Business Insights

Why do you need both fools and experts on your creative problem solving team?
What are their strengths and roles that help you solve problems?

In this video George Torok explains the answers to those questions.





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PhotoPlus Re-cap: Seminars & Tech

Enjoy this collection of 20 important business lessons illustrated with case studies.

Here are two that I particularily enjoyed reading.

David vs. Goliath

It's tough to be the little guy, especially when one of the big guys becomes your direct competition. But at Hangers Cleaners, an offbeat image and good customer service helped them pull through when P&G opened an eco-friendly dry cleaners in the same town. Hangers differentiated itself through van delivery service, funny t-shirts and hangers, as well as social networking. The company also spent time connecting with the community by partnering with local businesses and charities.

Instead of out-pricing or out-spending P&G, Hangers embraced its personality and adopted a culture of excellent service that customers found value in. As a result, Hangers has experienced growth while other local dry cleaners have reported flat or declining revenues.



Triumph in Niche Exports

Another excellent international case study comes from bike manufacturer Triumph, which lost steam in its British home base three decades ago, but found new life by heading overseas. In 2010, Triumph sold just 7,562 bikes in the UK, but 50,000 worldwide, indicating that an international interest paid off for the company. Triumph's famous factory in Warwickshire closed up shop in 1983, but the Indian factory remained, and these days, the motorcycles have become the country's Harley Davidson.

The company struggles to meet demand in India, with a six month waiting list and a new factory being built. India's middle class has embraced the vehicle as an affordable commodity, even giving them as dowries in weddings.


Read the rest of these lessons here.

20 Classic Case Studies Every Business Student Should Know

You need both fools and experts on your creative problem solving team. They bring different and essential strengths to your team.

But they are needed for different purposes. You will get the most from them if you understand their strengths and use them accordingly.


Fools on your creative problem solving team

Fools are good at asking questions

Fools help you discover options

Fools are best at stepping into new paradigms

Fools are fond of breaking rules

Fools are helpful in defining strategy

Fools are effective

Fools are best at divergent thinking

Fools help you zoom out to see the big picture



Experts on your creative problem solving team

Experts are best at answering questions

Experts help you focus

Experts are best at maintaining the status quo

Experts are fond of following procedures

Experts are dependable with tactics

Experts are efficient

Experts are best at convergent thinking
Experts help you zoom in on the details


When you form your creative problem solving teams, be sure to include both fools and experts. Both groups play critical parts in the creative problem solving process. It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about finding and implementing the best solutions to the challenges you face.


George Torok

Creative Facilitator

Creative Problem Solving seminars

Creative problem solving is a process. You need both fools and experts on your creative teams.

Innovate: Five Steps to Get Better Results with Reduced Resources
In this entertaining and practical program you will discover:

• The 5 key principles on which to base your Innovation process
• A 7-piece tool kit to generate dozens of new ideas in minutes
• How to recognize the two types of problems and handle them appropriately
• How to know which question to ask and when (yes there are dumb questions)

Attend this practical workshop at the APICS Grand Valley Innovation Showcase on Saturday Feb 19, 2011 in Cambridge, Ontario.

If you are a member of APICS or work in operations management then this Innovation Showcase is an easy opportunity to boost your business smarts and career success.


"Innovate: How to Get Better Results with Reduced Resources" is a practical and systematic approach to getting things done, overcoming business challenges and reducing the stress in your life.

This is the first time that this game-changing program will be open to the public. George Torok normally delivers this program exclusively to private clients who want to transform the culture and operations of their organization.

In a rare opportunity for you, George Torok has agreed to work with Cambridge Solutions to offer this program to the members and guests of APICS Ontario Grand Valley.

Don't miss out.

Register here for Innovation Showcase

Learn more about Creativity Catalyst, George Torok.


Check out the rest of the workshops at the Innovation Showcase

This was a letter that I wrote to Lynne Everatt, columnist for the Globe & Mail. Her column described the antics of a Creativity Consultant who seemed to force people into following his orders.
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I read your column, “How Far will we follow the consultant?” (Mar 24) with both amusement and concern.

I was amused at the antics that your groups were “encouraged” to perform in the pursuit of creativity.

I was amused and impressed by Norm – the one who defied the instructions of the consultant – because I have done the same. If consultants expect to challenge the group they must expect to be challenged. This creativity consultant should have found a more creative tool to encourage participation other than threatening to tell the boss.

But what concerns me the most is the perception of Creativity than might have been left with your letter-writer and the other participants in this program. As both a student and leader of creativity it is clear to me that several prime directives of creativity were ignored by Bart the creatively consultant.

Even though creativity is the science of breaking rules – there are rules – or at least guidelines for creativity. It is a science – more than an art. It is only art to the uninformed.

One of the first rules of creativity is to provide a risk-free environment. If you want people to be more creative you must make them feel safe. Employees in a corporate environment will not be creative if they are punished for their creative excess or not participating.

If you are told that your idea was too crazy (or stupid) – you will be inclined not to play again. All it takes is a glance or rolling of the eyes to kill a creative thinker.

One of the greatest threats to creative thinking in a group is the non-acceptance of the group. The group leader determines and guides how the group might react. If you want people to be more creative – don’t punish them. If you want people to be more creative – value every idea and opinion.

To encourage creativity in a group you must allow individuals to choose not to play at any point. They need the option of calling a time out. This is a simple technique that reduces stress by giving a sense of control to the participants.

Robert Alan Black, creativity guru, called this, “Gone fishing.” At any time in his creative session a participant could announce, “Gone fishing”. The rest of the group would understand and that individual felt safe and still part of the group. That individual would also be more inclined to jump in later with creative ideas as they hatched.

Let’s be real. If you are told to jump around the room and you don’t want to – you don’t have to. If you are told to hug everyone and you don’t want to – you don’t have to. Although there might be creative aspects or interpretations to these actions they are not the goal of creativity. And creativity is not the goal either. Creativity is a tool that can be sharpened to reach a goal. And when it comes to business creativity should be focused on the bottom line.


Bottom Lines of creativity

Creativity is not about jumping around the room.
Creativity is not about being goofy.
Creativity is a skill set that can be learned.
Creatively is about thinking differently.
Creativity must be nourished.
Creativity is most productive when focused on a desired outcome.
There is a time to be creative and a time to follow procedure.
Management must clarify which is which.
Most creative ideas fail. That is normal. That is okay.
All great change comes from creative ideas.


George Torok is a student, instructor and explorer of creative problem solving.


“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”
Albert Einstein

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George Torok

Creativity Catalyst

Creative Problem Solving

What does that really mean?

Perhaps you just asked a question at a committee meeting. The room went silent and at least one person pointedly explained to you that “We’ve always done it this way”. The rest of the group either chimed in or nodded their heads in arrogant approval. Some might even have glanced at you with that dismissive look of lost causes.

For many people change is painful. It doesn’t matter how silly their current path or how promising the opportunity of other possibilities. Change hurts. It is also painful to admit that what you have been doing needs to be changed. Accepting change means accepting the possibility that you are not currently doing things the best way.

While you bite your tongue or fume at that response consider this Top Ten List of the Real Meanings of “But we’ve always done it this way”.

What might people be thinking as they state that lame defense?

10. I haven’t got a clue why we do it this way and I never thought about it before. But I’m not going to admit that to you.

9. Your question is a good one. But I never asked it and wish that I had. As much as your question disturbs me I won’t admit that out loud.

8. You’re new aren’t you? You new people just want to change our perfect little world. We like it the way it is. We can outlast you.

7. How dare you question the wisdom of your predecessors? It was good enough for them why isn’t it good enough for you? Have you no blind respect and subservience to those who were here before you?

6. You clearly don’t know how we do things around here. It has nothing to do with logic, fairness and openness.

5. If you are a team player you will go along with us without asking embarrassing questions like that.

4. We don’t like questions like that. And right now I don’t like you for asking it.

3. Perhaps you believe that you have the right to ask questions… but you’re wrong. Shut up and go with the flow.

2. It’s working the way it is. Leave it alone. Can we go now?

1. Despite what you were told, this is not a democracy. We don’t care about your ideas. Just do what you are told to do. And do it the way that you are told to do it.


When you try to change things you will hear the response “But we’ve always done it this way.” Don’t hate people for that response. Consider the list above to understand what they might be feeling. Recognize that your questions might be disturbing them and they might not be ready to give you an honest and thoughtful answer.

“But we’ve always done it this way” is likely the response of a person who feels threatened.

When faced with this challenge you will need to find a less threatening way to make change. The other alternative is to expose the status quo as the bigger threat.


© George Torok is a Creativity Catalyst. He helps teams make productive creative change. Find more creative ideas and tools at www.Creative-Problem-Solving.org To arrange a presentation on Creativity or training program on Creative Problem Solving visit www.Torok.com or call 905-335-1997

But We've Always Done it this Way

Approach creative thinking and creativity with these 10 tips and ideas. Watch for the bonus.




George Torok

Creativity Catalyst

Creative Problem Solving

Where would you expect innovation in health care to be leading the market? Read this article to learn where. You might be suprised.

George Torok

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McKinsey Quarterly as published on Forbes.com

The Emerging Market In Health Care Innovation
Tilman Ehrbeck, Nicolaus Henke and Thomas Kibasi

Emerging innovations in the delivery of health care, particularly in developing countries, offer insights on how to tackle its rising cost, estimated at $7 trillion a year globally. Health care is consuming an escalating share of income in developed and developing nations alike. Yet innovators have found ways to deliver care effectively at significantly lower cost while improving access and increasing quality. They are uncovering patterns for raising productivity, and leaders across health sectors--public, private and social--should take heed. With the recent passage of health reform legislation in the U.S., for instance, tackling costs is imperative there, but it is also an important goal in every other part of the world.

New approaches to the delivery of care abound. In Mexico, for example, a telephone-based health care advice and triage service is available to more than one million subscribers and their families for $5 a month, paid through phone bills. In India, an entrepreneur has proved that high-quality, no-frills maternity care can be provided for one-fifth of the price charged by the country's other private providers. In New York City the remote monitoring of chronically ill elderly patients has reduced their rate of hospital admissions by about 40%.

Unfortunately, health care can be an isolated and local activity: Innovations are not widely known across different systems or beyond sector boundaries. Merely identifying and promoting innovations isn't enough, however--leaders need to understand whether, and how, the lessons of innovators can be replicated elsewhere. To this end, McKinsey conducted research in partnership with the World Economic Forum to study the most promising novel forms of health care delivery and, in particular, to understand how these innovations changed its economics.

Many of the most compelling innovations we studied come not from resource-rich developed countries but from emerging markets. Two factors help explain why. First, necessity breeds innovation; in the absence of adequate health care, existing providers and entrepreneurs must improvise and innovate. Second, because of weaknesses in the infrastructure, institutions and resources of emerging markets, entrepreneurs face fewer constraints (this is one upside of the lack of meaningful oversight, which obviously also has many drawbacks). They can bypass Western models and forge new solutions.

The nearly 30 successful innovations we looked at pursued a handful of strategies to change the economics of health care delivery in a fundamental way. In other words, they were not successful by chance. By understanding the opportunities these innovators seized, leaders throughout the health care system can identify opportunities for their own organizations.

A broad scan of innovations across the field, as well as an in-depth analysis of the business models behind 30 of them, showed us that successful ones use at least several if not all of the strategies described below.

Read the rest of this article at Forbes.com


George Torok

Creative Facilitation

Creative Problem Solving