What’s convergent thinking? How to be a better problem-solver

Innovation is valuable in every workplace. 

Thinking outside the box lets you discover new ideas and take projects to new heights. But while creativity and continuous learning lead to positive change, there’s value in knowing when to implement familiar processes. 

Every time you successfully apply a time-tested solution to a task or challenge, you strengthen your ability to act swiftly and with confidence. You fill your professional toolbelt with know-how and experience that streamline your decision-making. And sometimes, taking the most logical route is the best way to go.

This is your convergent thinking at work — a procedural style of thinking that optimizes your efficiency, freeing up time and mental space for tasks on your to-do list that demand more open-ended problem-solving. 

What’s convergent thinking?

In 1955, psychologist Joy Paul Guilford developed the concepts of convergent and divergent thinking. His Structure of Intellect Model sought to better understand creativity and cognitive processes, particularly in the context of education.

He hypothesized that while educational institutions encourage conventional answers through step-by-step reasoning (convergent thinking), most daily decisions come from creative problem-solving (divergent thinking), making the latter more desirable.

In his 2006 article “In Praise of Convergent Thinking,” creativity researcher Arthur Cropley defined the term as a problem-solving strategy focused on finding the single best solution to a clear problem. It’s a type of thinking that relies on your know-how, previous experiences, and available information. This cut-and-dry method helps you arrive at logical conclusions faster and more accurately. 

Although it might lack creativity, convergent thinking is best for scenarios in which a single answer exists, like a multiple-choice test or a budgeting equation. Your knowledge and experience work together — or converge — to find solutions. Applying technical skills and specialized explicit knowledge with this method leads to more confident decisions. 

Cropley describes divergent thinking as the other side of the problem-solving spectrum. It encourages a more creative and open-ended exploration of possibilities. This thinking style seeks out innovative solutions to the established problem, often with more than one option. 

Here’s an example of each thinking style at work for a marketing team looking to increase social media engagement rates: 

• Convergent thinkers would analyze previous data to replicate past engagement. They might look at available metrics, identify posts with the highest numbers, and copy those types of posts.

• Divergent thinkers might conduct focus groups and collect data about the target consumer. Through that research, several options may arise, like collaborating with influencers or developing a new tone for marketing copy. The goal is to think outside the box and find new ideas.

Both thinking styles share a common goal: to find the best solution. Understanding the pros and cons of each direction is the best way to ensure that you apply the best problem-solving process to different daily challenges. 

Pros and cons of convergent thinking

Pursuing a single solution drives convergent reasoning, a process that often relies on technical knowledge. While this approach is valuable in specific scenarios, recognizing its limitations gives you the chance to balance different types of thinking for optimal outcomes. Here are the pros and cons of this type of thinking: 

Pros of convergent logic 

You might associate convergent thinking with mechanical or technical fields like engineering. But you can use knowledge-based decision-making in any industry or job role. Here are some benefits of convergent thinking: 

• Supports efficiency: You don’t have to start from scratch every time a challenge arises. Rather than developing a creative or innovative new solution, convergent thinking lets you concentrate on logical next steps. Whether the scenario is time-sensitive or not, acting swiftly and with less hesitation gives you time for other tasks in your workflow. 

• Focuses on precision: Small mistakes can snowball into significant repercussions, like fixing a coding bug that ends up crashing a website. Convergent thinking breaks problem-solving into an unambiguous, structured process. By leveraging the methodologies you already know, you eliminate guesswork and minimize your margin of error. 

• Encourages knowledge development: Practice makes perfect. Whether you’re a project manager, pediatrician, or sales representative, you need specialized skills to work efficiently. Repeatedly calling on that background builds valuable explicit and tacit knowledge, refining your expertise and bolstering competitiveness. 

• Opens the door for communication and collaboration: Hitting team objectives starts with clear guidelines and communication. In scenarios with a definitive problem and objective, using convergent thinking to share expertise aligns everyone involved. Mutual understanding and knowledge-sharing can help foster more cohesive approaches, minimizing miscommunications and maximizing efficiency. 

Cons of convergent logic

A heavy focus on the “right” solution may hinder creativity or encourage resistance to change, setting you and your team behind the curve. Cut-and-dry processes don’t work for every situation, especially when innovation is your goal. Here are the limitations of convergent thinking to consider:

• Discourages creative thinking: Relying too heavily on problem-solving templates may squander your curiosity, eliminating creative thinking and disruptive innovation. While time-sensitive decisions need fast answers, others offer the space to question business as usual, leading to new and better best practices. 

• Might not work for complex problems: Not every issue has a clear pathway to resolution. Convergent thinking is ideal for straightforward challenges with clear answers, but for problems with several variables, structured critical thinking may be counterproductive and frustrating. It can lead to oversimplifications and overlook creative solutions, limiting your possibilities. 

• Supports a hive mind: When every team member aligns on a specific method or solution, you encourage a hive mind that supports cognitive biases and suppresses diversity. Seeking consensus overrides peer learning experiences, which could result in tedious teamwork or poor decision-making. 

Convergent versus divergent thinking

While you may identify more as a convergent or divergent type of thinker, successful problem-solving requires you to adapt your thinking skills to each challenge. Understanding the differences between the two thinking processes can help you move from one to the other more easily. Here’s how they contrast: 

Convergent thinking examples

Convergent and divergent thinking aren’t mutually exclusive. They can complement one another at various stages of a project. Divergent thinkers spark creativity and exploration, and convergent thinkers transform ideas into action plans. Here are some scenarios in which the two methodologies intertwine:

1. Developing branded materials

When developing the aesthetic of a new brand, you use divergent thinking to brainstorm ideas. You might experiment with free-flowing combinations of fonts, color schemes, and illustrations during the project's discovery phase. 

But when it’s time to finalize all the assets, you’ll use step-by-step convergent thinking to convert them to usable file types, sizes, and compatibility. Your technical knowledge and logic lets you complete those actions correctly.

2. Building a pricing strategy

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re free to price your business’s products and services however you like. But to hit your bottom line and turn a profit, you need to employ a mix of math and market projections. 

Use convergent thinking to accurately determine the cost of production, using spreadsheets and mathematical equations to define the total cost. Then you can use divergent thinking to propose different pricing scenarios and experiment with different structures to hit sales goals. 

3. Product maintenance

Throughout the lifecycle of any product or service, you’ll likely have to do some maintenance or create new features. For a team of software developers working on an application, optimizing code and fixing bugs requires a systematic approach, seeking a more efficient application and care to avoid introducing new coding errors. 

When the team needs to introduce a new feature, they shift to creative mode. They may brainstorm different interface designs, experiment with new tech, or A/B test updates with users to inform the evolution of their process.

4. Project management for a new service

Managing the development of a new service requires dynamic thinking, especially if you’re on a tight deadline. Convergent thinking is best for the planning phase, where your team must create a unified plan and establish timelines and budgets. Clear, procedural thinking lays the groundwork for the entire project’s efficient execution, like aligning team objectives, allocating resources, and defining scope. 

During your team’s conceptualization phase, brainstorming sessions encourage openness to new concepts — a process that could lead to innovation. And as you narrow down the options, your team will likely return to convergent thinking styles, turning big ideas into realistic action plans. 

5. Finding the root cause of a problem

Imagine your marketing initiative isn’t meeting the numbers you projected. Divergent thinking allows you to consider that problem from many angles — even those that might seem unlikely initially, like misguided campaigns, incorrect target audience, and possible technical problems. 

Once you have a broad view, convergent thinking helps you trim the excess. You may engage in more targeted analyses and look at other successful campaigns, using knowledge and previous experiences in the process. And after discovering what made your initiative fail, you may slip between the types of thinking to consider long-term solutions. 

Embrace efficiency

Convergent thinking is more than a technique to arrive at the correct solution. It’s a style of thinking that saves time, builds confidence, and continuously strengthens your professional expertise. Embracing convergent thinking doesn’t mean abandoning creativity, but channeling it where it has the most impact. 

While you may naturally lean towards convergent or divergent thinking, learning how to assess the necessities of each challenge lets you focus your energy with intention and agility. Your improved adaptability will save time and help you contribute more effectively to your team.