Want your staff to be more creative in their work? Observe their thinking strategies.

More often than not, you will find they follow conventional thinking tracks that block any sort of unconventional, out-of-the-box ideas.

To prove this, business strategist and innovation coach Matthew E. May gave over 100,000 professionals a thought challenge far less complex than their routine business problems in a 10-year study.

The results? Not only did less than 5% arrive at the best and most elegant solution, but the solutions given were remarkably similar.

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It’s uncanny,” May stated. “No matter where I went or who I gave the problems to, the results were eerily homogeneous. The evidence I’ve collected points to seven observable thinking flaws…glitches, if you will.

“It’s not brain damage, it’s the human hard-wiring that comes from deeply grooved thinking tracks formed over time. The good news is there are techniques, tips and tools used by the world’s top minds to overcome those fatal flaws.”

The seven observable problem-solving patterns that can block the thinking of the most talented staff include:

1. Leaping to solutions that simply don’t work
2. Fixating on old ideas to the point of suffering tunnel vision
3. Overthinking problems to make them worse
4. Settling for obvious but inferior solutions
5. Backing off goals just to declare victory
6. Automatically dismissing the ideas of others
7. Self-censoring

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