Our 31st episode of the Creative Flow: Thinkers and Change Agents Podcast Series features Teresa Lawrence, Ph.D., PMP, the subject matter expert on integrating Creative Problem Solving into Project Management. She is the president of International Deliverables, LLC, and provides professional services in creativity, creative problem-solving, and project management. She is a certified Project Management Professional and received a Graduate Certificate from the International Center for Studies in Creativity, SUNY Buffalo State, and a Ph.D. in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education from the University at Buffalo.
Teresa shares insights from her career working with many organizations and teaching over 80,000 people how to apply creativity in ways that are novel, useful, and on-demand. She describes the importance of instilling an understanding in her participants of where they are in the problem and then helping them select the best tool to move them forward. She is passionate about helping the people she works with become empowered and skillful in problem identification so they solve the problem, not the symptom.
While she points out the many misconceptions about creativity, Teresa shows how creative problem-solving is an evidence and performance-based process. She describes two success stories, one with a nonprofit organization hiring a new executive director and one with a large healthcare IT company. These impactful examples demonstrate how a facilitated process using the right tool at the right time can impact the entire future of an organization and save millions of dollars.
Don’t miss this discussion with a change agent doing impactful work in service to others while living a richer, more alive, and rewarding life. Find our podcast today on all of your favorite platforms.