Unleashing Creativity: Shifting from Problem-Solving to Problem-Defining for Remarkable Results

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W FOURCY Radio. What's working on
Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder

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the answer to this question. People
ache for meaning and purpose at work,

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to contribute their talents passionately and know
their lives really matter. They crave being

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part of an organization that inspires them
and helps them grow into realizing their highest

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potential. Business can be such a
force for good in the world, elevating

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humanity. In our program, we
provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in

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this world we all want working on
Purpose. Now here's your host, doctor

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Elise Cortez. Welcome back to the
Working and Purpose Program. Thanks you're doing

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it again this week. Great to
have you. This program has been on

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air and been provided to you with
passion and pride since February of twenty fifteen.

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I'm your host, doctor las Cortes. If we have not met before

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and you don't know me, I'm
an organizational psychologist and logo therapist, speaker

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and author, and my team and
I at Gusto Now help companies to enliven

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and fortify their operations by articulating their
purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated

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by meeting and purpose to turn those
companies from a flatline EKG to a vibrant

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destination workplace. There people are intrinsically
motivated to perform with their best, can

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grow into their fuller potential, and
are committed to stay in dynamically deliver on

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the company's mission. You can learn
more about us and how we can work

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together at Gusto dashnow dot com or
my personal site at least coretest dot com.

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Now getting into today's program, we
have with us doctor Roger Feierstein,

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who has trained more people to lead
the creative process than anyone else in the

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world. He is Senior faculty and
Associate professor at the Center for Applied Imagination

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at Sunny Buffalo State as president of
Innovation Resources in He consults, creates training

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programs, and runs breakthrough laps,
and has created a series of courses for

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open Sesame How Fun. He is
author of several popular books, including Create

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in a Flash, The Leader's Recipe
for Breakthrough Innovation, and the one we're

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talking about today, Solved the Real
Problem. He judges today from Buffalo,

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New York. Roger, Welcome to
Working on Purpose. Thank you, Elise.

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It's a pleasure to be here.
Wonderful. We're gonna have so much

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fun talking about how to talk about
creativity and solving the real problem. So

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let me thank you for bringing these
works into the world. This one solved

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the real problem. Very nice,
easy read and just good stuff. And

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then this one I also read too. Why didn't I think of that?

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Fantastic? Thank you. They're a
joy to do. They're a joy to

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do. Isn't it wonderful when work
is play? It's just a wonderful thing.

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So more people to do that.
Absolutely well, So let's let's just

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start. One of the things I
have just become enamored with in my life

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and my work, Roger, and
my own path is that I and what

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I've learned is that everyone has some
kind of a personally significant experience or set

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of experiences in their lives that puts
them on a path that makes them able

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to create something that no one else
could have seen or created. It's just

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their special sauce, their mold.
So I think it would be really fun

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if you could start by telling your
story of why creat a problem solving is

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so important to you and where that
came from. At least thank you for

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that. I'm happy to do that. And so the story begins on a

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farm in northern Colorado, and it's
all good stories beginning. It's all good

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stories beginning. Could be a frib
in Kansas, but it's a frivan northern

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Colorado, right. And I saw
I was a farm one and my mother

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made me take piano lessons. And
I hated piano lessons, and so that

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she made me practice, and she
said, someday you'll be glad you took

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piano lessons. Well, every time
I see her now, I tell her

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that that's the case. Because when
I was about fourteen years old, administered

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or a church gave me a little
four string guitar. And I'll steal for

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string guitar. It's held together with
scotch tape. There was sand in it,

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and he said, I think you
might enjoy this. Go ahead.

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Well, for the next three months, my parents didn't see me because I

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was in the basement practicing and learning
how to play guitar. I eventually started

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teaching at a guitar studio, and
I played guitar in rock bands in college

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and stuff. And then I set
off to the University of Northern Colorado thinking

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that I was going to be a
music major, going to be a guitar

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as and a music major guitar teacher. Well, I got into my first

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semester, my first year of college, and I became very, very frustrated

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because as a music major, when
you're a freshman, you spend most of

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your time in a practice room about
six by six. You don't talk to

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people very much, and the whole
focus was on technique. You know,

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how to get better at the instrument. I understand that now, but I

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wanted to do some creative stuff with
us that because when I was growing up

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on a I was fortunate to build
treehouses and build go karts and do all

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those things that you can do that
you might and rafts on ponds and stuff.

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My parents encouraged me to do that, and so here I am.

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I'm a freshman at the University of
Northern Colorado getting really frustrated about my education,

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and I came across this program called
the Individualized Education Program, and essentially

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it was you take a couple of
classes, but then you meet with a

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faculty mentor every week to design your
own education. It was based on the

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English, the English model, the
Oxford model. So I began working with

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a young anthropologist who's also a musician, a sculptor, a sailor, a

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horse farmer, my goodness, a
piano tuner, just just a real renaissance

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guy. And I thought I was
going to focus on creating guitar studios or

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something like this. And then I
noticed something. I noticed that my younger

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students were really getting bored playing the
guitar, like, you know, two

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or three notes on the easting.
It was just off and for him.

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So I had the idea. I
thought, if I could get my students

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to get more creative, they might
enjoy their music form. And so I

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started reading about creativity and I think
I just kept the University in Northern Colorado

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bookstore in business in the summer of
nineteen seventy six, because I read everything

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I could possibly find on creativity.
And in the spring of nineteen seventy seven,

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it's April. I'm at my parents'
house. As I'm reading through the

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literature, and look at the bibliographies, there's two names and one place that

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keeps coming up consistently in the literature. One is doctor Sydney J. Parns,

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and another is doctor Ruth Noler.
And this place called the Center for

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Apply to Magic or Interdisciplining Center for
Creative Studies at the State University College at

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Buffalo. So I go to the
microfiche at the university and I took the

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microphech to find the phone number of
the place. And then it's April and

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I'm at my parents' house, and
so I dialed the phone number. I

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got the courage to dial the phone
number. The rotary dialogue they got it

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dial the phone number, and I
talked to the secretary and I explained to

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him that what I was interested in, and she said, well, you

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know, Roger, doctor Parnes is
here. Would you like to talk to

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him? Now? At least I'd
never talked to an author before in my

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life. I mean I'm twenty one, twenty two years old. All the

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authors that I knew were dead,
you know, And so to talk to

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this guru, this creativity author guy
I was. I was ecstatic. I

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talked with doctor Parnes. We had
a wonderful conversation. He said, you

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know, we've got this conference that
we host every year, and we're starting

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this master's degree programming creativity. You
might be interested in that. So I

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hung up the phone. I ran
up the stairs. I said to my

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mom, I said, Mom,
I just talked to Sid Parnes in Buffalo,

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New York. Do you know what
she said? She said, what

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you made a long distance phone call? Phone calls from rural northern because August

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this phone calls from rural northern Colorado
were pretty expensive back then. Well,

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I went out that summer in April
in June to attend the creativity conference and

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take a course, and I was
on fire. And when I got back,

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my mom and dad said, that's
all you could talk about was your

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work in creativity and what was going
on. So I finished up my degree

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at the University of Northern Colorado,
moved out to Buffalo in June of nineteen

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seventy eight. Got my master's degree
in creativity studies in nineteen seventy nine.

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I think I was about the seventh
person to do that, and now we've

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graduated over four hundred folks's and that's
gone from there. So I was on

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faculty from nineteen eighty four to nineteen
ninety four and then went part time to

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work on my consulting business. And
now I've formally retired, so I'm associate

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professor emeritus, but I'm far from
retired. And so they don't retire.

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I don't. This is so much
fun. Why would people retire to do

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stuff that they love to do?
Why would you not keep doing this stuff

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that you love to do? So
I'm having the time of my life,

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and I really appreciate this interview.
Lease You're so welcome. What a great

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way to start. You know,
I love it when people are passionate about

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what they do. And that's such
a great story about how you got into

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creativity and the thing that I find
so interesting about your work that why it's

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so compelling and one of the major
reasons I wanted to have you on the

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program. And I align with this, and this is so interesting. What

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you say is you say we have
been taught to find answers to problems,

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not to question the problem itself.
And I'm so amazed. I mean,

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even my young people are like,
they're like, you know, going to

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school and they're trying to find the
answer. What does the teacher want for

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the answer? Oh my gosh,
that frightens me. So if you could

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speak a bit to this problem here, this conditioning that we have the traditional

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way we tend to go about this
problem solving. Yeah, well, it's

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my contention that we're still using the
same strategies that we used in elementary school

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to solve complex, difficult, potentially
dangerous problems. And it's because we've been

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taught to find answers to problems,
not to question the problem itself. And

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the example I use is this is
like I asked someone, well, what's

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three plus three? They'll say six? What's the capital of Spain? Madrid?

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You know, what's the name of
the third planet from the sun.

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They have to think for a minute, But it's Earth, okay. And

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so the problem has already been set
up for us. But what we're faced

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with today is the problems aren't set
up for us. There's there's all these

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challenges out there all these things that
we need to deal with and we don't

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quite know how to enter to solve
the problems. And let me an example

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of this might be was I did
some one of my one of the one

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of the folks that we talked about
in the book, did a study where

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they combined engineering students and art students. This is the University of Georgia,

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and they taught and they brought them
together because the engineering apartment thought that the

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that the they, the engineers,
need to be getting little more creative.

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And so at the end of the
semester, so once one week they taught

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them engineering skills, engineering problem solving
skills, one week they taught them uh,

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artistic problem solving skills. At the
end of the semester, they have

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their presentation in front of the engineering
faculty and the art faculty, and this

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one young engineer stands up and he
says, you know, I don't think

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I learned anything in here, because
we were learned to They taught us to

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find problems to solve. But when
I go out and become a practicing engineer,

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my clients are just going to give
me the problem. I'll solve it.

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The head of the engineering department,
A very distinguished man stands up.

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My friend says, stands up it
and Yelsy goes, No, he goes.

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If you have found out how to
determine or how to find problems,

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or how to find problems, you've
learned probably the most important skill you can

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learn, Because problems aren't going to
be presented to you. You're going to

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have to discern how to how to
break him apart, how to find an

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every point to solve them. So
we haven't been taught that way, and

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so what this book focuses on is
giving you some methods to help you discover

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what the real problem is m And
so then you give us this whole which

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I want to dive into as much
as we can here. But the solution

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you say, of the you know
it is actually problem definition. And so

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this whole practice of you know,
really delving into the problem and then so

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the creativity that comes with that is
fascinating. In fact, tomorrow, Roger,

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I'm presenting at a diversity, equity
and Inclusion summit, and I'm going

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to talk about how our uniqueness is
such a wonderful way to contribute our creativity

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and our in contribute to innovation so
anyway, so if you could speak a

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little bit about this notion of problem
definition, Yeah, so, and back

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back to the whole diversity. Creativity
thrives on diversity. The more diverse the

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group, the more innovative the ideas. And we have a we do.

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We have stuff built kind of around
that as well. So talking about the

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whole thing and problem definition, Well, so the way we free define problems

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is we ask questions. But we
don't just ask any kinds of questions.

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We ask creative questions. So,
for example, let's try this. We

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don't have enough money, it's too
expensive. That's not a question, that's

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a statement, right, And when
you say those things that blocks your thinking,

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that sends a message to your that
there aren't any ideas out there,

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So why bother looking for those ideas? We try this? How might we

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reduce the cost, How might we
find the funding for the ideas? How

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might we get other people involved in
the project? Those last three are creative

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questions, and they tell your mind
to go to search for some answers to

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solve it. And we use the
word might explicitly because it's not how can

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we how might we? Because might
ask you to speculate to think of about

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what might be. We don't know
yet, but what might be. And

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the other thing is not just one
creative question, not just two creative questions,

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but fifteen twenty thirty creative questions.
And the idea is the more the

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problem you see is the problem that
you solve. The problem that you see

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is the problem that you solve.
So if you're able to see many problems,

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then you can pick the best problem
to solve. And as a matter

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of fact, when we were working
on the book, we played around with

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the title a little bit and one
of the words that we use was to

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solve the best problem. And folks
don't quite get that. So a good

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friend of mine advocated for solving the
real problem, and so that's what the

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title of the book was. Interestingly
enough, is that we don't know if

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it's the real problem until we solve
it, right, But we're miles ahead

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if we come up with a whole
bunch of different problems, des finishes,

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or creative questions, as opposed to
taking the first creative question or the first

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problem that comes to mind. So, yeah, it's so delicious. And

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what I like about this too delicious? It is so delicious and What I

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love about this is that I think, well, and I'll even put myself

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in this camp, Roger. I
mean, for the longest time, I

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didn't like problems or accounting problems,
because problems gets in the way of achieving

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things, and I like achieving things. Right, But then there's this thing

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of you could take delight in actually
finding the problem and then actually looking for

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various ways to solve it. And
now that's fun. That's fun. Yeah,

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And a problem is just a gap
from where we are to where we

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want to be and from where we
are want to be, and we don't

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grow on. JP Gilford, one
of the great psychologists that ever lived,

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said, we grow by solving problems. We grow intellectually by solving problems,

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and that's what makes us human.
We solve problems and they don't have to

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be these big, huge, daunting
things. But one of the things that

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we find is that if we take
these big, huge daunting things, come

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up with some creative questions, we
can find an entry point to begin to

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solve them and move the move it
forwards. Well along those lines, you

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might be glad to know, Roger, that I am quoting you in my

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presentation tomorrow. Oh wonderful one.
I opened the conversation. I'm quoting your

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quote of to be creative is to
be human. So, sir, you

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are kicking off the presentation tomorrow.
Woh, thank you, thank you.

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Recorded. I want to see it
all right. Let's take our first break.

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I'm your host, doctor Earlei's Cortez. We're in there with doctor Rogers

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Feirestein. He's a senior faculty and
associate professor at the Center for Applied Imagination

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at Sunny Buffalo State, then president
of Innovation Resources, Inc. Where he

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consults programs and runs Breakthrough Labs.
We've been talking a bit about where his

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love of creativity came from, and
we're starting to talk about how we can

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start to look at finding the real
problem and going about looking at it from

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that direction. Stay with this,
will be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes

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is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author.

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She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose
among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership

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and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce.

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To learn more or to invite a
lease to speak to your organization.

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Please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your

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employees working on purpose. This is
Working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes.

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To reach our program today or to
open a conversation with Elise, send an

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email to a lease A lisee at
elisecortes dot com. Now back to working

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on Purpose. Thanks for stating with
us, and welcome back to working on

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Purpose. I'm your host, doctor
release Cortes. One of the things that

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is a wonderful benefit about hosting this
program is because I read my guest's books

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cover to cover, and I'm a
researcher. What that does is that means

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that about every year or so,
I find myself getting another book out.

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So my latest book came out in
March of twenty twenty three. It's called

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The Great Revitalization. How activating meeting
a purpose can radically enliven your business.

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And I wrote it for leaders to
help you understand the lay of today's workforce

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lang what do they really want from
their work and their leadership? And then

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I give you twenty two best practices
to be able to fold that into your

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culture, to actually create that for
them. Can find the book on Amazon

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or at my website at least Cortes
dot com if you are just joining the

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program today. My guest is doctor
Roger Feierstein. He's the author of several

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popular books, including Create in a
Flash, a leader's recipe for breakthrough innovation,

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and the one we're talking about today, Solve the Real Problem. So,

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before we get into a little bit
more of the of the ingredients of

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how you go about this, Roger, I think it would be good for

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you to situate for us from your
perspective, why you believe that creative problem

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solving is so essential for progress and
fulfillment in today's world. Yeah, if,

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as you've read, we teach a
process for creativity, and it's a

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first, identify a goal, get
the data, figure out what the problem

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is, generate ideas, refine and
put them into action. And so if

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I was to give you the book
definition of creative problem solving, it would

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be something like, creative problem solving
is a repeatable, simple way to take

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on new challenges and develop innovative solutions
that create productive change. Pretty good.

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Okay, However, how I was
going to say, I think you can

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do better than that. I think
we can too, all right, And

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as a result of my work and
over these years, I believe that creative

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problem solving is a life giving process
because it helps you to see possibilities that

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you can never have imagined. And
that's really where I'm at with the work

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right now. It's this is a
way to dramatically help people live better,

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more fulfilled lives. And when you
take a course with me, we don't

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work on case problems or anything like
that. We work on stuff that's important

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to you. And so you'll go
through this creative problem solving process. You'll

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learn this process, but you'll also
maybe develop a new business, you know,

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make your relationships better, find a
better ways to work in your community,

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and of course come up with new
products or services those sorts of things.

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But in the meantime, you begin
to realize that you have resources insides

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you that you never really tapped before. And you also realize how important it

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is to work with a diverse group
of people so that you can come up

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with a diverse bunch of ideas.
And so that happened. That being the

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case, when people leave a workshop
or you know, one of the programs

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that I do, you can and
the reason why I still do this work

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is because you can see the light
bulbs going on. Yeah, and so

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and I. And when I was
teaching full time with the university, I

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taught the entry level graduate class because
I wanted to see the student's light scope.

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The light bulbs go on in student's
eyes, and that's where this stuff

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works. And so that's why I'm
so passionate about it because it can make

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such a great difference in people's lives. We think differently. Well, so

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what you're doing than Roger is you're
turning people on. You're actually turning people

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on. I love that someone's inspiring. I wanted to be able to situate

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that before we got into more of
your system of methodology because I wanted people

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to see the promise, the excitement, the possibility for themselves. It's life

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giving. Yeah absolutely. Yeah.
Okay, well, let's share with them

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your creative problem solving pit stop methodology, if you will. There's four steps.

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Will you talk us through? Yeah? So the first step, let

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me talk you through the four steps. Then let me talk talk about what

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makes it happen. Okay, Yeah, So the first step is clarify the

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problem. Let's figure out what the
problem is. Once you've clarified the problem,

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generate ideas. Once you've generated those
ideas, developed those solutions. Once

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you have developed solutions, put those
ideas into actions. So clarify the problem,

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generate ideas, develop solutions, plan
for action. Now, that is

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sort of a natural pattern of thought. That's kind of the way we think.

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And if we go back and take
a look at the early studies of

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creativity, that's kind of the way
it shook out. Figure out what the

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problem is, get some ideas,
make the idea better, put into action.

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What we're able to do now is
do that deliberately and explicitly. And

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so if you take a look in
the book, we have little diamond diagrams

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of cause yes, yeah, and
those indicate diverge, come out with lots

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and lots, and then converge.
So when we clarify the problem first,

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we just kind of identify a goal
and we use the phrases it would be

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great or I wish, And we
use those phrases it would be great if

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or I wish, because that moves
you forward, if it gives you a

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forward focus. It's like boy,
I wish I could I wish I could

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write a book that everybody loved Okay, okay, great, you don't know

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how to do it yet, okay, but that's what you want to accomplish,

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and language plays a big part of
this. So we gather a little

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bit of data about it. Then
we generate a bunch of creative questions.

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How to, how might, how
to? How amight? Fifteen, twenty,

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thirty forty? Okay, you can
do that in five minutes, by

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the way, we can talk about
that. And then we select the best

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of those creative questions, so we
converge in we kind of can we gently

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take a look at what's the best
looking creative questions. Once we've got the

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base of the best looking creative questions, we generate lots of ideas for solving

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that. We then select the best
of those ideas. Then we refine those

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ideas using a technique called pluses potentials
concerns, which is looking at what's good

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about the idea, the potentials and
the idea any concerns we have about the

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idea before we launch it. Then
we generate a whole bunch of possible action

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steps dive hurting out again. Then
we converge on the key action plan.

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So that's the process. But the
thing that drives it is this whole idea

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of thinking first, divergently lots and
lots of stuff, don't judge, strive

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for quantity, and then gently coming
in and converging. First just taking a

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look at the ideas that sort of
sparkle at you, that are interesting that

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you can move forward, and then
moving them into more more concrete, concrete

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concepts. So yeah, that's the
process. It's wonderful and I really appreciated

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that you use. I think you
encourage to find forty different ways to clarify

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the problem for which you know,
which obviously is you know, takes a

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little bit of reach after a while. And I like that though. And

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you even say that oftentimes that the
bottom third are the more interesting ones,

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the more useful creative ones. Yes. Well, one of the research and

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some of the research that we've done, we counted the number of ideas the

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groups came up with, and then
we kind of took a look at the

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nature of those ideas, and about
the first third were the usual ideas.

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These are the ideas that people had
thought of before. Okay, we got

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those, Okay, great. The
second third people get a little goofy,

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you know, they've lost you know, they're into different new territory now,

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and those can be kind of the
goofy ones that might create some breakthroughs.

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But it's the third third when people
start to build off of the other stuff.

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That's where then the innovation comes.
That's where the new ideas come from.

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And so I tell a group,
if you're sitting around generating ten or

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twelve ideas and you think you're getting
creative, you're not, because creativity comes

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in the stretch. Innovation comes in
the stretch. So yeah, it's not

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difficult to do that. I mean, five minutes is easy to generate forty

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to fifty ideas. So well,
and that's where I wanted to go next.

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Is one things that I also found
really encouraging as somebody who tends to

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be a little impatient, and I
like, my to do list is always

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way longer than how much time do
I have to do anything? Right,

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So one of the things I appreciated. You talk about fallacies in your book,

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and one of the fallacies you talk
about is that it takes a long

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time to find a real problem,
and you go on to say, no,

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it doesn't, you know, so
you talk about really even just five

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minutes just taking that those five minutes
to be able to just go through this

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process makes a huge difference. Yeah, and I'm so glad you brought that

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up. And what that is based's
based on a research study. And as

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I was putting the book together,
I began to do a lot of take

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a look at the academic research on
this. And in this study, what

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they did was they compared They took
one group of students, they gave instructions

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for a problem to solved. They
said, go solve the problem. Okay,

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they want to solve it. Another
group of students, they gave them

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the problem. They said, take
whatever time you need to redefine what the

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problem is. Just go ahead,
and once you've redefine it, then go

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ahead generate ideas. Well, the
group that redefined the problem generated much more

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original, interesting, useful, creative
ideas as opposed to the group that just

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went right to work on it.
And so when I read the study,

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at least it was like, well
that's interesting, but how much time did

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they give these people to redefine the
problem? And I knew the researcher,

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and so I emailed Mark and I
said, what was the timeframe on this?

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And he said, well, Roger, he said, we really didn't

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give them a timeframe. He said, we said, take as much time

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as you need, whatever you need. But in actuality, those students took

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between five to six minutes to come
up with alternate definitions of the problem.

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So the question is can you spend
it? Can you afford to spend five

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minutes to find the real problem?
And the flip side of that is can

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you afford to spend five minutes or
can you not do so? Can you

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afford to spend five minutes to solve
the real problem, find the real problem?

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Or can you not to? And
it's just five minutes just stepping back

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for five minutes, So as pause, I found that just really really compelling

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need. I needed to hear that
just from me, Roger, So thank

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you. Anybody else get any benefit, great, but I needed that me

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too, at least. I mean, and it's because we've been taught that,

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you know, the faster you solve
the problem, that smart you are.

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Oh and that's where I wanted to
go next, my friend, I

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wanted you to tell the story of
little Roger. I love the picture in

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your book. I remember how old
you were about you know you're in elementary

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school math class. Tell that story
and why that's important to what we're talking

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about today. So one of the
third fallacies. I have the book here,

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I'm going to read just a little
bit from it, so as written

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by the author. And so we
had a lot of fun. There's a

409
00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:33.720
picture of me here in third grade
and I weighed sixty six and a half

410
00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:37.799
pounds, so boy, not even
close to that now. So the third

411
00:27:37.880 --> 00:27:40.880
fallacy is the faster you can solve
the problem, you smarter you are.

412
00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:44.680
And so here's the city scene.
I'm eight years old, I mean toaser,

413
00:27:44.799 --> 00:27:48.519
I mean third grade in Missus Tollenberg's
class at Toser Primary School in Windsor,

414
00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:52.880
Colorado. The year's nineteen sixty four, and so now it's time for

415
00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:57.559
math and to get the class actively
involved in learning, Missus Tollenberg has this

416
00:27:59.119 --> 00:28:03.720
game called trap and it uses flash
cards. And so the way it works

417
00:28:03.799 --> 00:28:07.720
is one student stands up next to
another person's desk card. Missus Toleenbrik puts

418
00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:11.960
the card out there. The person
that gets the answer first is the winner,

419
00:28:11.319 --> 00:28:15.160
and they get to travel to the
next person. Okay, and so

420
00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:18.519
you know what's two blos two four? Whoever can blurt out the answer first

421
00:28:18.799 --> 00:28:21.480
is the winner and they get to
travel around the room and they get similar

422
00:28:21.559 --> 00:28:25.759
prize. Right. I was horrible
at that game, all right, absolutely

423
00:28:25.839 --> 00:28:30.039
horrible. And once in a while
I could beat the person that was next

424
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:33.559
to me, but I wouldn't mind
Bobby Bobby, Robby, Bobby, Bobby,

425
00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:38.279
Bob what what are we name?
Bob Bobby Bobby Gilbert oh Man.

426
00:28:38.559 --> 00:28:41.599
So this guy could go all the
way room the room two or three times.

427
00:28:42.599 --> 00:28:48.279
And so in my child mind at
third grade is because I wasn't good

428
00:28:48.359 --> 00:28:52.519
at travel or getting the answer really
quickly. In math, I wasn't good

429
00:28:52.599 --> 00:28:55.680
in math, and so that was
it with my head. I made it

430
00:28:55.720 --> 00:28:59.680
through tenth grade geometry. That was
it. Then I go to graduate school

431
00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:03.759
and you have to take statistics,
and at least I was terrified, Oh

432
00:29:03.839 --> 00:29:07.440
my god, oh my god.
Well I found that when I was taking

433
00:29:07.519 --> 00:29:11.559
statistics, I kind of liked it
and it made sense to me, and

434
00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:15.799
you could take time to figure out
what the real problem was and you could

435
00:29:15.839 --> 00:29:18.720
solve them. And so when I
graduated, I actually ended up with a

436
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:25.400
graduate minor in statistics. So,
but the fallacy is is the faster you

437
00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:29.119
can solve the problem this more you
are, And that's absolutely not true at

438
00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:33.279
all. It's just that he was
better at math in a quick way.

439
00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:36.319
Doesn't mean that he was better at
math. He was just better at coming

440
00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:38.359
up with the answer quicker. And
so you know, you just needed a

441
00:29:38.440 --> 00:29:42.400
little bit more time to come up
with the answer. And so we fall

442
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:45.839
in with this trap that we have
to solve the problem immediately. No,

443
00:29:45.559 --> 00:29:49.200
five minutes, just start with five
minutes. Now, when we work on

444
00:29:49.279 --> 00:29:55.559
big organizational challenges, we'll spend and
this is really interesting, maybe twenty minutes

445
00:29:55.640 --> 00:29:59.240
redefining the problem. But to do
that, we have a group of folks

446
00:29:59.319 --> 00:30:03.640
doing this facilitate it. We bring
in folks from the outside called creative catalysts,

447
00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:06.400
and in twenty minutes we can come
up with one hundred and sixty hundred

448
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:10.440
and fifty different creative questions and then
the client can select the ones that work

449
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:11.960
the best, and then we can
go and blow out and get more ideas

450
00:30:12.039 --> 00:30:18.240
because they're trained in using this process. But you know, Bobby Gilbert,

451
00:30:18.359 --> 00:30:22.359
I'm telling you always beat me at
Traveler and he beat just about everybody too,

452
00:30:22.559 --> 00:30:26.359
so but yeah, so that was
the story. Don't have to get

453
00:30:26.359 --> 00:30:30.079
the answer fast to be to be
good at something. Yeah, I also,

454
00:30:30.200 --> 00:30:33.119
I guess I want to take a
moment to reinforce you know, inadvertently

455
00:30:33.319 --> 00:30:36.920
the teacher, you know, gave
you the message that you weren't good at

456
00:30:36.960 --> 00:30:41.440
math. She was trying to engage
people and get them going totally unintentional.

457
00:30:41.559 --> 00:30:45.599
However, that unintended consequence, It
can happen all the time inside organizations with

458
00:30:45.720 --> 00:30:51.400
leaders and so you know, being
mindful of how you're stewarding this creativity process

459
00:30:51.480 --> 00:30:55.720
and encouraging people and such, so
so so important. And yeah, to

460
00:30:55.839 --> 00:30:56.920
her credit, I mean, she
was trying to do her best to engage

461
00:30:56.920 --> 00:31:00.720
students with using what she had at
that time. You know, it was

462
00:31:00.799 --> 00:31:04.160
engaging, But I wonder what happened
to what about what the kid thought that

463
00:31:04.279 --> 00:31:08.240
never got to stand up exactly?
Who never got to stand up, you

464
00:31:08.319 --> 00:31:14.400
know, and what's going on with
their exactly exactly exactly. That's that's the

465
00:31:14.440 --> 00:31:17.680
point I was trying to make.
So I just appreciate. I'm so grateful

466
00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:22.240
that you found statistics later on in
life so that you could have that improper

467
00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:29.400
mindset or belief eradicated or reviewed or
rewritten. So we all need that,

468
00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:32.119
as you know, we need to
rewrite our tapes. Yeah, and we

469
00:31:32.680 --> 00:31:34.480
need to unlearn things too. Yeah. Unlearned things. Absolutely, that is

470
00:31:34.519 --> 00:31:37.359
critical. We talk about it in
this program quite a bit. So on

471
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:41.200
that note, let's let our listeners
and viewers think about what they might need

472
00:31:41.279 --> 00:31:44.279
to unlearn while we take our last
break. I'm your host, doctor Release

473
00:31:44.359 --> 00:31:47.559
Cortes. We got on the air
with doctor Roger Feierstein. He's a senior

474
00:31:47.599 --> 00:31:52.240
faculty and associate professor at the Center
for Applied Imagination at Sunny Buffalo State and

475
00:31:52.319 --> 00:31:56.960
the president of Innovation Resources, where
he consults, creates training programs, and

476
00:31:56.079 --> 00:32:01.279
runs breakthrough labs. We've been talking
a bit about his methodology to getting to

477
00:32:01.400 --> 00:32:06.640
the real problem into generating ideas,
etc. After the record, we're going

478
00:32:06.680 --> 00:32:08.319
to continue on. We're also going
to talk about a way to get this

479
00:32:08.680 --> 00:32:15.200
inside in an organization in a way
that really really lives and informs the culture.

480
00:32:15.359 --> 00:32:34.119
Stay with us, We'll be right
back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a

481
00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:38.319
management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she

482
00:32:38.480 --> 00:32:45.119
helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among
stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning

483
00:32:45.160 --> 00:32:50.480
infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance
and commitment within the workforce. To learn

484
00:32:50.519 --> 00:32:53.200
more or to invite a lease to
speak to your organization, please visit her

485
00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:58.839
at eliscortes dot com. Let's talk
about how to get your employees working on

486
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:07.640
purpose. This is working on Purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our

487
00:33:07.720 --> 00:33:12.960
program today or to open a conversation
with Elise, send an email to Alise

488
00:33:13.279 --> 00:33:24.000
alisee at eliscortes dot com. Now
back to working on Purpose. Thanks for

489
00:33:24.039 --> 00:33:27.640
staying with us, and welcome back
to working on Purpose. I'm your host,

490
00:33:27.680 --> 00:33:30.480
doctor Elise Cortes. As I mentioned
in the last break about my latest

491
00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:34.359
book that came out in March of
twenty twenty three, The Great Revitalization.

492
00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:37.920
What I did for you is I
created a three page assessment that you can

493
00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:42.559
pull off my website Gusto dashnow dot
com, and you can then use that

494
00:33:42.720 --> 00:33:46.880
to determine the extent to which your
workforce is for your workplace is ready for

495
00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:51.920
today's standards, to the extent that
it really is a destination workplace. So

496
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:54.039
you can find that there if you
are just joining us. My guest is

497
00:33:54.119 --> 00:33:59.279
doctor Roger Feierstein. He's the author
of several popular books including Creed in a

498
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:02.559
Flashader's Recipe for Breakthrough Innovation, and
then when we're talking about today, solve

499
00:34:02.599 --> 00:34:07.279
the real problem. So before we
go further, I was going to ask

500
00:34:07.319 --> 00:34:08.440
you this earlier, and then I
got excited about some of your stories,

501
00:34:08.480 --> 00:34:13.360
but I did think it would be
good. You know that you talk a

502
00:34:13.400 --> 00:34:15.280
little bit about the rest of the
system here, that after you generate these

503
00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:22.519
many creative questions, then you move
to selective creative questions using this process of

504
00:34:22.639 --> 00:34:25.360
hits, cluster and restate. I
think that's very useful to help our listeners

505
00:34:25.400 --> 00:34:29.239
and viewers. Just add a little
bit more bolt on more of your process.

506
00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:34.039
Yeah, yeah, happy to do
that. So here's the reasoning behind

507
00:34:34.119 --> 00:34:38.960
that a lease. So let's say
you've generated thirty creative questions. Well,

508
00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:42.840
it doesn't make a lot of sense
to go over and say, well it's

509
00:34:42.880 --> 00:34:45.400
that creative question that one, because
if that's the case, why have you

510
00:34:45.480 --> 00:34:50.159
taken all that time to generate all
those thirty creative questions? Anyway, so

511
00:34:50.320 --> 00:34:53.519
this is the converging stage of the
process where we talk about this gentle converging.

512
00:34:54.159 --> 00:34:57.599
So the first thing we do is
we go through and take a look

513
00:34:57.639 --> 00:35:00.039
at all the creative questions, and
we use post its. Thank goodness for

514
00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:04.280
post its. I love my post
it man. I was in this business

515
00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:07.159
before we were using post its.
And that's why my handwriting is so bad.

516
00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:10.239
That's one excuse. Sorry. And
so if you're a doctor, that's

517
00:35:10.280 --> 00:35:15.719
the other. Yeah, that's and
so so let's see, Hey, you

518
00:35:15.800 --> 00:35:17.880
have a flip chart with twenty five
or thirty post its on it. We

519
00:35:19.039 --> 00:35:22.239
give people a little color dots and
so well, I'll give you a so

520
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:24.599
we're working on your challenge. You
go up and you just dot the hits.

521
00:35:25.079 --> 00:35:30.760
And these are creative questions that provide
a new insight, indicate a promising

522
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:35.079
direction, capture the problem for you. Nail it feels good in your gut

523
00:35:35.159 --> 00:35:37.840
because creative, No, there's no
problem I've ever worked on, no matter

524
00:35:37.920 --> 00:35:43.800
how technically clip up a purist,
it appears that there isn't some intuition about

525
00:35:43.800 --> 00:35:45.519
it. There isn't some feeling about
it. Either. You're frightened about it,

526
00:35:45.559 --> 00:35:49.199
you're excited about it. And that's
going to influence the kind of creative

527
00:35:49.239 --> 00:35:52.400
questions you choose. So go through
the list first, put a dot on

528
00:35:52.519 --> 00:35:54.199
the idea on the creative questions that
are new insight, a new direction,

529
00:35:54.400 --> 00:35:59.360
feels good, nails it for you. The next step is is to relate

530
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:02.320
those hits together into themes. So
we cluster them. We asked the question,

531
00:36:02.800 --> 00:36:07.360
which of these hits relate to each
other? And then we label that

532
00:36:07.480 --> 00:36:12.000
cluster with a new creative question.
And then from there what we do is

533
00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:14.920
we generally we'll come up with like, if we have thirty creative questions,

534
00:36:14.960 --> 00:36:17.760
we'll probably maybe have four or five
clusters. And then I would ask you,

535
00:36:17.840 --> 00:36:21.960
I say, okay, at least
right now, what's the creative question

536
00:36:22.039 --> 00:36:24.400
that you want to get some ideas
on right now? What's the most important

537
00:36:24.480 --> 00:36:28.639
creative question? What's the creative question
that if we were going to make progress

538
00:36:28.840 --> 00:36:31.280
on that, that would help you
to solve your goal that you're going after.

539
00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:36.239
And then we generate ideas for that. So it's a gentle converge.

540
00:36:36.800 --> 00:36:39.039
First, mark the hits, cluster
the hits together, restate the cluster,

541
00:36:39.400 --> 00:36:44.800
then choose the creative question. The
beautiful thing about that is if you make

542
00:36:44.880 --> 00:36:47.800
progress on one creative question, great, and you still need to work on

543
00:36:47.840 --> 00:36:51.719
the other creative questions, you don't
have to go back to the entire process.

544
00:36:51.960 --> 00:36:53.599
You can just start at the end
of clarifying the problem saying, okay,

545
00:36:53.800 --> 00:36:57.239
let's get some ideas for this creative
question now. But no, no,

546
00:36:57.679 --> 00:37:00.039
let's get some ideas for this creative
question. Bub them so you don't

547
00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:04.199
have to begin the process again because
the questions are all they have for you

548
00:37:04.239 --> 00:37:07.880
already. The problems are already given
to you. In that case. In

549
00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:12.039
some ways, Roder, it reminds
me a lot of the the coding an

550
00:37:12.039 --> 00:37:15.440
analysis process that I did for my
meeting and work and identity research. Just

551
00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:19.480
the way that you describe that.
It just especially when you talk about you

552
00:37:19.559 --> 00:37:23.000
know, the hits, the clusters, and the restates very interesting. So

553
00:37:23.239 --> 00:37:28.840
of course that gets my juices going. Is that inductive reason or deductive?

554
00:37:28.920 --> 00:37:30.719
That's inductive? Inductive? Yeah,
thank you, yeah, so inductive.

555
00:37:31.639 --> 00:37:37.239
Yeah. Anyway, so that's what
was going on in mind Don't we only

556
00:37:37.320 --> 00:37:45.039
cover the exciting things in this program
only we're talking about inductive reasoning? Well

557
00:37:45.119 --> 00:37:47.639
okay, so now then let's go
on even more fun. You know,

558
00:37:47.880 --> 00:37:52.440
this whole notion I mean, for
me, mindset is a really really interesting

559
00:37:53.320 --> 00:37:59.559
idea, well pun intended, But
you talk about four problem solving mindsets and

560
00:37:59.599 --> 00:38:04.039
I think that's really interesting to talk
through and kind of this discern maybe which

561
00:38:04.679 --> 00:38:07.119
you know, might be useful for
whatever you're working on. So let's talk

562
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:10.159
about those next. I would love
to so the way we did the book,

563
00:38:10.719 --> 00:38:14.039
and if we get time, i'll
talk about the genesis of the book.

564
00:38:14.079 --> 00:38:16.440
But the way to answer this question, the way we did the book

565
00:38:16.639 --> 00:38:23.840
is I interviewed people from business,
medicine, education, aeronautics, aviation,

566
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:30.079
manufacturing, finance, everyday life,
and I asked them one question, I

567
00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:34.639
said, can you give me an
example of a problem that you were working

568
00:38:34.719 --> 00:38:37.360
on that really wasn't the problem at
all? So they were proving the wrong

569
00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:42.000
problem. And the folks that I
interviewed were just gracious, they were wonderful

570
00:38:42.039 --> 00:38:45.719
with their time, and we came
up with all these wonderful examples, and

571
00:38:45.880 --> 00:38:47.360
so we can talk about a couple
of those of life. But when I

572
00:38:47.519 --> 00:38:52.559
analyzed the responses, I found that
they fell into sort of four mindsets,

573
00:38:53.360 --> 00:38:57.800
and one was challenge your assumptions.
You know, don't assume that you know

574
00:38:57.920 --> 00:39:00.280
what the problem is. Challenge you
assumptions. The second one is to get

575
00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:05.559
an outside perspective. And the way
you solve that is that is you get

576
00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:08.800
other folks involved, you build on
the diversity that you're talking about. So

577
00:39:09.320 --> 00:39:14.519
challenge your assumptions, get an outside
perspective. Now, the other two kind

578
00:39:14.559 --> 00:39:17.280
of use a visual example. So
one is see the big picture, look

579
00:39:17.440 --> 00:39:21.920
broad, and then the opposite of
that is look for all the details.

580
00:39:22.519 --> 00:39:27.039
And so those mindsets work together.
But if you can kind of if you

581
00:39:27.119 --> 00:39:29.880
can use say, look, am
I can I challenge my assumptions here?

582
00:39:30.360 --> 00:39:32.679
Or am I looking at the big
picture? Am I seeing all the details?

583
00:39:32.719 --> 00:39:37.280
You can sort of ask yourself that
am I? Am I really getting

584
00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:40.679
an outside perspective? And so those
those who were how those mindsets settled in.

585
00:39:40.760 --> 00:39:44.159
And so that's how we organize the
last half of the book, and

586
00:39:44.239 --> 00:39:47.800
we tell stories that focus on challenging
your assumptions, you know, getting looking

587
00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:52.800
at the big picture, getting all
the details. You know. Okay,

588
00:39:53.239 --> 00:39:55.719
so I want to dial I'm going
to dial into two pieces here. One

589
00:39:55.800 --> 00:40:00.840
thing that I really want to want
to call out under the get an outside

590
00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:06.599
perspective that I thought was really useful
and I want to champion here for our

591
00:40:06.639 --> 00:40:10.519
listeners and viewers, is you talk
about how some organizations in order to make

592
00:40:10.559 --> 00:40:15.320
sure that they create that diverse sort
of workforce, the diverse sort of perspectives.

593
00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:20.719
They hire twenty five percent of their
new workforce without industry experience. I

594
00:40:20.800 --> 00:40:23.639
can't tell you how often in my
early recruiting days twenty five years ago when

595
00:40:23.679 --> 00:40:25.639
I started, and they don't always
say, oh, they don't have telecom

596
00:40:25.719 --> 00:40:29.320
experience, we can't hire them.
I'm just crazy. So I want to

597
00:40:29.360 --> 00:40:32.119
just want to bring that home,
as you know, hire outside your industry.

598
00:40:32.119 --> 00:40:35.440
If you want to creative, you
want, if you want creativity and

599
00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:37.920
innovation, start there. Then know
what can't be done? They don't.

600
00:40:38.039 --> 00:40:42.199
Yeah, right, they they and
they don't assume they haven't been taught all

601
00:40:42.239 --> 00:40:44.400
the ways that it can't be done. Can't, can't, can't, can't,

602
00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:46.519
can't write. Okay, now you've
got to tell the story. I

603
00:40:46.679 --> 00:40:52.000
love the story of the Boeing engineer
and the wiper windshield wipers. You got

604
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:54.159
to tell that story. I love
that story. I love that story.

605
00:40:54.760 --> 00:41:01.280
So the story goes like this.
In the nineteen seventies, a young engineer

606
00:41:01.400 --> 00:41:07.320
named Scott Kempshaw it's a job for
the Boeing Cock goes to work for Boeing

607
00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:12.280
and he's assigned to the seven forty
seven cockpit crew. And on the fourth

608
00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:15.000
day of work, this mechanism lands
on its desk and it's got an arm

609
00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:20.719
sticking out on a windshield wiper,
and there's some some motors and stuff,

610
00:41:21.119 --> 00:41:23.599
and it was the windshield wiper for
the seven forty seven. Now, the

611
00:41:23.679 --> 00:41:28.039
interesting thing about the seven forty seven
is that's that big beautiful airport that's got

612
00:41:28.079 --> 00:41:30.760
that big hump up there in the
front. Now, what happened because of

613
00:41:30.840 --> 00:41:34.880
the design of the airplane when the
seven four to seven would take off,

614
00:41:36.079 --> 00:41:40.079
what the airflow over the hump would
essentially blow the windshield wipers off the wind

615
00:41:40.119 --> 00:41:45.199
show so the pilot could not see
the runway on takeoff and landing in rain

616
00:41:45.320 --> 00:41:50.639
or snow, A very very bad
thing for the pilot of a seven forty

617
00:41:50.639 --> 00:41:53.159
seven not seen the river, and
so Scott's John. So the way this

618
00:41:53.320 --> 00:41:59.320
mechanism worked was it took it measured
the air speed, It actuated a motor

619
00:41:59.400 --> 00:42:02.719
the tighteness bring that then would hold
the windshow wipersent. Each piece cost.

620
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:07.119
Each of these mechanisms cost ten thousand
dollars each for a total twenty thousand dollars.

621
00:42:07.199 --> 00:42:10.199
They each weighed twenty pounds, which
is an additional forty pounds to the

622
00:42:10.239 --> 00:42:14.880
aircraft. You don't want to add
weight to the aircraft. And because the

623
00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:17.800
mechanism was complicated, it would need
to be replaced about every ten years.

624
00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:22.199
So to replace this mechanism, you
had to take the airplane out of service

625
00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:27.039
for ten days, pull the whole
front of the airplane off to get in

626
00:42:27.239 --> 00:42:30.480
just to replace the Winshow wipperpaganism.
Okay, it's Scott's fourth day of work,

627
00:42:30.639 --> 00:42:35.159
right, He's getting a tour of
the Boeing plant. And he said,

628
00:42:35.199 --> 00:42:37.159
he said, Roger, he said, I walked into the seven forty

629
00:42:37.199 --> 00:42:39.679
seven assembly building. He said,
first off, the buildings are so big.

630
00:42:40.119 --> 00:42:43.840
The clouds formed the scening of these
things. I remember you saying that

631
00:42:43.880 --> 00:42:45.599
that was amazing, Yeah, amazing. And he said, Roger, you

632
00:42:45.599 --> 00:42:49.480
said, I was just awestruck.
Here's a seven four seven just about ready

633
00:42:49.519 --> 00:42:52.119
to come off the line. And
another one, and another one, and

634
00:42:52.199 --> 00:42:55.800
another one and another one, another
one. So here's young Scott Kamshaw walking

635
00:42:55.880 --> 00:43:00.639
through the planet with this guide and
he comes upon this bin of scrap metal

636
00:43:00.199 --> 00:43:02.400
and he says, he said,
they were kind of curved and they kind

637
00:43:02.440 --> 00:43:06.719
of looked like a little scoop to
me. And so he asked his guy,

638
00:43:06.760 --> 00:43:07.840
He said, well, what are
these? And his guide said he

639
00:43:07.880 --> 00:43:10.760
said, well, we had a
railing that was a little too long in

640
00:43:10.800 --> 00:43:15.199
the design. We'd had to clip
this off and so this is just scrap.

641
00:43:15.400 --> 00:43:16.239
And Scott goes, well, can
I take a couple of those?

642
00:43:16.360 --> 00:43:19.639
And this guide goes, yeah,
we're just going to scrap this stuff.

643
00:43:20.440 --> 00:43:22.119
So Scott said, he said he
had an idea, and he said they

644
00:43:22.159 --> 00:43:27.039
looked like little scoops to me.
And he said and so he said if

645
00:43:27.239 --> 00:43:30.159
if, and so what he did
was he mounted it on the windshield wiper

646
00:43:30.159 --> 00:43:35.000
and they then they put in the
wind tunnel and he said if they looked

647
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:37.800
like little scoops because and his idea
was as the air pressure would go over,

648
00:43:37.840 --> 00:43:40.719
it would push this little scoop or
this little sail down on the window.

649
00:43:42.320 --> 00:43:44.400
Tried it once, tried it,
tried it didn't work all right,

650
00:43:44.639 --> 00:43:47.360
tried it another time, didn't work. Finally he adjusts these little scoops,

651
00:43:47.400 --> 00:43:52.079
these little pieces of scrap metal on
the windshield wipers. And he said,

652
00:43:52.480 --> 00:43:54.639
we tried rain, we tried snow
anything. We could not get them to

653
00:43:54.760 --> 00:44:00.639
raise off the windshield wipers. So
this was a scrap piece of metal.

654
00:44:00.199 --> 00:44:04.760
It's called a flow spoiler, all
right. It is on just about many

655
00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:07.239
most commercial aircraft right now because it's
so effective and it looks kind of like

656
00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:10.039
a little sale. It sits on
the windshield wipers of the seven four to

657
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:14.559
seven And now when the air airplane
takes off, the air pressure just naturally

658
00:44:14.679 --> 00:44:20.440
pushes it down. So so if
we run, if we run the numbers

659
00:44:20.519 --> 00:44:25.719
out and I'll it's something like,
you know, to change the lifespan of

660
00:44:25.719 --> 00:44:30.199
the airplane was thirty years. They've
only made about fifteen hundred of these,

661
00:44:30.280 --> 00:44:35.119
so if it takes about it takes
every about ten years. You have to

662
00:44:35.159 --> 00:44:38.119
replace the mechanism. So that's about
three hundred dollars a mechanism. Three hundred

663
00:44:38.119 --> 00:44:42.800
thousand dollars a mechanism. The number
in nineteen eighty dollars is like four hundred

664
00:44:42.800 --> 00:44:45.639
and eighty million to replace the windshield
wipers in the fleet. Now it's like

665
00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:50.199
one point four billion dollars just to
replace the windshield wipers in the fleet.

666
00:44:50.239 --> 00:44:53.119
And with Scott's design it can be
replaced in about two hours for two thousand

667
00:44:53.159 --> 00:44:58.880
dollars. So it saved the airline
aline industry billions of dollars. And the

668
00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:04.400
other thing is it kept three and
a half billion people safe. Yeah,

669
00:45:05.559 --> 00:45:09.159
let's not underestimate that. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Well so the

670
00:45:09.280 --> 00:45:13.639
moral of the story there, right, and fresh eyes, fresh perspective,

671
00:45:14.280 --> 00:45:16.360
and he was given and that's where
I want to go next. He has

672
00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:22.119
given the rain to do this,
given the opportunity to go and work on

673
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:24.159
this, and that's where I want
to go. I love what you talk

674
00:45:24.199 --> 00:45:28.519
about in this book. But in
order for this to be able to happen,

675
00:45:28.559 --> 00:45:30.599
in order for that bo for Scott, the Boeing engineered to be able

676
00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:35.920
to do this, there had to
be the right air in the in the

677
00:45:36.079 --> 00:45:39.079
in the organization to do that.
And you talk about four aspects of that,

678
00:45:39.400 --> 00:45:42.679
and that's I want, since we
also do a lot on the show,

679
00:45:42.719 --> 00:45:45.559
to be able to help develop organizations
and leaders to create them. As

680
00:45:45.599 --> 00:45:49.400
such, let's talk about how do
we make the air right? How to

681
00:45:49.480 --> 00:45:51.559
make the air right? And we
can talk a little bit more about what

682
00:45:51.639 --> 00:45:53.199
we mean by making the air right
if we have time. Yes, But

683
00:45:53.400 --> 00:45:58.119
there's four things. And one of
the things that we did is we use

684
00:45:58.239 --> 00:46:01.800
this when we helped Demosdam Motor Manufacturing
USA put their plant online in the late

685
00:46:01.920 --> 00:46:07.840
nineteen eighties and save them about sixty
million dollars in plant startups. So there's

686
00:46:07.960 --> 00:46:12.400
there's there's there's several things. One
is, first, people need to have

687
00:46:12.440 --> 00:46:15.960
creativity skills. They need to know
how to be creative, like what we're

688
00:46:15.960 --> 00:46:19.599
talking about. And then there's the
environment. So you can't just give creativity

689
00:46:19.639 --> 00:46:22.400
skills and say, okay, here, just go. You have to create

690
00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:25.800
an environment that supports that. So
one is a commitment to improvement. And

691
00:46:25.920 --> 00:46:30.599
so what happens most of the time
is when people are hired for a job,

692
00:46:30.639 --> 00:46:31.119
it's like, here's how to do
the job. Go do it.

693
00:46:31.760 --> 00:46:36.559
It's not like here's how here's how
we do the job now. But your

694
00:46:36.679 --> 00:46:38.559
job is to make it better,
to it better, make it quicker,

695
00:46:38.599 --> 00:46:42.559
okay, improve in the job.
So a commitment to improvement is part of

696
00:46:42.559 --> 00:46:45.920
the environment, a mistake friendly attitude. If you take a yeah, if

697
00:46:45.960 --> 00:46:49.119
you take a look at Scott,
he made a mistake of first few times,

698
00:46:49.159 --> 00:46:50.599
and the second time, the third
time, and the fourth time,

699
00:46:50.639 --> 00:46:53.880
and maybe the tenth time. But
when he tried it out, eventually the

700
00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:59.920
thing works and it still works.
Values, Employee input, insights, organization

701
00:47:00.519 --> 00:47:04.280
people want to feel valued and they
want to see that they make a difference

702
00:47:04.320 --> 00:47:09.239
in the organization. And so to
first you need creativity skills in an environment

703
00:47:09.280 --> 00:47:14.960
that supports that, which consists of
a commitment to improvement, mistakes, friendly

704
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:20.119
attitude values, employee attitude insights,
and then application. Once you apply that

705
00:47:20.280 --> 00:47:23.760
to an organization, the output is
an innovation output. But you have to

706
00:47:23.840 --> 00:47:29.320
have all of those things there to
make it work. Oh, that's just

707
00:47:29.360 --> 00:47:31.079
so important, and that's part of
what I'm talking about to Marok this conference

708
00:47:31.199 --> 00:47:35.599
is to be able to create an
environment like that where people can feel like

709
00:47:36.119 --> 00:47:39.719
I can bring my individual unique self
to bear on this issue, this opportunity,

710
00:47:40.039 --> 00:47:44.679
this problem, to be able to
innovate or to creatively solve it.

711
00:47:45.039 --> 00:47:49.000
Yes, yes, absolutely, well
it happens fast, Roger. We're already

712
00:47:49.119 --> 00:47:51.920
in the show. Yeah, we're
already in the show. So the show,

713
00:47:52.079 --> 00:47:53.559
as you probably know, is listened
to by people around the world who

714
00:47:53.639 --> 00:47:58.360
are who care about trying to get
into a place where they can They are

715
00:47:58.480 --> 00:48:01.840
in these destination workplaces where they can
realize their potential. They're led by inspirational

716
00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:05.639
leaders that lead them to their greatness. We do business a better is the

717
00:48:05.719 --> 00:48:07.840
world what would you like to leave
them with. I'd like to leave them

718
00:48:07.960 --> 00:48:15.199
with this, just really simply that
we are all creative and we can learn

719
00:48:15.280 --> 00:48:21.519
to be deliberately creative, and so
it's not a myth, it's not something

720
00:48:21.599 --> 00:48:24.639
possessed only by a gift of few, because that's what makes us human.

721
00:48:25.159 --> 00:48:30.239
And we can actually turn on our
creativity at will instead of waiting for ideas

722
00:48:30.320 --> 00:48:34.159
to just happen. We're all creative, we can all all can be deliberately

723
00:48:34.199 --> 00:48:37.119
creative, and we can turn on
our idea ideas it will instead of just

724
00:48:37.159 --> 00:48:38.400
waiting for them to happen. That's
what I'd like to leave with you,

725
00:48:38.480 --> 00:48:42.960
folks. What a brilliant way to
finish. Roger. It's a delight to

726
00:48:43.079 --> 00:48:45.880
know you and to learn from you
and to share you with my listeners around

727
00:48:45.880 --> 00:48:47.760
the world. Thank you for being
on working on purpose my pleasure, at

728
00:48:47.840 --> 00:48:52.039
least my pleasure. Listeners and viewers. You're going to want to learn how

729
00:48:52.079 --> 00:48:57.000
to connect with this man and follow
his work or even check into his resources

730
00:48:57.159 --> 00:49:00.880
or his courses. So the best
way that you can find him it's just

731
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.719
his personal website. It's rogerfiresteam dot
com. Let me spell that for you.

732
00:49:05.280 --> 00:49:09.679
Roger rog e Er fire Stein is
a little different FI R E S

733
00:49:09.800 --> 00:49:15.400
t I e N rogerfiresteain dot com. Last week, if you missed the

734
00:49:15.480 --> 00:49:17.960
live show, you can always catch
up be recorded podcast. We were on

735
00:49:19.079 --> 00:49:22.800
with Jerry Koluna, the former venture
capitalist and now executive coach, talking about

736
00:49:22.840 --> 00:49:28.039
his beautiful new book, Reunion,
Leadership and the Longing to Belong. He

737
00:49:28.119 --> 00:49:30.599
helped shed light on why a sense
of belonging is so profoundly important to human

738
00:49:30.719 --> 00:49:35.599
thriving and how leaders and team members
can help nurture a sense of belonging in

739
00:49:35.639 --> 00:49:38.360
the workplace. It was an incredibly
elevating conversation, really really beautiful, and

740
00:49:38.440 --> 00:49:42.519
yes he did move me to tears
once. Next week we'll be on the

741
00:49:42.559 --> 00:49:45.719
air again with doctor Raj Sisodia.
He's the co founder of the Global Conscious

742
00:49:45.800 --> 00:49:51.519
Capitalism movement, this time talking about
his thirteenth new book, Awaken, The

743
00:49:51.639 --> 00:49:54.360
Path to Purpose, Inner Peace and
Healing. It is his most personal and

744
00:49:54.440 --> 00:49:59.119
vulnerable book yet and shines a light
on how we can achieve this kind of

745
00:49:59.199 --> 00:50:01.039
life for ourselves. See you there
and remember it. Work is one of

746
00:50:01.079 --> 00:50:05.760
the best adventures and means of realizing
our potential and making the impact we crave,

747
00:50:06.159 --> 00:50:12.159
so let's work on Purpose. We
hope you've enjoyed this week's program.

748
00:50:12.519 --> 00:50:15.719
Be sure to tune into Working on
Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes,

749
00:50:15.880 --> 00:50:21.039
each week on W four CY.
Together we'll create a world where business

750
00:50:21.119 --> 00:50:25.719
operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion
performance and employees are fulfilled in work that

751
00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:30.480
provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.