He Said, “Can We Teach Engineers to Think More Conceptually?”

When the story in the video emerged there was great interest in Procter & Gamble’s research and development community. Geoff Place, head of research and development, sent a research associate, now on special assignment, to ask me, “Can we make engineers think more conceptually?” It seemed to me that he was asking if we could help our engineers learn to think differently, especially defining problems correctly before pursuing solutions. Dissertation bells started ringing. I shared this idea with my faculty at the University of Cincinnati, where I had started my PhD in Organizational Behavior, and they liked it. They were intrigued at participating in the evolution of understanding creativity within an organization. My unique resources at Procter & Gamble provided the opportunity to answer Geoff’s question and, at the same time, make a valuable contribution to the academic research community. My research won an award as the best doctoral dissertation in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, showing how organizational creativity could be increased to achieve measurable results.