Fostering Creative Problem Solving In The Social Sector

Creative CollaborationCreative LeadershipCreative Organizational CultureSerious Play
Written By Ben Weinlick
Think jar collective

Launching Think Jar Collective in 2011 was based on the notion that diverse disciplines and people need ways to bump into each other's work in order to rattle assumptions and spark new thinking and action.  If we take the time to reflect, hear ideas from other people and try to learn something from other fields we're not used to, then over time relevant innovations and better quality work can emerge. Like innovation writer Steven Johnson says, often breakthrough ideas come about not from quick eureka moments, but from slow hunches bumping into other people's slow hunches.  I find it fascinating to see how people link and intersect unlikely fields in new ways and hope that you also find ideas you can use when you look outside silos you may be accustomed to. The intersection I've been working on over the last 5 years has been taking processes from the design and creative problem solving worlds and bashing those together with ways that social services are designed.

In the video below, some social innovators and I share the creative problem solving processes we've been experimenting with in order to enhance the inclusion and citizenship experience of people with disabilities.  Always learning and tweaking the process as we find what is working and not working, think tank explorers are breaking new ground around how to think differently about better supporting marginalized populations in our communities. Some great successes and better quality of life outcomes have come about as a result of the over 90 think tanks.

Let us know how you are intersecting ideas and disciplines in the comments below.

Ben Weinlick

Ben Weinlick is the founder of Think Jar Collective.

Currently Ben is also the Executive Director of Skills Society. Skills Society is one of largest and most innovative social service organizations in Canada. Stewarding an amazing collective of 500 employee, and a 25 million a year budget, Skills Society has a long and unique history related to social innovation and systems change around the rights and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. Ben and colleagues of Skills are known internationally for quality human centered services and creating tangible social innovations. Before becoming Executive Director in 2019, Ben stewarded Social Innovation Research & Development through an innovation lab he helped launch in 2015 called the Action Lab. The Action Lab focuses on systems change and innovation around some of the most wicked and entangled problems that humans are facing today. He is also the co-founder of MyCompass Planning which is on a mission to humanize social service case management systems where people served are centered in shaping their support services.

As the founder of Think Jar Collective and his expertise in disciplined innovation culture and methods, he regularly is asked by Universities, Businesses, Governments, and Non-Profits to help grow capacity to problem solve better and in more holistic ways. He offers keynotes on human centered service design thinking, social innovation labs and the tools and culture of disciplined innovation. Along the way striving to nudge positive systems change over the last 20+ years, he has had stellar mentors and colleagues that he shares credit with for accomplishments and awards.

He is deeply driven by the desire to help people, organizations and community to get better at navigating complex challenges together.

https://www.thinkjarcollective.com
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