The "CEO is King" approach where everybody says what the king wants to hear.
The Committee approach where they attempt to talk the problem out of existence. (A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee :-)
The "Delphi Technique," a sometimes valuable and often abused way of butting heads between a group of experts using statistics to develop a consensus.
The team approach where you use competition as the motivator by handing out different colored Tee Shirts and making the solution the goal line.
I've had good success with the "Boss is too stupid to figure it out" technique. If you hire peope that are much brighter and more ambitious than you are, they can solve problems themselves. They take care of the mundane business stuff and leave the tough decisions like where to go on vacation and how to invest the profits up to you. :-)
Answered Jan 17, 2011
Edited Jan 17, 2011