When we’re stuck in the same ineffective approach, it’s time to shift

“I’ve told you this a thousand times,” a friend said to her kid in exasperation after he, yet again, did something “the wrong way.”

“Maybe it’s time to say it differently,” he shot back.

Not great in terms of chutzpah, but my friend had to admit that the kid had a point.

In his book Buy Green Bananas, Rabbi Berel Wein notes that when we’re trying to unlock the door and the key doesn’t work, we’ll usually stick the key in another time, jiggle it, try yet again — harder this time. But it’s the wrong key. No amount of shaking will make it work.

We do the same thing in business. We double down on strategies that aren’t working, stick with inefficient systems, and assume there are only two options when a third, better one is just outside our blind spot.

This happens because our brains categorize objects and processes in fixed ways, limiting creative solutions. Fixed thinking, (or fixedness) itself isn’t bad — it allows us to function efficiently in a structured world. But when we’re stuck in the same ineffective approach, it’s time to shift.

Yet, Koheles tells us, Ein chadash tachas hashemesh — there’s nothing new under the sun. So what does it mean to be creative? Are we chasing an illusion?

Creativity isn’t about inventing something from nothing; it’s about thinking and acting differently to reach a goal.

When I give workshops on this topic, I’ll ask participants to brainstorm ways to improve a washing machine. I show them a slide with a picture, ask them if they recognize the machine and then present them with the improvement task.

The first ideas are predictable — faster spin cycles, better stain removal. All in the realm of laundry. But when I challenge them to repurpose the machine for something other than laundry, creativity kicks in.

Fresh ideas emerge: use it to clean shoes, wash vegetables, even make an industrial-sized drum of soup. When we review the exercise, we note that I never asked for laundry solutions. I never even called the machine by its name, and yet time after time, participants have to be “nudged” to break out of their familiar templates of thinking into new ideation zones.

When we break out of fixed thinking and look beyond what we already know, new possibilities emerge.

Discover the True Problem

WElove solutions. The moment we spot a problem, our brains jump to fix-it mode, grabbing the first idea that makes sense. But what if we’re solving the wrong problem?

Creativity isn’t just about coming up with new ideas — it’s about making sure we’re asking the right questions. Instead of assuming we know the issue, we need to pause, dig deeper, and challenge our assumptions.

That’s where the “So what?” and “Why?” method comes in.

Imagine you have a side hustle, giving art classes for women. Every summer, in the weeks between school and camp, your business dries up. If I’d ask you what the problem is, you’d tell me it’s the lack of customers.

Let’s keep asking questions.

You don’t have customers. So what? So I won’t have an additional stream of income for a few weeks.

So what? So I won’t be able to take my kids on nice trips.

So what? So then they’ll be bored and unhappy.

You still have a problem, but now you know that it’s not the lack of business, it’s your kids’ boredom. And that may require different solutions.

You can also reexamine your assumptions in the other direction — examining the cause of the problem rather than the result — using the question “Why?”

Why do I have no business? Because women are too busy.

Why? Because all their kids are home.

So the issue is potential clients’ kids being home. Once you realize that, you may come up with a solution that addresses the source of the problem. Perhaps you’ll run Mommy and Me classes that women can do together with their kids. Maybe you’ll create craft boxes women can do at home with their kids. But until you isolate the actual problem, you can’t solve it.

The same logic applies in the workplace. Let’s say your employees consistently come in late during Chanukah. As a manager, you could enforce strict policies, but what if you asked a few questions first?

People keep coming late. So what? So we can’t schedule meetings.

So what? So we can’t get important work done.

So what? So we’ll miss deadlines.

Once you’ve laid all this out, you can start wondering. First: Are meetings that crucial? Could you manage eight days without meetings?

If they are critical, how about ensuring that all meetings over Chanukah are between 11–3, when latecomers have arrived and no one has yet left?

A third option is preempting and leaning in. I gave all my employees the day off on Zos Chanukah. This leaned into the reality of Chanukah being a hectic family time, while implicitly clarifying that they were expected to be at work on the other days of Chanukah.

Closed-Door Solutions

The concept of closed-door solutions challenges the assumption that every problem requires us to bring in something new. Instead of seeing our current constraints as obstacles, we can use them to spark creativity. After all, we do this instinctively — like when we’re missing an ingredient for a recipe and find a substitute or when a crucial screw is nowhere to be found while assembling the succah, forcing us to improvise.

I recently experienced the need for such a solution.

My husband does a beautiful chesed in which he provides warm meals to people who have relatives in the rehab hospital near our house. He delivers them at lunchtime — which works well for him because he has a break then.

We hit a problem when he was traveling to the States. I needed to take over the deliveries — but midday finds me in my office across town from the hospital. How could I deliver them in the morning and ensure they stayed warm until noon?

Insulated bags were the obvious solution, so I went to several stores to find them — only to discover that they’re considered a seasonal product and are only sold in the summer when people use them for picnics. We were deep into the winter.

Many of us use the “Amar Rabi Binyamin” segulah when we misplace our glasses or keys. I find it no less effective when searching for an idea.

I stood there in a huge store, feeling stuck, when I noticed a display of winter clothing: hats, scarves, gloves. Bingo! The proverbial light bulb lit up in my head as I realized that the hats would perfectly fit over the circular pans the lunch was packed in, insulating them for several hours. I bought a bunch of hats, and we were all set.

This wasn’t a closed-door solution in the sense of using something I already owned, but insomuch as that I was forced to work with what was available. I ended up finding a solution that was just as good as the bags — and cheaper, too.

At Temech we work closely with a company that specializes in SIT (Systematic Inventive Thinking), and a lot of our office brainstorming borrows material from them. They focus on thinking inside the box, finding ways you can utilize closed-door solutions. As we discussed in “Temech Tips — Redefine for Success” (Issue 1,000), by mixing up what we already have we can come up with something new.

Here are the core principles:

• Addition — Duplicating one of the existing elements to enhance the existing system (e.g., dual-SIM phones that allow two numbers on one device)
• Subtraction — Removing an element to create something new (e.g., kosher phones eliminate internet to meet the needs of charedi society.)
• Multiplication — Bringing in another element to provide a fresh benefit (e.g., Febreze’s dual-scent diffusers, which alternate between two different scents to prevent “nose blindness)
• Division — Reshuffling components for better efficiency (e.g., moving elevator buttons outside the elevator to streamline waiting times)

The beauty of SIT is that it challenges assumptions — instead of asking, “What do we need?” it asks, “What can we remove, rearrange, or tweak?”

Sometimes, you don’t need to add or subtract; just reshuffle. In Temech, we carefully vet our networking group leaders, but there are inevitable mistakes.

Recently we started wondering — what if we offered initial training before choosing the leaders? This would give the applicants a taste of what the role entails — and give us a sense of whether they were good matches for the job. By reassembling the steps in a different order, we could better vet the applicants.

Follow the Bright Spots

Not every problem needs a new solution. Sometimes, the best answer is hiding in what’s already working — if we know where to look.

In Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (Crown Currency, 2010), Chip and Dan Heath tell the story of Jerry Sternin.

In 1991, Sternin, a Save the Children US country director, arrived in rural Vietnam to tackle child malnutrition. Conventional wisdom dictated that the solution was large-scale foreign aid — expensive fortified food or nutritional supplements. But instead of looking at what was missing, Sternin asked a different question: “Are there any children in these villages who are already well-nourished?”

He found that some children, despite living in the same conditions as their malnourished peers, were healthy. Curious about what set them apart, he studied their diets and discovered that their parents were unknowingly taking several important steps.

They scavenged for tiny shrimp, crabs, and snails from the rice paddies — nutrient-rich foods that others ignored — and fed it to their children. They also incorporated sweet potato greens, a local but underused source of vitamins and minerals. Lastly, instead of feeding their children large meals, they spread food throughout the day, making it easier to digest and ensuring more consistent nourishment.

Rather than imposing a top-down intervention, Sternin worked within the community, encouraging these families to teach their neighbors what they were already successfully doing. Within six months, 65 percent of the local children were better nourished — without foreign aid, government funding, or expensive programs.

It’s easy for us to find problems, but we’re not as skilled at spotting what’s already working. Creativity challenges us to identify existing solutions and scale them effectively.

And sometimes, the very thing we view as a problem can become part of the solution. That person who’s always disruptive, chiming in on every conversation, and getting involved in everyone’s business? Maybe they’re not a distraction — they’re a natural communicator.

Put them in charge of something that channels their energy constructively, like taking notes at meetings or collecting team updates from the team members. Reframing challenges as opportunities isn’t just a creative exercise; it’s the key to unlocking untapped potential.

The Adjacent Possible

Creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it thrives when ideas bounce around, evolve, and build on each other. That’s the essence of the adjacent possible, a concept from scientist Stuart Kauffman that explains how innovation unfolds step by step. Big breakthroughs don’t just appear out of nowhere, they emerge when the time is right, when existing tools, knowledge, and technology make them possible.

YouTube didn’t take off until broadband made streaming seamless. Same for eBay; it couldn’t exist before the internet enabled online transactions. Even the lightbulb wasn’t a sudden stroke of genius — it was the result of years of small discoveries that paved the way.

The same holds true in teams and businesses. Game-changing ideas don’t come from a single eureka moment — they’re shaped through conversation, iteration, and refinement. That’s why, in teams and companies, it’s common for several people to feel like they “came up with” the same idea — because in a way, they did.

You don’t need a blank slate to innovate. You don’t need a bigger budget, a perfect plan, or a stroke of genius. Creativity is about making the most of what you already have, asking better questions, and staying open to new possibilities. The best solutions are often just waiting to be discovered.

Foster Creative Energy

A team’s creative potential isn’t about individual genius — it’s about culture. Here are some ways to build an environment that encourages exploration:

The best innovations often sound ridiculous at first. If your team isn’t tossing out the occasional wild idea, they have been shut down in the past. Let them know that every idea is welcome.

Devorah Kister, a business coach, taught me a simple but powerful trick: Whenever someone presents two options, ask, “What’s the third?” People often create artificial limitations without realizing it. Sometimes, the third option isn’t viable, but it may introduce an element that strengthens one of the first two.

Show your team how to think creatively. Walk them through your own thought process when tackling a challenge.

Look outside your industry. Inspiration often comes from unexpected places. Encourage your team to study how businesses in completely different fields solve problems. At a business seminar I attended, professors presented case studies from China and India. It was eye-opening to see how industries operate in entirely different economies — and how much we could learn from them.

Switch to third person. When we analyze someone else’s business challenges, solutions often seem obvious. But when we’re stuck in our own situation, we don’t see the same clarity. A hedge fund case study I read featured an African American woman whose schedule and processes reminded me a lot of my own — but because I was reviewing her case objectively, I immediately saw where she was holding herself back. Sometimes, writing about your own dilemma as if it belongs to someone else can reveal blind spots. Even better, get together with other managers, share challenges, and brainstorm solutions for each other.

Gvira Milworm is the CEO of Temech, where she has the zechus to help religious women in Israel increase their income and build thriving careers without compromising their values. With a background in hi-tech and a talent for simplifying complex systems, she’s helping women succeed through networking, training, and collaborative workspaces.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1051)