45% of teams select a suboptimal solution — even when a better one is right in front of them. Creativity researcher Dr. Roni Reiter-Palmon explains why, and what leaders can do to fix it.
Most teams jump straight to solutions. It feels productive. It looks like progress. But according to Dr. Roni Reiter-Palmon, that instinct is costing organisations their best ideas — before they ever get off the whiteboard.
Roni is the John Lewis Holland Distinguished Professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Director of Innovation for the Centre of Collaboration Science, and President of Division 10 of the American Psychological Association. Ranked in the top 2% of researchers globally, she has authored over 200 publications and is co-editor of the forthcoming APA Handbook of Creativity.
In this conversation, we explore the full arc of creative problem solving — from defining the problem to selecting the solution — and why rushing any part of the process leads teams to consistently underperform.
What we cover:
The 53% finding — In videotaped team sessions, over half of all communication was devoted to defining the problem, not solving it. Far from wasted time, this investment was the single biggest driver of better outcomes.
The 45% problem — Nearly half of teams in Roni's research selected a suboptimal solution from their own generated ideas. They did not recognise an effective idea even when they had produced it themselves. More structure and guidance reduced this to 25% — still a sobering number.
Why AI produces mediocrity — AI compresses the distribution of ideas toward the average. The truly terrible ideas disappear, but so do the genuinely breakthrough ones. If you are relying on AI for creative thinking, you may be trading originality for the illusion of productivity.
The hidden cost of brainstorming — The brainstorming movement did creativity a disservice by equating one phase of the process with the whole. Problem construction and idea evaluation — the phases before and after — are where most teams lose the most value.
Psychological safety as the foundation — Every component of effective creative problem solving, from information sharing to constructive conflict, depends on psychological safety. Without it, none of the other techniques take hold.
What leaders can actually do — Practical guidance on managing the messy middle of collaboration: how to keep multiple perspectives alive, how to prevent task conflict tipping into relationship conflict, and how to know when creativity is genuinely needed and when it is not.
"The notion of brainstorming did a disservice to the field because it equated brainstorming with creativity, when in fact it's only one aspect of the creative process." — Dr. Roni Reiter-Palmon
Connect with Roni: University of Nebraska at Omaha: unomaha.edu Email: rreiter-palmon@unomaha.edu LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roni-reiter-palmon-222ba46/
Referenced episodes: Zorana Ivcevic Pringle — Problem framing and emotional creativity Vlad Glaveanu — Slow AI and the future of human creativity Hilary Scarlett — Neuroscience, trust and the power of shared meals
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