Welcome back NextD Journal readers. This week, to close out the year, a spontaneously created follow-up to the earlier OUTSIDE/INSIDE Part 1 post related to truncation in soft systems thinking literature. The 1981 paper by Ackoff/Vergara entitled “Creativity in problem solving and planning: a review”, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton [Business] School, was posted by *Roger James in the remarks to the original OUTSIDE/INSIDE post. We are taking the time to take a closer look and share a reply here with our readers.
Russ Ackoff was not the focus of the original OUTSIDE/INSIDE post but happy to contribute some additional *Root Source Analysis in the direction of that 1981 paper. I believe it is a document that adds more fuel to the fire regarding literature truncation.
After reading the Ackoff/Vergara, paper the words that I wrote down in summation were; slippery, superficial, presumptuous, self-serving, sad, misinformed and misinforming. I could add the word shocking but honestly at this point nothing in this subject shocks me. Frankly speaking, that paper is a rather straight-forward academic marketing piece disguised as a scholarly assessment document. Having seen what it is, and is not, I had to do some quiet reflection to decide what to write and not write in this measured response….:-)
Not surprisingly, here is the punch line of the Ackoff/Vergara paper: “The results showed that instruction in [Ackoff’s] Idealized Design increased creativity….No improvement in creativity was shown by either the control teams or those that had been instructed in multiple techniques.”
You really have to have a sense of humor in this business…:-) Suffice it to say the levels of presumption in the paper are sky high!
Anyone with *CPS (Creative Problem Solving) training who has read Ackoff’s rather lite-weight 1978 The Art of Problem Solving or his 1999 Re-Creating the Corporation or his 2006 Idealized Design, would balk at the claim of superior outcome. The design of the Ackoff/Vergara paper ensures that the comparison between the already existing CPS approach and the arriving Idealized Design is never made. It could have been made, but was side-stepped.
Simply stated, the "assessment" dance of the Ackoff/Vergara paper involves setting up poor, truncated comparisons, “brainstorming” etc. and then, no big surprise, claiming victory. In addition, the thrust of the text implies that the state of applied creativity in the context of problem solving was in its infancy in 1981 and just waiting for the authors Ackoff & Vergara to arrive..:-) We can let readers decide if that is a writing strategy that works in academia.
For seasoned veterans it’s truly an odd narrative, ignoring/truncating lots of applied creativity work by others activated prior to the arrival of the soft systems thinking community that had already been accomplished including programs up and running at the time the paper appeared. Is that fair? Don't think so. Is that competitive? Big yes!
Aligned with much of what was stated in the original OUTSIDE/INSIDE post, at no point in the Ackoff/Vergara paper is the long-standing Creative Problem Solving (CPS) community or its already existing versions of process identified or acknowledged. The slight of hand that occurs conveys to the paper's audience numerous misleading messages, self-serving to the authors. Is that fair to readers? It sets them back, not forward.
A head spinning number of misfires do appear in the paper and have apparently been sitting there for decades since it was published. In this format I will include here only three rather noticeable hiccups.
Hiccup 1 / CONVERGENCE
Among the most mindbending, far-reaching misstep gems in the paper is the misunderstanding/misstating of what convergence is. Since the 1950s divergence and convergence have been considered root behaviors.
Here is what the authors think convergence is: “The creative process is said to derive from the interaction of two contesting types of thinking: ‘divergent”, which converts information into a variety of unconventional alternatives, and ‘convergent, which aims at unique or conventional outcomes.”
HUH? That is not convergence, not what convergent thinking is. This is what the authors have been telling their thousands of readers in the 40+ years since 1981? OMG. Little wonder confusion reigns.
Anyone checking in with the CPS community, even in one of its basic programs via the Creative Education Foundation would quickly learn that opposite to generative divergence, narrowing convergence is judgment thinking, a.k.a deciding, a.k.a decision-making. If you miss that, as the Ackoff/Vergara paper does, all else is built on a false foundation. It is a misstep that is consistent in numerous Ackoff management-oriented documents. One might reflect on how many castles have been built over the years on that false foundation?
Here is convergence defined in 1953 by Osborn: “a judicial mind which analyzes, compares, chooses.….Over 90 percent of schooling tends to train on judicial faculties.”
Here is Getzels and Jackson in 1962: “Guilford suggested that there are about fifty known factors of the intellect, and there may be many more as yet unknown. For analytical purposes, however, in order to make the various factors more manageable, it is possible to begin by identifying two basic cognitive or intellectual modes. The one mode tends toward the known, learning the predetermined, and conserving what is. The second mode tends toward revising the known, exploring the undetermined, and constructing what might be. A person for whom the first mode or process is primary tends toward the usual and expected. A pern for whom the second mode is primary tends toward the novel and speculative. The one favors certainty, the other risk. Both processes are found in all persons, but in varying proportions. The issue is not one of better or worse, or of more useful or less useful. Both have their place, and both must be recognized for their differences, commonalities, interaction, and distinctive functions in the individual’s psychic economy. Various terms have been used to describe the two processes. Guilford has suggested ‘divergent thinking’ and ‘convergent thinking’; Rogers uses ‘defensiveness’ and ‘openness’; Maslow ‘safety’ and growth’. Whatever terms are used; it is clear that one process represents intellectual acquisitiveness and conformity, and the other, intellectual inventiveness and innovation. One focuses on knowing what is already discovered, the other focuses on discovering what is yet to be known.”
To be clear, convergence is the part of any innovation process where evaluating options generated in divergence takes place, analyzing them, selecting, deciding the best option or options. While divergence is widening, convergent thinking narrows. Without options there is no convergence, thus in real-world practice we want to stand-up and convey that both need to be equally valued.
Having missed/redepicted what convergence is, Ackoff/Vergara remarkably proceed in the paper, to go on and on about the importance of understanding the creativity in problem solving subject via odd imported terms such as “choice situation” and “choice model”.
Ackoff/Vergara: “We define creativity in problem solving and planning as the ability of a subject in a choice situation to modify self-imposed constraints so as to enable him to select courses of action or produce outcomes that would not otherwise select or produce, and are more efficient for or valuable to him than any he would have otherwise chose,” …the choice model.”
In CPS-land that is complete bunk…all convergence. “Choice situation, choice, choose, select, deciding, decisions, decision-making, choice model” are all words of convergence.
So let’s reflect, there in an important “scholarly” paper published in the systems thinking community, convergence is misstated while the authors proceed with a straight face and considerable presumption, to position creativity in problem solving as a convergent exercise. How is that for a mind twister?
Totally blind to the bias embedded right there in the ‘choice model’ of Idealized Design there is no recognition, not only that the innovation cycle involves divergence and convergence, but that half the team is typically oriented to divergence. The so-called ‘choice model’ is the equivalent to leaving half your team behind.
Lets not miss the irony of talking up holistic thinking on the systems thinking track while advocating a truncated convergent ‘choice model’ on the transformation/innovation track. Thats quite the juxapostion!
In CPS it is well known that organizations cannot get to inclusive innovation, inclusive teams, inclusive cultures, psychological safety via the convergent ‘choice model’ bias.
Lets step back and reflect: One might wonder, where does the ‘choice model’ orientation come from?
Such a model might work in convergent oriented traditional management but transporting that into creative problem solving is a rather straight forward no-go.
Here is Ackoff describing his view of what management is in Redesigning the Future 1974: “Management involves decision-making and decision-making involves problem solving whenever the decision-maker is in doubt about the choice to make”
Ackoff in The Art of Problem Solving: “A problem has five types of components: 1. The ones faced with the problem situation the decision-makers. 2.Those aspects of the problem situation the decision-makers can control. The controllable variables. 3. Those aspects of the problem the decision-makers cannot control; the uncontrollable variables. 4. Constraints imposed. 5. The possible outcomes produced jointly by the decision-makers choice and the controlled variables.”
Clearly heavy, heavy orientation to valuing, privileging convergence, deciding. Take a wild guess what Ackoff’s personal thinking style preference probably was/is.
For those imagining that the 1981 paper was a one-off, here is Ackoff eighteen years later, still making the same comparisons, declaring the same victory in his 1999 “Re-Creating the Corporation”: “There are a number of techniques for enhancing creativity, for example lateral thinking (de bono 1973), Synectics (Gordon, 1961), Brainstorming (Osborn, 1953) TKJ Ggetzels and Csikszentmihalyi, 1971), Conceptual Blockbusting (Adams, 1974) and Idealized Design.…Elsa Vergara compared these techniques experimentally and found [Ackoff’s] Idealized Design outperformed the others significantly.”
Clearly that's a train rolling along in the systems thinking community for decades that no one seems to have questioned. Eighteen years later and still no mention, no acknowledgement of previously existing CPS, the community of practice at the center of the "creativity in problem solving" subject for decades. One might ponder: Where is the respectful scholarly tradition of crediting previous near-in-time work there? Elsewhere it is generally acknowledged that CPS has informed many later arriving methods.
For context lets recall, as per the early OUTSIDE/INSIDE post, that so-called soft systems methodology, acknowledging the short-comings of hard systems methods in complex situations did not arrive via Checkland until 1981!
What is being described in the Ackoff/Vergara paper would be viewed by CPS folks as super obvious, but unacknowledged, textbook privileging of convergent thinking. That would be viewed by CPS folks as rookie maneuvering, that disappears as soon as the dynamics are made transparent.
Imagining that thousands have read the Ackoff/Vergara paper, it is not difficult to deduce that it has certainly had impact on the question of why so little understanding of prior existing CPS exists in the systems thinking community, as significant an impact as the texts generated by Checkland, cited in the original OUTSIDE/INSIDE post.
Hiccup 2 / BRAINSTORMING?
In the business of document archeology having original materials helps. This allows us to follow-through and include some of the key documents listed under ‘References” in the Ackoff/Vergara paper, several of which are well known in the CPS community.
It was puzzling to see the choice of “Brainstorming” in the comparative “assessment” since the Ackoff/Vergara paper lists two giant volumes in its "References": the 218 page Creative Actionbook, 1976 and the 390 page Guide to Creative Action, 1977, by Parnes, Noller, & Biondi. For those who might not know; “Brainstorming” is not CPS. The Osborn “Idea Prompter,” magnify, minify, etc. is not CPS. Those are early, 1950s era free-standing techniques. CPS is not a technique.
Surely this must have been known to the scholarly Ackoff & Vergara.
Veterans with knowledge of the original materials would know that inside the referenced Creative Actionbook book are two visual depictions of an entire CPS process that happens to include “Mess” on the front end. One might certainly wonder why that was not in the comparative “assessment” but instead "Brainstorming" was set up in the straw man argument…:-)
Image Credit: Creative Actionbook, 1976, Noller, Parnes, Biondi shows 5 cycles of divergence and convergence. (In later years expanded by others to 6-7-8-10 cycles). Humantific Collection.
“Brainstorming” was a rather odd choice when the 1976 version of CPS process was not only sitting right there in the cited book but explained in considerable detail. The Creative Actionbook actually contains a chapter entitled: "WhatEver Happened to Brainstorming."
Why Ackoff/Vergara would in 1981 chose "Brainstorming" to be included in their compartive, competitive assessment" is a puzzling mystery to be sure. The pictue that got transmitted by that paper to its systems thinking readers was a simple R&D distortion. We might reflect on why such distortion occurred.
Hiccup 3 / NO INSTRUCTION?
Last but not least, the depiction of the codified knowledge time-line conveyed in the Ackoff/Vergara paper, suggesting a state of “little or no instruction” in 1981 was straight-up manufactured, self-serving and completely false.
“Summing up the work done on the nature of creativity has been predominantly descriptive…Therefore, it is not surprising that even those who say that creativity can be increased by instruction and practice provide little or no such instruction and do not specify the relevant type of practice.”
Huh? Holy truncation! That is utter nonsense. There have been experiential CPS skill-building programs operational since the 1960s. Keep in mind, the first public CPS conference was in held in 1955!
In terms of problem solving skill-building knowledge codified, and in instructional delivery form, truth be told, there is no equivalent to the Sid Trilogy in either design literature or soft systems literature.
Image Credit: Creative Problem Solving Program / Instructors Manual, Sidney J. Parnes, State University of New York, Buffalo, 1966. Humantific Collection.
Even the 1950s-1960s versions of CPS workbooks far exceed anything seen in the Ackoff, Art of Problem Solving 1978. Side by side there is no comparison in terms of knowledge codified into learning program mode. In addition, the cited books; Guide to Creative Action and Creative ActionBook contain extensive instruction related codified knowledge.
For the Ackoff/Vergara paper to suggest that “little or no instruction” existed in 1981 was a bullshit truncation maneuver conveyed to its systems thinking readers. Clearly its purpose was to set the stage for a dramatic white-knight entrance by Ackoff’s Idealized Design. Geared to an academic graduate business school audience, it was a feel-good set-up, a constructed setting that was not real... a straight-forward false narrative.
Arriving decades late to the CPS party, with high presumptions and very little "creativity in problem solving" knowledge codified was their real story in 1981. Why not just say that!
EVERY PILLAR MISSED
While positioning itself as an comparative "assessment", the Ackoff/Vergara paper of course missed every pillar of the sidestepped CPS approach. Happy to share some of those here.
CPS CORE PRINCIPLES:
1. CPS is a deeply researched, ever-evolving holistic process, not a technique.
CPS recognizes the shifting, VUCA-like conditions of the real world.
3. CPS recognizes that complex organizational and societal situations require methods that contain no challenge or solution path assumptions at the outset.
4. CPS begins with the acknowledgement of messes, fuzzy situations, not briefs.
5. CPS contains the mindset, mechanics & mastery to frame problems as opportunities.
6. CPS distinguishes between content knowledge and process knowledge.
7. CPS recognizes facilitation as a process role, not a content advisory role.
8. CPS makes it clear that divergence and convergence are equal in value.
9. CPS recognizes the humans on the team possess diverse thinking styles.
10. CPS recognizes and orchestrates root behaviors.
11. CPS champions and models nurturing and cognitive inclusion.
12. CPS is at the core of psychological safety, & cognitively inclusive culture building.
13. CPS is the original source of the invitation stem; How Might We?.
14. CPS contains open systemic challenge framing, creating challenge constellations.
15. CPS is compass navigation not waterfall.
16. CPS maps to ambidexterity.
17. CPS is adaptive, not tied to any one specific industry content.
18. CPS assumes plain language and synchronizes well with other plain language approaches, including sensemaking.
19. CPS has for decades contained extensive skill-building programs, based on codified knowledge.
20. CPS connects to and actionizes other forms of innovation/changemaking strategy.
21. CPS community has been methodology focused since its founding in the 1950s.
22. Many versions of CPS informed process models now exist.
23. CPS has for decades informed many other process models.
24. CPS maps to Arena 3 and Arena 4 in Next Design Geographies Framework.
INCREASING CREATIVITY?
To summarize in brief: Contrary to the Ackoff/Vergara papers conclusion, it’s been known since the 1960s that increasing convergent thinking is not a recipe for “increasing creativity.” If we hide, mask or gaslight what convergence is we never get to that realization and alot of time and energy gets wasted. It's time to put that convergent false recipe folk-lore to rest.
Flipping the Ackoff/Vergara script, 180 degrees opposite to the thrust of the paper, today in practice it is recognized that over-emphasis on convergent thinking is among the top 5, most often encountered conditions found in organizations struggling with innovation and changemaking. We certainly don’t need to be encouraging the building of more “choice model”, convergent castles in the sky…:-)
At a time when the world, our organizations and communities need all brains on deck, to work together in conditions of high complexity, the orientation of "choice model" is out-of-step and divisive.
We get beyond championing "choice models" in part by understanding that the deeply embedded dynamics of traditional management are not interchangeable with the dynamics of enabling innovation. Those are two very different things! That’s a good place to start.
Let’s get to it!
Hope this is helpful readers, especially the arriving generation, trying to make sense of this subject in good faith. Most importantly lets think about how this awareness can help advance the subject of Design for Complexity in 2025.
Good luck to all and happy holidays.
End.
*CPS (Creative Problem Solving) is one of several communities of practice that we participate in and contribute to. Our own Humantific approach is hybrid in nature.
*Root Source Analysis is a Humantific archeological process focused on locating, examining and analyzing original and or early subject matter documents.
*Big Thanks to Roger James for posting the Ackoff/Vergara paper which helped to deepen / flesh out this topic.
*This difficult story, that it appears as if some scholars have not done a great job acknowledging important related previous work by others resulting in distorted, less than clear pictures of several subjects is different from any story that might come out of a cross-community comparison today. OUTSIDE/INSIDE is part of the former story, not intended to be the latter.
SUGGESTION: Instructors of advanced CPS skill-building could certainly use the Ackoff/Vergara paper in a "Where's Waldo?"..."What do you see here?" kind of workshop discussion exercise.
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