CREATIVE/ Design THINKING &
PROBLEM SOLVING
Second week in Bangkok, I had opportunity to conduct a future thinking workshop at Bangkok University – School of Entrepreneurship & Management and 2 design thinking workshops: one was with a group of PhD students and some faculty staff from Institute of Knowledge Innovation – Southeast Asia (IKI–SEA) of Bangkok University and one was with a group of staff of Green Net SE, a social enterprise producing organic forest coffee.
I felt glad and thankful that the participants patiently and eagerly went through each step and engaged deeply in the conversation. We came up with some ideas for the challenge that we wanted to solve. Most importantly the experiment of going through the process and sharing with others give me lots of learning: – Adaptability & flexibility: like the value of design thinking, we focus on the people, the customers. As I observed participants through the discussion, given with the pre–planned activities, I had to prepare to change spontaneously to adapt with the momentum and enrich the learning of the participants. I know that there are still many things that I need to learn more to conduct a better one in the future. – Collaboration: is key and take great intention and effort even though people do not always like the people or group that they are with as a case that I had in a workshop. Two of them found it hard to have empathy conversation. As I noticed, they often judge on each other’s questions and answers. One was from Asia and one was from Western. They said maybe because the culture is different. Only when they put aside the judgement, they can listen and appreciate other’s point of view. – Trying to jump too fast into the solution/ conclusion is a barrier of creativity: we often think that we’re smart enough to come up with answer and solutions based on our past experience and knowledge. Many share that spending time and effort for empathy can be considered time consuming if they have it in organization. – Idea selection is important: yet challenging. Through the discussion, there were many ideas come up. Most of the time, they can require lots of resource and big decision making and some said it is the boss who has the power to make it happen. But I guess, select idea that we (people who are having conversation) can do NOW is more important. First few thoughts. Hope to learn more in KL and apply in Kuching.
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I recently read an article from Harvard Business Review, which talks about the 5 core discovery skills that foster innovation:
– Association: connecting the dots, divergent thinking, solving challenging problems by drawing on diverse ideas or knowledge. – Questioning: asking questions that challenge assumptions. – Observing: observing people behaviors, immerse in people experience – Networking: engaging and talking with a diverse set of people to find and refine new business ideas – Experimenting: creating new ways of doing things and trying them out However, creativity like design thinking is not just a methodology or a skill set but it also a mindset. It is how we work. As I talked with academia from business schools and creative consultants, they said they train and teach these skills in their curriculum and training program. But it depends on how people apply it and whether the organization/ community create an environment that encourages people to be creative and trying new ideas. ‘I’m not creative’, ‘We are doing well’, ‘I don’t want to fail’, etc are often some barriers that prevent people to be creative. Some western people shared with me if it is Asian culture – afraid of failure. I guess it is partially due to our long–rooted education. I saw it in myself sometimes, which prevents me from trying new things. But as I force change with myself, I saw new opportunities open up and people are willing to give me a chance to experiment and learn (from success or failure). As I go on the experimental phase, I hope to gain more confidence and experience to share that with more people. First week in Bangkok, I happened to join some events about social enterprise (SE) in Bangkok and gain some understanding about the social enterprise ecosystem in Thailand. It is good to see so much interest about social enterprise, especially in education and support of government through to drive the development of this sector.
Talking to some SE entrepreneurs, I was shared about the challenges of sustainability and scalability in most of the SEs – not just because of the financial factor, but because of the lack of innovation. One of them came to share about the current challenge of the organization in a design thinking workshop and seek participants support in creating new solutions. Without understanding the workshop in Thai language, I still can see how design thinking as a process can help stimulate discussion and generate ideas to help the business owners. It opened up an opportunity for me to come and meet with his team to share about design thinking and see how we can use that to tackle another challenge later this week. Bringing the thought of innovation to Bangkok university, I was shared they are driving to make creativity a core of the curriculum. It is needed not just for social enterprise but for all businesses, and especially entrepreneurs. And it is tied closely with leadership. As creativity is perhaps one of the most important leadership qualities of leaders in the 21st century. And I remember a CEO of a start-up group here shared with me that most social enterprise/ entrepreneurial businesses fail because of the CEO..Innovation starts with the people. We first met in Bangkok for a GIST team update. It was fascinating to listen to each other field stories – what they have learnt, what they have discovered, what challenges that they faced, low and high moments, etc. As I listened, Ialsoasked myself how have I been doing for the past one and a half month. There were moments that I felt highly excited for having great conversations with some people and reading interesting stuff about design thinking. And there are moments that I wonder what I am lost in my own direction. I told myself challenge is opportunity. And perhaps, it would be hard to have such an opportunity like GIST to spend time on my own in the future. And I keep going.. Sharing my update, it seems to some that I need more practical experiment. The rendezvous group project, helping the Lion Rattanakosin School to set up the school stay program, came just as nice opportunity for me to apply my design thinking learning. I actually had thought about it when I knew about the project and was glad that the group encouraged me to take that opportunity to practice.
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