involved with a business because I’ve expressed that problems are opportunities, and then just that mind shift, that we can do something about it. Aren’t we excited, good, we have got a problem lets go, because that’s a motivating factor for all the people that are in the company.

11:04:18:01

11:05:36:08

[…would you define creativity for me?]

Creativity is a big word - and it means more than just one thing. A lot of people think of creativity as a new idea- something different, is a whole, to be complete creativity has to first of all, have some need to be met. Having recognized a need that needs to be met, one has to use their imagination, and look at options of how that need can be met. Then one has to turn it into an action, and finally, what I think, a lot of Americans believe is that creativity is in the achievement. That we look at creativity as we see a result, that’s the creativity. But creativity, has to start with a need, move into the imagination, and move to action, and then maybe the end will be failure, but you will have learned something, so you have a new opportunity to start the cycle.

[…a lot of people suggest that creativity leads to success, but you are saying creativity leads to an opportunity?]

Even if you fail.

11:05:37:24

11:07:50:22

[…specific example from your work where this process has had some type of tangible results]

Tangible results at the companies I’ve dealt with have run the gamut from being able to save rags at a printing company to making the company $1 million dollars richer, because a group of people in the printing presses figured out that they were not using all the ink, that was in the cans that came in. Through going through CPS process, the gathering of a lot of facts, they got motivated around this problem when they found out the ink they were sending back, to be replaced, was probably worth about $100,000 in that particular company, in the particular plant within the company. They had five plants, so these people, who were printers, who worked right on the line, after figuring out all this stuff, figured out that was how much money they were loosing. So then they started to experiment, they came up with ideas through brainstorming of how they might save the money, but what they did was do a lot of experimenting. What they came up with, was a very simple solution. What they was tip these barrels of ink up so that has it came out, it would keep coming out, and they would get the last drop, were they had been using a spicket in the can, and not getting it. So that was an interesting contrast, where saving rags and not throwing them away, and figuring out ways to not loose them and all this sort of thing was kind of a trivial problem, and this was a big monumental problem. But two teams were equally as excited, because they solved there own problem, and made a big difference in the way they worked.

11:07:53:02

11:08:47:20

[How did you get the printers to engage in fact finding?]

Well it began because I was brought in to teach the creative problem solving process, and when I’m teaching the creative problem solving process, we use the process around the problems they identify - now they wanted to use this process because they wanted the results of people being involved and engaged, participating in solving their problems, and being engaged in the companies success, and being engaged in making this a better place to work. So, in teaching the process we use their real problems. When we’re done with teaching, then they are prepared to use this process themselves to go on and keep solving problems.

11:08:49:00

11:10:16:17

[In your mind…are strategic planning and the CPS process similar?]

CPS and strategic planning are really exactly the same process, however in strategic planning, you’re looking out 10 years, 5 years, in high tech companies its 6 months, is long range planning. But what you doing is your saying this the ideal, in 5 years this where we want to be, and then you move backward to say what did we do to get there .. so you’re starting with a vision, in strategic planning. Wherein, with CPS, you’re starting with a problem that you’ll hopefully turn into a challenge that says we want things to be different, if we had the ideal situation, what would it be. Then we go back and look for ways to get there.

How there the same is that – when you engage a group of people, you are saying, we all own the vision, at the strategic planning level, or in a problem solving session, like a group of employees who want to make a better place, they are starting with how they make their work better, better quality, better production, faster timing and so on. But its being able to put yourself out in the future, and envision what the ideal is, and then coming back and looking – how you get there.

11:10:17:00

11:11:08:19

[How do you get people excited about the plan of action phase?]

I find that the plan of action phase is the thing that most everybody knows how to do fairly well (chuckles). A lot of people jump right in, to action planning and I don’t have a lot of trouble teaching action planning. Because people have been planning how to get there, a long time. I think that the challenge is that when you have creativity added in, and you’re trying to start something new, you’re taking risks, because creative, creative problem solving, is saying we’re going to do something we’ve never done before. If we get to the point where they are satisfied, that they have a creative solution, something that has never been done in their environment before, action planning is not a problem.

11:11:10:24:

11:11:56:04

[When you facilitate a brainstorming group,…what is it you want to happen…?]

When I use brainstorming - brainstorming is actually a technique to give everybody air space, to allow everybody’s thoughts to piggyback on everybody else’s. Piggyback – that’s a bad word in terms of jargon, if you haven’t used it before, but our ideas, when you say something, or I say something and somebody else says something, it stimulates our thinking, brainstorming empowers everyone in the group to use each others minds to combine with theirs.

11:12:15:00

11:12:38:29

[Take #2]

When I use brainstorming in a group, I value the fact that it allows everyone an opportunity to participate - not only allows - but it says that all of our thoughts come together and stimulate each other, and there’s a synthesis that takes place.

11:12:39:01

11:13:24:13

Brainstorming has rules. It means that no one can judge anybody else’s ideas. It means that thinking outlandishly will stimulate your creativity, and it also gives everybody permission to have airtime to say whatever they think without any kind of judgment. And by getting a lot of quantity of ideas, and seeing those in front of you, you need to see everything. Then everyone is stimulated. Then you have 1+1=3, instead of 1+1=2 ideas, because you’re getting all of that synthesis, which is a big part of the creative process.

11:13:25:24

11:14:18:14

[…Could you define the term Piggybacking?]

Piggybacking - well I started to use the term, piggy banking and it it’s a bit of a jargon piece that we use in this field, and I know all these companies that have their own jargon, and I try to explain what some of that means, it means that if I have an idea and you don’t like my idea, then piggybacking means that you just add something on that would make it a better idea, or you could piggyback by says, instead of saying – “You have a really dumb idea and I don’t appreciate your intelligence” You would just give me an opposite thought. Something you where stimulated to say, by what I say , that turns into a positive, its adding on, or it’s changing, or it’s making the opposite.

11:14:19:03

11:15:17:28

[Now in brainstorming, I know you want deferral of judgment, I am not supposed to say, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard”…]

Deferring judgment - yes- it’s saying that (laughs) It’s saying you’re not stupid. But you know there’s another kind of judgment that takes place in some groups in brainstorming, and that’s when 5 ideas have come out and somebody says “great idea” and all the 5 ideas of the other 4 people that came up with ideas, feel what was wrong with mine? This is a great idea, So when I think of deferring judgment, its not only deferring judgment on the negative side. It’s deferring judgment of ‘great idea’ because it will allow the group to say “Well, I have to come up with something better then one, or I better not say anything” brainstorming is to get ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas knowing that the more that come, the more creative they get.

11:15:18:01

11:15:41:17

Also, when you’re brainstorming, there sometimes is a pause, and a lot of people think ‘we’re done, lets put this stuff away and go home’ and usually after that silence will come the risk taking ideas, that no one had before, because people don’t like silence, and then they really push themselves into the synthesizing - new stuff.

11:17:23:22

11:18:19:27

[Success Story]

One of the real thrills of my life as a consultant is being a part of seeing a culture change in an organization when a visionary within that organization decided that they wanted the people within the organization to be creative, and to have new ways of learning- and through CPS, I was a part of a team that designed education for Arthur Anderson consulting firm. We changed the way the training process worked by using the creative process to design the training, and many things changed in terms of how teaching was done, through using the CPS process, and incorporating it, so that when people were learning, they were also creating.