LESSON 4: SOLVING PROBLEMS ANALYTICALLY AND CREATIVELY

CONCEPTUAL BLOCKS

1. CONSTANCY - an individual becomes wedded to one way of looking at a problem or to using one approach to define, describe or solve
   
   
2. COMMITMENT - once individuals become committed to a particular point of view, definition, or solution, it is likely that they will follow through on the commitment
   
   
3. COMPRESSION - individuals look too narrowly at a problem, screen out too much relevant data, and make assumptions that inhibit problem solution
   
   
4. COMPLACENCY - occurs because of fear, ignorance, insecurity, or just plain mental laziness of the individuals

These are the four main conceptual blocks and I will give examples for each block. There are two examples for complacency: vertical thinking and single-thinking language. Vertical thinking is when a problem is defined in a single way and alternative decisions are not considered. Another example is single-thinking language which means that people think of problems in terms of verbal language. Here, words create worlds because it uses words to create language reality. For commitment, stereotyping based on past experiences and ignoring commonalities are examples of this. Stereotyping as we all know influences people to think and define problems based on their past experiences which causes organizational members to stay committed to the organization. Ignoring commonalities on the other hand means that since the person is already committed to a perception, he is unable to connect and identify commonalities. Next, there are two examples for compression: artificial constraints and separating figure from ground. Artificial constraints are what people often set around problems which causes them to impossible solve a problem. These constraints are based on the assumptions people in the organization make. While separating figure from the ground means that the organizational members should separate information that would not help solve the problem so that it would be easier for them to find a solution to it. Lastly, noninquisitiveness and bias against thinking are examples of complacency. Problems are sometimes not solved because the members of the organization lack questioning. They are not willing to ask questions because of fear that they might look ignorant of the problem. Bias against thinking involves cultural bias as well as personal bias. I learned that several conceptual blocks prevent members from solving problems creatively because of the limitations to the alternative solutions.