Sail the Seven C’s Voyage Logbook by Robert Bear Instructs Teams on Creative Problem Solving Amid Organizational Storms

Today’s business environment is incredibly fast-moving and complicated, with problems arising left and right, like waves in a storm battering a ship. This can lead to organizations and team members feeling overwhelmed and helpless because they don’t know where and how to start dealing with these problems. Drawing on his more than four decades of experience in teaching, business, art, and the military, Robert E. Bear has authored Sail the Seven Cs Voyage Logbook, a workbook that guides members of corporate teams and other organizations on how to creatively solve problems while supporting each other. 

Written from the standpoint of a sailor, Sail the Seven Cs uses various maritime terminologies and metaphors to drive its points. According to Bear, the book and its forms function as a tool for a team, committee, task force, or a group to work together in a systematic, organized approach that can solve problems of any size. The eBook, which will soon be available on Amazon, also has a section that can help individuals and organizations secure funding for their projects by teaching them how to write grant requests. 

As outlined by the book, the seven Cs are: 

• Conviction, or a problem that one is passionate about solving. This could be an unfair practice at work, increasing productivity, taking care of employees’ interests, or filling a market niche. 

• Courage is the fortitude to step forth and become involved. Courage is the fortress of character that will sustain you through to the success of a positive change. 

• Counsel may involve more than just seeking advice from friends or peers. This also includes advice and services from professionals, such as attorneys or accountants, as well as gathering as much pertinent data as possible within the business. 

• Creativity involves crafting a map of solutions to the problem to pass through the doldrums of apathy and indifference, as well as strategies to overcome the hurricanes of skepticisms and tsunamis of intolerance. 

• Cooperation integrates as many individuals, organizations, and businesses as possible, each having a stake in the outcome of the resolved problem. It also involves leaders being able to properly allocate tasks and responsibilities. 

• Communication must be a multi-directional, fluid process throughout your network, Bear says. Teams must be able to effectively disseminate objectives, articulate ideas, impart information, and share feelings and feedback. 

• Commitment, the final C, maybe the hardest C to navigate. It may entail a return to one or more of the previous Cs for continued buoyancy and not sinking from the onslaught of the monsters of doubt and new problems that have surfaced. 

According to Bear, each team member should have their own copy of Sail the Seven C’s, to ensure that everyone is on the same page. The team should also confirm a time when they can regularly assemble and work on and review each other's efforts and logbooks.  

In addition to the exercises provided by Sail the Seven C’s, Bear also holds half-day and full-day corporate creative problem-solving workshops that reinforce these lessons and provide an even more potent start to an organization’s journey toward positive change. 

Bear recommends teams hold free word association exercises to develop their creative problem-solving skills. This encourages members to not be afraid of voicing ideas that may sound silly at first, because there may be something in there that actually works. As different people have different skills and different knowledge sets, encouraging each member to speak up when they believe they have something to contribute is vital to organizational success.