Intricacies of Creative Thinking Process

 

A Date with Creative Thinking

A young, upcoming doctor; working his way around to get established, got a great opportunity of becoming the Medical Officer of a prestigious Medical College and hospital. Not knowing that it is going to be his first date with creative thinking process.

One of the senior doctors; a good friend of his, who was holding that post was promoted and it was he who recommended the name of this young doctor for the vacant post. It was too lucrative an offer to turn down, so he did take it up. His job was to improve the financial condition of the hospital. However, the catch was the salary was meagre. But the experience was worth every penny. Back then, he was not doing well in terms of monetary gains from the clinic he owned, so it was nothing less than “gambling” for him. The feel-good factor was better clinical experience.

The background story of the hospital:

It was a 20-beded hospital attached to the college. The hospital was located at a place where people belonging to lower-income group were a majority. The hospital’s income depended mostly on the income of these people, a factor over which he had no control. With such a major factor at work, his job became that much tougher. Thinking about other ways to deal with the situation was the only option left.

The hospital had a small number of patients flocking the OPD (Out Patient Department) and minimal to negligent patients getting admitted in the IPD (In Patient Department). It was his first chance at something involving as enormous as managing the entire hospital. The urge to make something big out of this opportunity was very tempting, demanding and taxing, but there was not a ray of hope in sight. It was like “Walking on a Tight Rope” situation.

Psst, can you hear me?; “The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts.”

Yet to come was the most encouraging speech. One of the employee said; “There is no future for this hospital.” Felt as though “Little Boy” fell over him. The picture of “would he ever get married being here, will he be able to buy a car, a house and would he be able to meet the Demand-Supply criteria of his future wife” all passed by his eyes in a flash. The throat went dry, just like Donald Duck making the sound of swallowing when cornered. Felt as though his name would show up in “Endangered Species List” soon.

“Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along WITHOUT it.”

He had no other choice but to go with the same age-old ideas which everyone else had followed so far, like treading a sacred path, the path which was slowly leading to disaster. The infrastructure was bad and the management was unable to find ways of generating more capital. On top of all this, the management breathing down his throat asking for results. Spending most of his thinking about a way out of this rock-bottom situation was becoming more and more stressful, without any fruitful ideas. There was no other choice but to think of quitting the job altogether. That sounded the most logical choice.

The young doctor knew that quitting was easy, but quitting without completing the task in hand was an act of cowardice, which he was very well aware of. He was in search for a breakthrough idea, but it seemed like an oasis.

All he was looking for was Aladdin’s Genie.

          Constantly pondering about alternate solution for the current crisis, he came across a book about creative thinking. Picking it up from the rack, he stood still as if time does not exist and all the objects in the world had come to a halt. But soon his luck ran out when he heard the shopkeeper’s karaoke, singing; “Sir: You have to buy the book to read it completely.” “The shopkeeper’s face looked as though the young doctor had eloped with his daughter and accidentally got caught.” Without choice, the doctor had to buy the book. What excited him to buy the book was the caption on the cover page; 

“Thinking is a skill and can be improved.”

The cover also said how even highly intelligent and well-paid people wait for an opportunity to attack whatever the speaker spoke about. Quite surprisingly, it also claimed to help eliminate ‘Ego’ from discussions.

It quoted an example of an MNC which had incorporated this creative thinking idea and how they reduced the time taken to discuss about an ‘Offshore Project’ from 30 days (in previous projects) to just 2 days, with a brilliant outcome.

The young doctor never believed in ‘Argumentation’ as an effective method to exchange Insight-Based Ideas. Argumentation is inefficient, ineffective and an extremely slow process for exchanging ideas. Well, the young doctor had no choice but to read through the book to see if it could salvage him and prevent his name from showing up in ‘Endangered Species List.’

A week passed by, by the time he completed reading and understanding the intricacy of this new methodology of “Problem Management.”

He built a team which included senior doctors and internees who were willing to try the new approach. For over a month, the young doctor did only field study and nothing else. Understanding where the medicine supplies comes from, to creating an inventory of various materials like – packing papers, bottles, stationary etc., and the cost of procuring them, what is the consultation fee etc. Finally, the plan of action was ready.

“It's not about how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised, the mosquito is swatted.”

They strategically decided to marginally increase the consultation fee and the overall medicine charges (based on the income level of the people living in the surroundings), directly procured the medicines and other requirements for running the hospital from the manufacturers, thereby eliminating the need for middlemen and their commission. The team of doctors would pitch in to manage the OPD and IPD in the absence of any of the doctor.

Initially, though many of the patients complained about the sudden hike in the price (which was pending since many years), they were happy with the service provided. The complaint box was empty as the time passed by.

Finally, the D-day arrived. It was a month’s time now and time to assess progress. Though the young doctor worked on the assessment part initially, he was nervous – just like a student anticipating the exam results to be good for which he knows he has worked hard by watching movies all night long and been sleeping during the class, or a guy meeting his to-be girlfriend for the first time. So, he asked the team members to handle it.

It was a nail-biting situation, but the results could not have been hidden for long.

The hospital which was clocking roughly 1200 every month, had garnered 14700 after implementing the plan under the guidelines of creative thinking tools. Roughly calculating, the ‘percentage of improvement’ was 1125%.

“The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.”

There were neither champagne bottles opened nor party hosted in the honour of the team, but only those in the team learned the alternate ways of achieving goals. The young doctor was and will always be “ever grateful” to all those who supported him and believed in him.

Summary of how this creative thinking process works;

Imagine a rectangular box. There are total 6 sides to it (let us say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) and a team of 6 (let us name them A, B, C, D, E, and F) members are to assess this rectangular box. If each of the team members is standing at one side each i.e. A standing at 1 and B standing at 2, so on and so forth; then to each one of them, the box looks different because they are looking at the same box, but from different angles. Hence, the final assessment of each member would be different. There was NO consensus amongst the 6 members. This leads to difference of opinion, each one believing that their view point is right, and giving rise to ego problems. The project fails.

However, if each of the team members is asked to assess one side at a time and then moving on to the next side, by the time they finish with side 6, there would be a broad consensus amongst the team members as the scope for conflict is deliberately eliminated. Each team member will be thoroughly aware of every detail about the box and its dimensions at the end of the exercise. Argumentation is also eliminated.

The young doctor explained this principle to each of the team members. It was a risk/gamble as the methodology was new to each of them. But there was no other choice for him. It was either taking the risk of trying out the new methodology or getting enlisted in “Endangered Species List” for him.

Phew !! “TEAMWORK - means never having to take all the blame yourself.”