Chamber Members Learn About Creative Problem Solving from Karyn Ross Consulting

Karyn Ross, with Karyn Ross Consulting, joined us for this month’s luncheon to teach us about practical creativity and turning ideas into wow services. Karyn is an author, speaker, consultant and coach who helps organizations big and small create better ways to work. She has a Master’s Degree in Sculpting and uses that creativity to help businesses thrive. She currently lives in Naperville with her husband, son and dog, Karma.

As a consultant who works around the world Karyn constantly travels. She told the group about her bad customer service experiences she has encountered along the way and how those moments affected her experience and view of those companies. She said that with a few simple, creative solutions businesses can have happy, satisfied and loyal customers. Karyn talked about her definition of creativity which is combining previous knowledge and/or experiences in new ways to generate ideas about how to do things differently. To demonstrate this, she had each group open a brown paper sack on each table and asked us to combine each of the objects in the bag to create 10 different items using all objects in the bag. Items in the bag included two straws, a paper clip, bouncy ball and string.

Group members leaned in, started shouting out ideas, touching items and even manipulating them to somehow figure out what could possibly be created with such random objects. Although a struggle at first, soon ideas flowed and people were shouting out their ideas. Eventually each group arrived at 10 objects including a fishing pole, a slingshot and a necklace. This exercise showed that with just a little creative thought and asking a few simple questions about what a customer wants can lead to some pretty amazing ideas.

To learn more about Karyn and how she can help your business thrive, visit her website. To sign up for the next Grundy County Chamber luncheon, our Minooka State of the Village in April, visit our website.