Creative Problem Solving in Community Development
Community
Goals
Process
I began by meeting with a cross-departmental group of 24 staff that had already expressed interest and openness into engaging in creative work prior to my arrival. I met with each of those staff individually over coffee or lunch to learn more about their work, and more generally, their stories and journeys to LTSC. From this group, I recruited 12 staff that had capacity and interest in working directly on a project and participating in an experimental process.
I collected survey responses from these staff on their work styles, capacity, skills, and goals for this process in order to formed three balanced project teams. The remainder of the 24 staff that had expressed interest stayed involved as an advisory collective that met monthly for updates, to provide project feedback, and to engage in creative activities.
With each project team, I designed, facilitated, and implemented a collaborative process that guided the teams to collectively identify and creatively address an organizational challenge or goal. Each team worked together for 4-5 months through a creative, exploratory process for creative problem solving and innovative approaches that I facilitated. The result was a series of projects that expanded opportunities for collaboration internally and externally.
My facilitation method was intentionally playful, encouraged creative confidence, fostered an environment of creative collaboration, and broke down perceived barriers to creative thinking.
“This process has helped me value taking things slow and not taking the shortest, most direct path. There’s something to be said for simply getting to know people as part of a project.”
Outcomes
I led an organizational culture shift to integrate arts and cultural strategies into Little Tokyo Service Center’s (LTSC) work as a community development corporation. In recent years, LTSC had initiated arts and culture external-facing programs, but felt that their work could be more impactful if there was a better internal understanding of the value and possibilities of arts and cultural strategies among staff. With that goal in mind, they hired me, their first on staff “embedded artist.”
Little Tokyo Service Center is a community development corporation in the historical Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles. The organization has over 70 staff focusing on social services, housing, small business assistance, support for seniors, and community organizing.
Use creative and arts-based strategies to address organizational challenges and goals
Expand organization-wide collaboration and break down silos between departments
Increase staff willingness to be creative, imagine and try novel and innovative ideas, and experiment
Three creative and collaborative projects that expanded opportunities for internal and external collaboration and addressed organizational challenges and goals, including:
Increase internal understanding of LTSC’s programs, departments, and staff’s individual work.
Build community across cultures and languages, help residents form new relationships, and reactivate the second-floor courtyard space.
Strengthen relationships between LTSC and community organizations in neighboring Skid Row and foster opportunities for future collaboration.
The 15-month process increased cross-departmental collaboration and broke down organizational silos, encouraged staff to embrace process over outcome, value exploration, and gain a better understanding of how arts and culture could enhance their work and impact.
In a final report, I detailed the year-long process and outcomes and made recommendations for continued work. Through conversational interviews and surveys with staff, they reported that the process made them open to new ways of generating ideas and addressing challenges, and demonstrated the value of true collaboration.
Preview the report, here.