When I was younger I read all the 'Hornblower' books by CS Forester, great fun.
In one episode, Hornblower had just been promoted to Captain and had the smallest vessel in the navy. On board he had a 13 year old nephew of the King George - serving as a midshipman.
They were being pursued by a powerful but slower French Frigate. The wind freshened and while they were reefing the sails, the young prince fell from the rigging into the sea. Hornblower had an impossible problem. Either rescue the prince and face capture and possible death, or leave the prince behind and his career would be in ruins.
A seemingly impossible problem where reason and logic cannot help. A creative solution is required.
Hornblower's solution was to hoist the signal 'enemy in sight astern'. The crew were baffled, - there was no ship to signal. He then ordered his ship to come about and ready for action. A bluff. The French Captain assumed that a powerful British force was just over the horizon and that he was in danger. He came about and returned to port. Hornblower and the Prince were saved.
A nonsense tale of derring-do, but it illustrates an interesting point. How did Hornblower solve the problem? The fact is, he didn’t.
He changed it from his problem, to the French captain’s problem. He changed the mindset of the French captain by making him question his assumptions. Why else would a inferior ship turn to attack him if there were no other ships nearby?
When faced with an impossible problem, you have to introduce a radical change - or have one imposed upon you.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Solving an Impossible Problem
This is one of my favourite stories. It is about solving an impossible problem.
There was a Dutch guy whose father was a General in the Dutch army. One day he found out that when his dad was younger, he had a minor hit in a pop band. So he decided that he wanted to make it in the pop world too. The only problem was, he wasn’t remotely musical.
However, he did have a friend who had spent years trying to be successful in a rock band. Unfortunately, he had tired of touring the country performing to indifferent audiences in half empty halls. So he quit, never again.
There was no way the ex-musician was going to do it all over again, no way he was going put himself through all that misery for nothing, but his friend wanted them to try. How is it possible to overcome this problem? - two completely irreconcilable positions. How can they be combined?
The solution was brilliant!! Absolute genius.
They started a band that didn’t perform music - a virtual band.
They did all the stuff that bands do, gave interviews, put up posters, photo shoots, guest appearances, etc. – the whole thing, except they never played a note! And did it work, you bet. Within three months they had an article in Holland’s biggest rock magazine. They even started a franchise.
Perhaps you made the same assumption that I did,
- "bands play music".
They needed to force two incompatible ideas together and the way to make it work was to question a fundamental assumption.
Perhaps we might question our assumptions for other 'impossible' problems.
The full story can be found at http://www.mediamatic.net/page/5816/en
There was a Dutch guy whose father was a General in the Dutch army. One day he found out that when his dad was younger, he had a minor hit in a pop band. So he decided that he wanted to make it in the pop world too. The only problem was, he wasn’t remotely musical.
However, he did have a friend who had spent years trying to be successful in a rock band. Unfortunately, he had tired of touring the country performing to indifferent audiences in half empty halls. So he quit, never again.
There was no way the ex-musician was going to do it all over again, no way he was going put himself through all that misery for nothing, but his friend wanted them to try. How is it possible to overcome this problem? - two completely irreconcilable positions. How can they be combined?
The solution was brilliant!! Absolute genius.
They started a band that didn’t perform music - a virtual band.
They did all the stuff that bands do, gave interviews, put up posters, photo shoots, guest appearances, etc. – the whole thing, except they never played a note! And did it work, you bet. Within three months they had an article in Holland’s biggest rock magazine. They even started a franchise.
Perhaps you made the same assumption that I did,
- "bands play music".
They needed to force two incompatible ideas together and the way to make it work was to question a fundamental assumption.
Perhaps we might question our assumptions for other 'impossible' problems.
The full story can be found at http://www.mediamatic.net/page/5816/en
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
The frog problem.
I once needed to turn my water stop-cock off, but it was down a narrow, three foot hole in the garden. I had a long enough tap key but I couldn’t reach the tap because it was buried in soil that had fallen in the hole. I decided that I didn’t need to dig it out, just break up the impacted soil in order to reach the tap. So I got a long spike and put it down the hole but stopped when I heard a loud squeak. Peering down the hole I saw a small frog or toad at the bottom (don’t ask me what it lived on). My problem was how to remove the frog using stuff I had to hand, without harming it (a key criterion).
It was too deep for my arm and all the wacky ideas I had didn’t have a hope. How could I remove the frog? (perhaps you could send me your ideas before you read further), I am very practical, but I failed to come up with single a plausible idea.
A few days later I was talking with friends and mentioned my problem. My friend’s wife instantly came up with a workable solution. Not only was it a workable solution, it was absolutely brilliant, true genius!
The interesting point was that my friend’s wife knows nothing about frogs, engineering or mechanics. She was a theatre nurse in a hospital. Apparently, in operations, surgeons sometimes need to remove small pieces of tissue that have been cut off, so they use a small tube connected to a suction pump. Her suggestion was to use my vacuum cleaner (with a four feet long tube) and pick up the frog with the suction. Needless to say it was a complete triumph, though the frog did seem somewhat bemused.
The point is, my logic had completely failed, I would have come up with a laboured, cumbersome, scrappy solution, but someone with a completely different background and perspective had come up with a brilliant, effortless, low-cost, original and simple solution.
Perhaps we should think about who we include in the discussion when dealing with difficult problems.
It was too deep for my arm and all the wacky ideas I had didn’t have a hope. How could I remove the frog? (perhaps you could send me your ideas before you read further), I am very practical, but I failed to come up with single a plausible idea.
A few days later I was talking with friends and mentioned my problem. My friend’s wife instantly came up with a workable solution. Not only was it a workable solution, it was absolutely brilliant, true genius!
The interesting point was that my friend’s wife knows nothing about frogs, engineering or mechanics. She was a theatre nurse in a hospital. Apparently, in operations, surgeons sometimes need to remove small pieces of tissue that have been cut off, so they use a small tube connected to a suction pump. Her suggestion was to use my vacuum cleaner (with a four feet long tube) and pick up the frog with the suction. Needless to say it was a complete triumph, though the frog did seem somewhat bemused.
The point is, my logic had completely failed, I would have come up with a laboured, cumbersome, scrappy solution, but someone with a completely different background and perspective had come up with a brilliant, effortless, low-cost, original and simple solution.
Perhaps we should think about who we include in the discussion when dealing with difficult problems.
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