Intuitive Problem Solving

Are there situations where the deliberative, reasoned approach to problem solving fails?

Michael Yon wrote a blog that covered the US Army activities in Iraq.  In August 2005, he wrote an entry that described Lt Colonel Kurilla’s apparent extrasensory ability to spot insurgents from amongst the din and bustle of urban Mosul:

“Some months back, a new lieutenant named Brian Flynn was riding with the Kurilla for his first three weeks, when Kurilla spotted three men walking adjacent to where Major Mark Bieger and his Stryker had been hit with a car bomb a week prior. The three men looked suspicious to Kurilla, whose legendary sense about people is so keen that his soldiers call it the “Deuce Sixth-Sense.” His read on people and situations is so uncanny it borders the bizarre.
 
That day, Kurilla sensed “wrong” and told his soldiers to check the three men. As the Stryker dropped its ramp, one of the terrorists pulled a pistol from under his shirt.”

Did Lt Colonel Kurilla have a unique talent?   It seems not. 

US Army officer training has traditionally been based upon ‘rational analysis’.  Whereas in the field, they are engaged in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments and they need to be able to evaluate and respond to critical situations under extreme pressure.  These are situations where there isn’t time to deliberate or to ask for advice - they rely on their intuition.  The US Army has since instigated a programme to improve junior officer’s intuitive capability. (report)

Organisations tend to rely on ‘rational’ problem solving processes because it is ‘logical’ - but some problems are qualitative rather than quantitative, and need a different approach.  We have other problem solving capabilities apart from our reason. 

We need to be bold enough to trust in them.

Intuition - A Critical Problem Solving Faculty

A true story.

A racing driving approached a blind corner at 150 mph. He couldn’t see what was round the bend.  He had been around this corner many times that day, so he had no reason to be apprehensive.  Suddenly he was overcome by an overwhelming sensation - he needed brake IMMEDIATELY.  He came slowly round the corner and saw a car crash in the centre of the track.  If he had not slowed down he would have undoubtedly have had a head-on collision. 

Inexplicably, when asked why he slowed down, he could not give a reason; he just intuitively knew that he had to stop.  Did he have some rare psychic gift, was it ESP? 

No.

After the race he watched the recording of the event.  He saw himself approaching the corner, and everything seemed normal, there was no apparent reason to brake.  Subsequent replays showed that the crowd weren’t behaving normally.  Usually when a car approaches a corner the crowd watches its progress. This time they were not.  The crowd was watching events taking place at the crash site.  The approaching driver did not consciously notice this; however, his unconscious mind did notice and immediately warned the driver.  At no time during the event did he spot the unusual behaviour of the crowd. 

Intuition is a little understood phenomenon.  Undoubtedly, it saved the driver that day, when his conscious faculties let him down.  As rational beings, we like to think that our conscious intellect will cope with life’s challenges.

Sometimes, being rational is not sufficient.

The Rene Descartes Approach to Problem Solving

Can a car be allergic to ice cream?

Soon after buying a new Pontiac, a man made a complaint.  “Every time I buy vanilla ice cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine”

Pontiac sent an engineer and to go with the man to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start.  The engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, the man got chocolate, the car started. The second night, he got strawberry, the car started. The third night he ordered vanilla, the car failed to start.

Every night the engineer took notes: he jotted down all sorts of data, time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth, etc.  He soon found that the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavour. Why? 

As vanilla was the most popular flavour, it was kept at the front of the store for quick service. All the other flavours were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took longer.  Once time became the problem - not the vanilla ice cream, the engineer quickly came up with the answer: a vapour lock.  The extra time taken to get the other flavours allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start, but when the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapour lock to dissipate.

Not all problems need a creative solution, or are particularly complex. For some problems you need to be meticulous.

As Rene Descartes put it, “Divide each problem into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.”

Where Creativity Happens

When was the last time you felt outside of your comfort zone?  I don’t mean at the prospect of something bad happening, I mean more like at the prospect of speaking in public  – something that makes you feel uncomfortably conspicuous.

Most people don’t like it.  We are uncertain how we will perform or how will be received, so we get nervous.  But what happens?  most of the time our fears are not realised.  And it doesn’t even matter if we have done it before, we still get nervous.  The reason why we get so apprehensive is due to the uncertainty.  We fear the uncertainty, our emotion overwhelms our logic.

But what happens when we come through the test unscathed?  Relief certainly, but also a tremendous feeling of wellbeing and achievement.  Unfortunately, the next time an opportunity arises, our memory of the apprehension always outweighs memory of the elation.

What’s this got to do with solving problems I hear you say?  

It’s about being prepared to go places where you feel vulnerable.  Have you ever felt afraid to ask a question for fear of exposing what you don’t know? (I was once in a meeting where it turned out that nearly everybody in the room was afraid to ask the same question). 

It’s about choosing uncertainty; willing to risk appearing foolish because you made a crazy suggestion. 

Being bold.

The Creative Paradox - Overcoming Uncertainty

Why do people want to reject a creative idea?  You can see it happening in meetings when a solution that is just too novel is suggested.  People disengage with the process – it’s not for them. 

I read an interesting research paper about creativity.  The research concerned a paradox of creativity.  Generally, people think ‘creative solutions’ are a good thing.  Unfortunately, dealing with the consequences of novel, or creative solutions sometimes makes people uneasy and tense.  This is because a novel solution introduces uncertainty – it may not work.  The consequence of this is that people are quite happy to reject the novel solution, even though the wildly improbable idea could be a real winner – they don’t want to be associated with something that sounds like a silly idea. 

The initial idea about looking for a creative solution is logical.  If you have tried all the logical ideas, a creative one might just come up trumps.  The trouble is, people often prefer to avoid uncertainty because of the risk it may entail.  The uncertainty triggers an emotional response which overrules our logic.  

How can we overcome this?  It is our reaction to the feelings of uncertainty that is the problem; we need a different way to react. 

There is a way to do it, it’s called Improv.  Put simply, Improv is a group of people performing an unscripted play. They make it up as they go, nothing is certain, they have no idea how the play will develop.  Somebody suggests a character, then somebody else speaks to him, every line of the play is improvised.  The key point is that it is not possible to fail; anything that any participant says simply develops the plot. 

This way, uncertainty is driving the creativity instead of killing it.

Try it, (its also good for getting people to work together) or get in touch if you need some help. 


There are a few rules:-    http://www.improvwiz.com/rules-of-improv/

How to Solve an Impossible Problem

Here is another story from ‘The Shadow of the Sun’ by Ryszard Kapuscinski  (one of the best books I have read, beautifully written).

It concerns a rather improbable method of trading that used to take place between the Tuareg people of the Sahara and the Bantu people of the Sahel.  For centuries a great enmity has existed between them, villages burnt, people killed and enslaved - made worse in times of drought.  Both groups had valuable commodities to trade, the Tuareg salt, and the Bantu gold.  But such was the level of fear between them, it was impossible to see how they could trade. 

 How did they solve that seemingly impossible problem?   You would assume that they simply traded through a third party, but for some reason, this is not so.

If fact, they contrived an extraordinary solution. 

When the Tuareg arrived at the trading location, they left salt in orderly piles.  They then retreated half a day’s travel.  The Bantu duly approached and left a measure of gold by each pile of salt.  After they had retreated, the Tuareg returned and if they deemed the amount of gold to be sufficient, they took it and left the salt, if not, they left both the gold and salt in place and retired.  The Bantu returned and either took their salt, or added more gold or took it away. This exchange continued until there was no further exchange.  The transactions took place with neither party seeing the other, it was called ‘silent trading’.

Silent trading took place for hundreds of years, but how did it come about?  How did such an extraordinary level of trust come about between two violently opposed groups?

Given our usual assumptions about trading, an ‘incremental’ solution doesn’t seem possible; they obviously found another way round the problem.

Using Visual Metaphors to Overcome problems

Look at this image*.  If you were a robot, what would you see?  I think I can say with some confidence that you would see a lot of colour pencils and a pencil sharpener.

 

But you aren’t a robot, you see a zip – and it isn’t as if you have to concentrate, it jumps out at you.  But there is no zip.

This is not a skill we need to learn, it is inherent.  We pick out the key features and make associations with other objects or concepts that may have similar features.  We create ‘visual metaphors’. 

This is an extraordinary gift that we all have – to be able to see a zip from a bunch of pencils.  What it does is to expand our thinking.  It enables us to think far more creatively.  Frederick Law Olmstead described his design for a connected system of parks as an ‘emerald necklace’.  Visual metaphor is much used in architecture; - the Sydney Opera House’s shell forms reflect the image of yachts in Sydney Harbour.

It is less commonly used in engineering, but a significant example is in the development of supersonic flight.  Scientists were struggling with the effects of shock waves at trans-sonic airspeeds.  This was overcome when a key figure thought of the airflow over the fuselage as being in the form of ‘water pipes’.  By redesigning the fuselage to match the contours of the ‘pipes’, the problem was overcome. 

Perhaps a better known example is the struggle that the chemist Kekule had when trying to understand the shape of the benzene molecule.  He dreamed of a snake eating its own tail, and realized that benzene comes in the shape of a ring.

Visual metaphors provide stepping stones, clues that can lead to seeing a solution. 

Each of us has a fantastic visual ability, by pushing ourselves to see something new in the familiar will help overcome the most intractable problems.

*To see more of this artist's work, see  http://kpk-photography.de/gallery