**4. Clarity**

*"Mystification is simple; clarity is the hardest thing of all"—Julian Barnes.*

Clarity can be thought of in several ways and each have relevance to implementing creative solutions in organizations. Firstly there is clarity of purpose. Dobni et al. [40] state, "no company can escape the fact that present management principles are becoming a less reliable guide to the future. Clarity is essential" (p. 20). An organization or even individual needs to be able to describe exactly why they do what they do. Increasingly organizations are being called on to define their purpose and articulate their strategy and impact of their operations. When it comes to implementing creative solutions then, clear alignment with purpose is a significant factor in determining the successful adoption of any new change. This is true for both internal and external stakeholders when trying to build support and gather resources, particularly social capital. If others cannot clearly see how a new initiative supports the stated purpose then they are naturally less likely to engage or support it. If however it has clear alignment with the purpose and this is well communicated then gathering support is much more likely. This also assumes that an organization or individual in question has a clearly defined purpose. If not then often a new initiative is a way of exploring and better defining what this should be. A key tool to help in this endeavor is the use of double loop learning [41]. So often both organizations, and the individuals within them, are tied up in execution of their plans, correcting for any errors or deviance from the plan, they forget to step back and check if this is even the right plan to be executing. Discipline specific knowledge helps us become more efficient in doing things right, building skills in solving specific problems faster and improving processes to eliminate waste. But sometimes this focus on doing things right means that we forget to take time to step back and check if we are doing the right things. This double loop learning means having clarity about why we are doing these things and if necessary challenging the inherent assumptions in place.

Another aspect of clarity is communicating the vision for where the solution will take us which is needed to help overcome resistance to change. As described by C. Heath and D. Heath [42], "Clarity dissolves resistance" (p. 72). In order to affect change there needs to be clear direction that people's rational thinking can see and support. They suggest this comes through showing positive examples of change, as opposed to our natural tendency to focusing on correcting the downside. Alongside this is the need to paint a clear picture of the future state so people can see where this change is leading. There also needs to be a clearly communicated expectation of what specific behavior is required. They refer to this as scripting the critical moves. Resistance to change is often a result of either decision paralysis or decision exhaustion. This may be counterintuitive when generally we think of providing as much choice as possible is beneficial but research has proven that too much choice can lead to people actually opting out of any decision [43]. Alongside these means of appealing to the rational aspects of change they also highlight the need to motivate the emotional drivers for change along with shaping the environment to nudge behavior in the intended direction [44].
