A New Approach to Creative Problem Solving

I found this article on the Leader to Leader Magazine website called, Transforming Aggression into Creative Problem Solving by Margaret J. Wheatley and Geoff Crinean.

They suggest a different approach to problem solving that has roots in ancient Tibet and shares a few elements with Appreciative Inquiry. But this approach is also very different. For example, there's a phase where people take sides so that every perspective can be fully developed and understood. The article is worth reading in full, and here is a quick section to whet your appetite:

"Five Stages to Solving Complex Problems

The five-stage process described here originated from an ancient teaching in Tibet (the "Four Karmas"; see Reginald Ray, Secrets of the Vajra World, Shambhala Press, Boston, 2001). We have brought it forward, modified it, and expanded it based on our experience of working in many large, complex organizations and communities facing intractable problems. This process allows individuals and groups to disengage from aggressive dynamics yet use the passion and energy of all involved to develop greater clarity and insight into truly creative solutions.

For a group to develop a full understanding of a complex problem and know what to do to resolve it, we suggest following five precise activities in sequence:

Cooling, Quieting
Enriching Through Fruitful Opposition
Magnetizing Resources
Precise Destroying
Intelligent Action

These five stages form a cycle; they work developmentally, one stage creating the conditions for the next. This sequence can sometimes be gone through very quickly, or a group might spend a great deal of time in one stage and move rapidly through the next. Each stage has a form associated with it, a shape that provides the appropriate structure for the work at hand. Also, different core behaviors facilitate the inquiry for each stage."