([ bandwagon effect [the tendency for people to adopt certain behaviors, styles, or attitudes simply because others are doing so.],
herd mentality [the tendency for people's behavior or beliefs to conform to those of the group to which they belong.
"the herd mentality of the investment community"]
groupthink [the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility.
"there's always a danger of groupthink when two leaders are so alike"] ])
([ when some thing is hard to figure out ... ])
([ when it is hard to figure out, you simplified (chunking) ])
([ when it is hard to figure out, you draw a map ])
([ when it is hard to figure out, you make a chart ])
https://usefulcharts.com/
([ when it is hard to figure out, you step back to see the bigger picture ])
([ when it is hard to figure out, you look for where is the money ])
([ when it is hard to figure out, you follow the flow of the money ])
([ when it is hard to figure out, you monitor the [flow rate] of the money ])
([ when it is hard to figure out, you step away from the problem ])
([ when it is hard to figure out, you sleep on [it] ])
([ when it is hard to figure out, you go work on some thing else ])
([ stepping away from the problem(s) (or sub-problems) (this is a process - like learning is a process - refer to as the learning process) and coming back to them later is best done after you and your partner have reached an impasse (a situation in which no progress is possible) and saturation [The mind has three elementary phases it goes through when it's thinking: saturate, incubate, and illuminate.]; there are at least two reasons why the step away method seems to work; one, after chunking, consolidation and information saturation, when you go do some thing else or you sleep on it, the subconscious mind is working mysteriously in the background; two, when you go do some thing else - a relaxing activity in the vegetable garden [nature] maybe - or a quiet walk in the woods, the mind becomes unstuck or forget some parts that was causing the deadlock; the mental block that was there disappeared; the method - stepping away to rejuvinate and then coming back - is not guarantee to work; however, from mining through historical data and the stories of creative problem solving [CPS] practices -- from math to poetry disciplines -- this method or behavioral pattern ... . ])
____________________________________
1974
Wickelgren, Wayne A 1938-
How to solve problems
1. mathematics─problems, exercise, etc.
2. problem solving
QA43.W52
pp.65-66
Incubation
p.65
When you have been going around in circles and wish to do something different to try to solve a problem, probably the most frequently given piece of advice is to put the problem aside for several minutes, hours, or days, and work on something else or get a good night's sleep before coming back to the problem.
p.65
I must confess that incubation is not one of my favorite problem-solving methods, primarily, I suppose, because, when one is forced to use it, it indicates that all the other general problem-solving methods have failed.
p.65
However, when you have tried a large number of approaches to a problem with no success, there comes a point at which even the most skilled problem solver should undoubtedly put the problem aside for a few hours or days and come back to it later.
p.65
This is true even though a skilled problem solver may still be able to generate new ideas concerning how to solve the problem.
p.65
Psychologists do not understand why incubation is useful in solving problems.
p.65
On the contrary, there are too many possible mechanisms for the beneficial effects of incubation on problem solving.
pp.65-66
First, you may be quite generally fatigued after you have worked on a problem for a long time, and coming back to it in a fresher state of mind seems likely to be beneficial (though again we do not understand the mechanisms of general intellectual fatigue or the need for sleep and so on).
p.66
Second, there may be more specific intellectual fatigue or interference in the use of your memory because of the large number of incorrect actions you have taken in trying to solve the problem.
p.66
The passage of time filled with intervening activities provides an opportunity for these interfering memories to fade away.
p.66
Third, when you come back to the problem, you have an altered memory and new set of things on your mind as a result of the intervening activity. These new associations and new cues may well result in the retrieval of new ideas from memory concerning how to solve the given problem. This explanation is probably the single most plausible reason for the success of the method of incubation.
p.66
There is a fourth, somewhat more exotic possibility, namely, that a person's mind goes on unconsciously working the problem all during the long incubation period. Either because the unconscious mind has a long time to work on the problem or because something special is added by unconscious problem solving, the problem manages to get solved in this way, when conscious problem solving has failed.
p.66
In any event, the unconscious problem solving may modify memory in a manner that facilitates conscious problem solving at a later time. There is not one shred of evidence for this explanation of incubation, whereas the first three possible mechanisms are all extensions of previously established psychological principles.
p.66
Nevertheless, many psychologists believe in unconscious problem solving. I am very skeptical on the matter, but that is primarily a matter of philosophical preference.
p.138
Whenever there is a single, clearly, and completely specified goal stated in the problem, you should seriously consider the possibility of working backward.
Wayne A. Wickelgren, How to solve problems, 1974
____________________________________
Tony Schwartz with Jean Gomes and Catherine McCarthy., The way we're working isn't working: the four forgotten needs that energize great performance, 2010
p.217
saturation >> incubation >> illumination
A surprising degree of consensus has emerged during the past 100 years about the basic stages of creative thinking [and creative problem solving (CPS)]. In the late 19th century, Hermann von Helmholtz, a physicist and physiologist, become the first scientist to suggest that creative ideas emerge in three predictable stages. The first (1st) he said, is saturation, which is essentially the gathering of facts. The second (2nd) is incubation, which is the mulling over of the information, often unconsciously. The third (3rd) is illumination, when some new combination of the data leads to a breakthrough or an "Ah-ha!"
In 1908, the French mathematician Henri Poincaré suggested a fourth (4th) stage, which he named "verification," to describe the point at which a creative insight is rigorously tested for accuracy. More recent, several researchers have suggested an additional stage that precedes the other four (4). The psychologist George Kneller named this "first insight," which he characterized as the point at which creative challenge is defined. The five(5)-step process therefore look like this:
first insight >> saturation >> incubation >> illumination >> verification
p.218
Saturation, the gathering of information, involves immersing one's self in the known, which is foremost a left-hemisphere activity. This second stage in the creative process involves not just gathering the information but also reading through it, sorting, evaluating, organizing, outlining, and prioritizing. This tends to be laborious, methodical work, and it is sometimes short changed, but always at a cost.
As George Kneller puts it: “One of the paradoxes of creativity [is] that in order to think originally, we must familiarize ourselves with the ideas of others.” Information, in short, represents the raw material from which original thinking emerges ── and the more knowledge one has, the better the base.
(Schwartz, Tony, 1952-, HF5549.5.P37S39 2010, 658.3'128—dc22, copyright © 2010)
(The way we're working isn't working : the four forgotten needs that energize great performance / Tony Schwartz, with Jean Gomes and Catherine McCarthy. — 1st Free Press hardcover ed., 1. performance., 2. work — psychological aspects., 3. organizational effectiveness., 4. personnel management., p.217, p.218)
____________________________________
Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation, first published in 1964
p.653
(pdf page 652/752)
ceteris paribus, on the nature of the challenge
Familiar situations──that is, the novelty and unexpectedness of situation. Familiar situation are dealt with by habitual methods; they can be recognized, at a glance, as analogous in some essential respect to past experiences which provide a ready-made rule to cope with them. The more new the features a task contains, the more difficult it will be to find the relevant analogy, and thereby the appropriate code to apply to it. We have seen (Book One, VIII, XVII) that one of the basic mechanisms of the Eureka process is the discovery of a hidden analogy; but ‘hiddenness’ is again a matter of degrees.
p.653
(pdf page 652/752)
How hidden is a hidden analogy, and where is it hidden? And what does the word ‘search’, so often used in the context of problem-solving, is apt to create confusion because it implies that I know beforehand what I am searching for, whereas in fact I do not. If I search for a lost collar-stud, I put a kind of filter into my ‘optical frame’ which lets only collar-studs and similar shapes pass, and rejects everything else──and then go looking through my drawers. But most tasks in problem-solving necessitate applying the reverse procedure: the subject looks for a clue, the nature of which he does not know, expect that it should be a ‘clue’ (Ansatzpunkt, point d'appui), a link to a type of problem familiar to him.
p.654
(pdf page 653/752)
Instead of looking through a given filter-frame for an object which matches the filter, he must try out one frame after another to look at the object before his nose, until he finds the frame into which it fits, i.e. until the problem presents some familiar aspect──which is then perceived as an analogy with past experience and allows him to come to grips with it.
p.654
(pdf page 653/752)
This search for the appropriate matrix, or rule of the game to tackle the process, is never quite random; the various types of guidance at the fumbling, groping, trying stages have been discussed before. Among the criteria which distinguish originality from routine are the level of consciousness on which the search is conducted, the type of guidance on which the subject relies, and the nature of obstacle which he has to overcome.
Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation, first published in 1964
filename: Arthur-Koestler-The-Act-of-Creation.pdf
____________________________________
Arthur B. VanGundy, Managing group creativity, 1984 [ ]
p.49
Considering the first thought that pops into your mind can frequently result in a remote association that you wouldn't have made if you had been more deliberate in your approach. Thus people who impulsively jump to conclusions quite often have a fertile internal creative climate.
(VanGundy, Arthur B., Managing group creativity / Arthur B. VanGundy, 1. problem solving, group, 1984, HD 30.29 .V35 1984, )
____________________________________
J. E. Guy, Think yourself happy and health : a logical approach to emotinal happiness, 1959
exposition banner book
$3.00 (1959)
p.13
He then tries to gather his wits and listen like he never listened before and gets tangled up with the Law of Reversed Effort. The more he tried, physically and mentally, the tighter he gets. So he freezes and strikes out.
p.14
Law of Reversed Effort
p.15
He overcontrols with the result that the more he tries, the farther he gets from his goal.
J. E. Guy, Think yourself happy and health : a logical approach to emotinal happiness, 1959
____________________________________
Michael Michalko, Creative thinkering : putting your imagination to work, 2011
p.132
There is a Chinese term that describes this: wuwei, or “not doing”. This doesn't mean “doing nothing”; it means “not forcing”. Things will open up according to their nature. And they do.
( Creative thinkering : putting your imagination to work / Michael Michalko.,
1. creative thinking., 2. creative ability., 3. imagination., FB408.M485, 2011, 153.1'5--dc23, first printing, September 2011, )
____________________________________
Brad Bird: The mistake that a lot of people make
is thinking that you can force ideas to come
You can't, really
All that you can do is observed what
kind of environment put you in a creative state of mind
and [try] to create that environment
source: Ratatouille (2007 film, Disney PiXAR)
2007 DVD release
____________________________________
Michael Michalko, Creative thinkering : putting your imagination to work, 2011
p.132
Yet this enhancement of creative thinking occurs completely beneath the radar ── people are more creative after they forget about the problem for a period of time, but they don't know it. It's as if the period of incubation resets your mind. You're taking a walk or taking a shower, and you realize, “Wait a minute, there's another way to do this.”
pp.133-134
A well-known physicist once said that all great discoveries in science were made by scientists not thinking about a specific problem. In the 1970s, Frank Wilczek of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, deduced how the nuclei of atoms stay together, one of those rare “knowing the mind of God” discoveries. His breakthrough occurred when he was reviewing a totally different problem ── in fact, a different force of nature. He suddenly experienced a “mind pop” and realized that a failed approach in one area would be successful in another.
p.134
Similarly, Bertrand Russell wrote in The Conquest of Happiness: “I have found, for example, that, if I have to write upon some rather difficult topic, the best plan is think about it with very great intensity ── the greatest intensity of which I am capable ── for a few hours or days, and at the end of that time give orders, so to speak, that the work is to proceed underground. After some months I return consciously to the topic and find that the work has been done. Before I had discovered this technique, I used to spend the intervening months worrying because I was making no progress; I arrived at the solution none the sooner for this worry, and the intervening months were wasted.”
p.134
Incubation usually involves setting a problem aside for a few hours, days, or weeks and moving on to other projects. This allows the subconscious to continue to work on the original challenge. The more interested you are in solving the challenge, the more likely your subconscious will generate ideas. The creative act owns little to logic or reason. In their accounts of the circumstances under which big ideas occurred to them, scientists have often mentioned that the inspiration had no relation to the work they happened to be doing. Sometimes it came while they were traveling, shaving, or thinking about other matters. It seems that the creative process cannot be summoned at will or even on demand. It seems to occur when the mind is relaxed and the imagination is roaming.
pp.135-136
When you think about a subject, some of these thoughts become loose and begin to move around in your subconscious mind. The more work you put into thinking about a problem, the more thoughts and bits of information you set in random motion. Your subconscious mind never rests. When you quit thinking about the subject and decide to forget it, your subconscious mind doesn't quit working. Your thoughts keep colliding, combining, and making associations.
pp.137-138
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Work on a problem until you have mulled over all the relevant pieces of information. Talk with others about the problem, ask questions, and do as much research as you can until you are satisfied that you have pushed your conscious mind to its limit.
Write a letter to your unconscious mind about the problem. Make the letter as detailed and specific as possible. Define the problem, describe its attributes, what steps you have taken, the difficulties, the gaps, what is needed, what you want, and so on. Just writing the letter will help better define the problem, clarify issues, point out where more information is needed, and prepare your unconsious to work on a solution. The letter should read as if it were written to a real person. Imagine that your unconsious is all-knowing and can solve any problem that is properly stated.
Instruct your unconscious to find the solution. Write, “Your mission is to find the solution to the problem. I would like the solution in two days.” Seal the letter and put it away. You may even want to mail it to yourself.
Let go of the problem. Don't work on it. Forget it. Do something else. This is the incubation stage, when much of what goes on occurs outside your focused awareness, in your unconscious. Open the letter in two days. If the problem still has not been solved, write on the bottom of the letter, “Let me know the minute you solve this”, and put it away. Sooner or later, when you are most relaxed and removed from the problem, the answer will magically pop into your mind.
( Creative thinkering : putting your imagination to work / Michael Michalko.,
1. creative thinking., 2. creative ability., 3. imagination., FB408.M485, 2011, 153.1'5--dc23, first printing, September 2011, )
____________________________________
"You need to understand how the human mind works. The mind has three elementary phases it goes through when it's thinking: saturate, incubate, and illuminate. Although they generally occur in order, all three are continuous processes, so your mind is constantly cycling through all three phases. The saturation phase occurs when the mind if first exposed to something. When you're planning a new mission, you're saturating your mind with facts, assumptions, insights and/or sensory cues - ergo, the saturation phase. the next phase is incubation. This is a critical phase if you ever want to come up with something innovative. The mind needs time to incubate. During this phase the mind subconsciously sorts through all of the inputs and begins to recognize patterns and snap those patterns together to come up with concepts and ideas. This is why you may have heard people say, 'I need to sleep on it' before making a major decision. It's not the sleep per se that they need: it's the time to allow their mind to sort through information and search for patterns. The recognition of patterns that occurs during the incubation phase produces the illumination phase, also known as 'eureka' moments, when your mind begins to translate those patterns and form the into actionable ideas. Saturate, incubate, illuminate - it's how the mind works, and it's probably the main reason why you have lost so much sleep over the years. The best thing you can do is to keep a pen and paper by your bed. Writing down your thoughts while you're incubating and illuminating should help to temporarily get the off your mind and back to sleep." (Page 70) (THE MISSION, THE MEN, AND ME: LESSONS FROM A FORMER DELTA FORCE COMMANDER, by Pete Blaber)
____________________________________
Tony Schwartz with Jean Gomes and Catherine McCarthy., The way we're working isn't working: the four forgotten needs that energize great performance, 2010
p.212
... We rarely get our best ideas when we're actively trying to get them, using our logic and our will. More common, they come to us when we're not consciously seeking them. This is the right hemisphere at work. The best ideas occur to us, paradoxically, when we let go of conscious control, which is something our left hemisphere is reluctant to do. The left hemisphere not only chafes at threats to its power but also sees itself as in charge of our safety. Letting go makes it, and therefore us, feel vulnerable. The right hemisphere, by contrast, has no self-consciousness and, as a result, no self of self to protect.
The more we understand the value of letting go, the most comfortable we become selectively setting aside L-mode to think more freely, imaginatively, and visually in R-mode. As Edwards points out, the words we use to describe creative breakthroughs are almost always associated with seeing: insight, foresight, hindsight, seeing the light, coming into focus, getting the picture, or even something as simple as "I see it."
p.218
In any extended creative endeavor, we're likely to hit roadblocks at certain points along the way. Imgine the feeling of being stuck on a problem. Your mind seems to be going in circles or you find yourslef spacing out. The harder we try at those times, the more confused and frustrated we often become. That's when the ... incubation phase begins. In many cases, this occurs ... after we throw up our hands and walk away from the problem, at least temporarily. When we understand incubation as a critical stage in the creative process, it can be something we move to intentionally after recognizing we've exhausted our logical, ... capacity to solve a given problem. This is one reasons we urge our clients to break up their days ── and especially their periods of intense focus ── with a walk or by meditating or exercising.
p.219
Even the most creative insights aren't worth much if they can't be translated into a form in which they can be understood and used by others. This ... stage may require long hours in a laboratory, meticulously testing a finding, or hunched over a computer, translating an understanding into words.
(Schwartz, Tony, 1952-, HF5549.5.P37S39 2010, 658.3'128—dc22, copyright © 2010)
(The way we're working isn't working : the four forgotten needs that energize great performance / Tony Schwartz, with Jean Gomes and Catherine McCarthy. — 1st Free Press hardcover ed., 1. performance., 2. work — psychological aspects., 3. organizational effectiveness., 4. personnel management., p.217, p.218)
____________________________________
* Graham Wallas, The Art of Thoughts, 1926
preparation <==> incubation <==> illumination <==> verification
preparation <==> incubation
/\ /\
|| ||
\/ \/
illumination <==> verification
zz=> (preparation) <=xx
|| ||
\/ \/
(verification) (incubation)
/\ /\
|| ||
cc=> (illumination) <=tt
- preparation
- incubation
- illumination
- verification
- verification
- illumination
- incubation
- preparation
Psychological Review
2010, Vol. 117, No. 3, 994-1024
Incubation, Insight, and Creative Problem Solving: A Unified Theory and Connectionist Model
Sébastien Hélie (and) Ron Sun
2010
page 995 (pdf 2/31)
Creative Problem Solving: Four Stages
The role of creativity in problem solving has been acknowledged since Wallas's (1926) seminal work. According to Wallas, humans go through four different stages when trying to solve a problem: preparation, incubation, illumination (i.e., insight), and verification. The first stage, preparation, refers to an initial period of search in many directions using (essentially) logic and reasoning. If a solution is found at this stage, the remaining stages are not needed. However, if the problem is ill defined and/or complex, the preparation stage is unlikely to generate a satisfactory solution. When an impasse is reached, the problem solver stops attempting to solve the problem, which marks the beginning of the incubation phase. Incubation can last from a few minutes to many years, during which the attention of the problem solver is not devoted to the problem. The incubation period has been empirically shown to increase the probability of eventually finding the correct solution (e.g., Dodds, Ward, & Smith, in press; S. M. Smith & Dodds, 1999). The following stage, illumination, is the spontaneous manifestation of the problem and its solution in conscious thought.1 The fourth stage, verification, is used to ascertain the correctness of insight solution. Verification is similar to preparation because it also involves the use of deliberative thinking processes (with logic and reasoning). If the verification stage invalidates the solution, the problem solver usually goes back to the first or second stage, and this process is repeated.
filename: helie-sun-psycrev2010-f.pdf
____________________________________
Edward de Bono, Lateral Thinking, 1970
p.5
It is emphasized that there is not antagonism between the two sorts of thinking. Both are necessary. Vertical thinking is immensely useful but one needs to enhance its usefulness by adding creativity and tempering its rigidity. Eventually this will done at school but until that time it may be necessary to do it at home.
This book is not intended to be read through at one sitting but worked through slowly over months or even years. For that reason many of the principles are repeated at intervals throughout the book in order to hold the subject together and prevent it fragmenting into mere techniques. In using the book, it is important to remember that practice is far more important than understanding the process.
p.6
The conflict method for changing ideas works well where the information can be evaluated in some objective manner. But the method does not work at all when the new information can only be evaluated through the old idea. Instead of being changed the old is strengthened and made ever more rigid.
p.6
The most effective way of changing ideas is not from outside by conflict but from within by the insight rearrangement of available information.
p.7
Insight, creativity and humour are so elusive because the mind is so efficien. The mind functions to create patterns out of its surroundings. Once the patterns are formed it becomes possible to recognize them, to react to them, to use them. As the patterns are used they become ever more firmly established.
p.7
Creativity also involves restructuring but with more emphasis on the escape from restricting patterns. Laternal thinking involves restructuring, escape and the provocation of new patterns.
p.7
In order to be able to use creativity one must rid it of this aura of mystique and regard it as a way of using the mind in a way of handling information. This is what lateral thinking is about.
p.7
New ideas are the stuff of change and progress in every field from science to art, from politics to personal happiness.
p.7
This leads to changes in attitude and approach; to looking in a different way at things which have always been looked at in the same way.
p.24
There comes a time when one cannot proceed further without restructuring the pattern without breaking up the old pattern which has been so useful and arranging the old information in a new way.
The trouble with a self-maximizing system that must make sense at each moment is that the sequence of arrival information determines the way it is to be arranged.
p.25
As with the plastic pieces there is often an alternative way of arranging available information. This means that there can be switch over to another arrangement. Usually this switch over is sudden. If the switch over is temporary is gives rise to humour. If the switch over is permanent it gives rise to insight. It is interesting that the reaction to an insight solution is often laughter even when there is nothing funny about the solution itself.
pp.25-26
In each of these situations an expectation is generated by the way the information is put together. Then suddenly this expectation is thwarted but at once one sees that the unexpected development is another way of putting things together.
Humour and insight are characteristic of this type of information handling system. Both processes are difficult to bring about deliberately.
p.28 (pdf 28/ 211)
Summary
The mind handles information in a characteristic way. This way is very effective and it has huge practical advantages. But it also has limitations. In particular the mind is good at establishing concept patterns but not at restructuring them to bring them up to date. It is from these inherent limitations that the need for lateral thinking arises.
p.30
The movement and change the lateral thinking is not an end in itself but a way of bringing about repatterning.
p.30
Vertical thinking is analytical, lateral thinking is provocative
One may consider three different attitude to the remark of a student who had come to the conclusion: “Ulysses was a hypocrite.”
1. “You are wrong, Ulysses was not a hypocrite.”
2. “How very interesting, tell me how you reached that conclusion.”
3. “very well. What happens next? How are you going to go forward from that idea?”
pp.35-36
It is always possible to describe a logical pathway in hindsight once a solution is spelled out. But being able to reach that solution by means of this hindsight pathway is another matter. One can demonstrate this quite simply by offering certain problems which are difficult to solve and yet when solved, the solution is obvious. In such cases, it is impossible to suppose that what make the problem difficult was lack of the elementary logic required.
It is characteristic of insight solutions and new ideas that they should be obvious after they have been found. In itself, this shows how insufficient logic is in practice, otherwise such simple solutions must have occurred much earlier.
p.38
A particular way of looking at things may have developed gradually.
p.38
A pattern may develop in a particular way because it was derived from the combination of two other patterns but had all the information been available at one time the pattern would have been quite different.
p.38
A pattern may persist because it is useful and adequate and yet a restructuring of the pattern could give rise to something very much better.
p.39
Had all four pieces been presented at once this final pattern is the one that would have resulted, but owing to the sequence of arrival of the pieces it was the other pattern that developed.
p.39
Lateral thinking is both on attitude and a method of using information
The lateral thinking attitude regards any particular way of looking at things as useful but not unique or absolute. That is to say one acknowledges the usefulness of a pattern but instead of regarding it as inevitable one regards it as only one way of putting things together. This attitude challenges the assumption that what is a convenient pattern at the moment is the only possible pattern. This attitude tempers the arrogance of rigidity and dogma.
p.39
The lateral thinking attitude involves firstly a refusal to accept rigid patterns and secondly an attempt to put things together in different ways. With lateral thinking one is always trying to generate alternatives, to restructure patterns. It is not a matter of declaring the current pattern wrong or inadequate.
p.39
Lateral thinking is never a judgement.
p.39
One may be quite satisfied with the current pattern and yet try to generate alternative patterns. As far as lateral thinking is concerned the only thing that can be wrong with a pattern is the arrogant rigidty with which it is held.
pp.41-42
Problem solving
A problem does not have to be presented in a formal manner nor is it a matter for pencil and paper working out. A problem is simply the difference between what one has and what one wants. It may be a matter of avoiding something, of getting something, of getting rid of something, of getting to know what one wants.
There are three-types of problem:
• The first type of problem requires for its solution more information or better techniques for handling information.
• The second type of problem requires no new information but a rearrangement of information already available: an insight restructuring.
• The third type of problem is the problem of no problem. One is blocked by the adequacy of the present arrangement from moving to a much better one. There is no point at which one can focus one's efforts to reach the better arrangement because one is not even aware that there is a better arrangement. The problem is to realize that ‘there is a problem’ to realize that ‘things can be improved’ and to define ‘this realization as a problem’.
The first type of problem can be solved by vertical thinking. The second and third type of problem require lateral thinking for their solution.
____________________________________
• The third type of problem is the problem of no problem. One is blocked by the adequacy of the present arrangement from moving to a much better one. There is no point at which one can focus one's efforts to reach the better arrangement because one is not even aware that there is a better arrangement. The problem is to realize that ‘there is a problem’ to realize that ‘things can be improved’ and to define ‘this realization as a problem’.
Allison Fallon., The power of writing it down : a simple habit to unlock your brain and reimagine your life, 2020
p.153
writers who have trusted me with their stories and their writing process
we were cultivating awareness.
We were starting to see things more clearly.
We were standing outside of our stories, outside of our circumstances, and seeing them from a new perspective.4
p.153
The great thing about this is that awareness is the beginning of change.
awareness is the beginning of change.
p.153
In fact, in therapeutic models of change, the step before the first step is called precontemplation. Precontemplation is the stage where in the person who needs to change hasn't even recognized the problem yet.
(The power of writing it down : a simple habit to unlock your brain and reimagine your life / Allison Fallon., summary: “for anyone feeling stuck and looking to make sense of life, author and writing coach Allison Fallow shares a simple practice and proven method to reclaiming your narrative, increasing your emotional and spiritual health, and discovering more clarity and freedom in ‘The Power of Writing it down’” ── provided by publisher., (print) (ebook) (hardcover)
(ebook), subject: writing ── psychological aspects. | behavior modification | written communication., BF456.W8 F35 2020 (print), BF456.W8 (ebook), 158.1/6──dc23, 2020, )
____________________________________
Daniel Goleman, Working with emotional intelligence, 1998
hardcover
658.409
Goleman
pp.327-328
Gauging Readiness
Extensive research (on more than 30,000 people) by James Prochaska, a University of Rhode Island psychologist, establishes four levels of readiness people go through during a successful behavior change.
■ Oblivious: As G. K. Chesterton, the British pundit, put it, “It isn't that thy can't see the solution ── they can't see the problem”. People at this stage aren't ready at all; they deny they have any need to change in the first place. They resist any attempt to help them change ── they just don't see the point.
■ Contemplation: People at this stage see that they need to improve and have begun to think about how to do so. They are open to talking about it but not quite ready to pursue development whole heartedly. Ambivalence is rampant; some wait for a “magic moment” of readiness, while others leap into action prematurely but meet failure because they are halfhearted. People at this stage are as likely to say they intend to take some action “next month” as they are to say they'll do it “in the next six months”. Prochaska notes that it's not unusual for people “to spend years telling themselves that someday they are going to change”. They substitute thinking for acting. Prochaska cites the case of an engineer who spent five years analyzing the factors that had made him passive and shy ── but didn't think he understood the problem well enough to do anything about it.
■ Preparation: Here people have begun to focus on the solution ── on how to improve. They are on the verge, eager to develop an action plan. They are aware of the problem, see that there are ways to solve it, and palpably anticipate doing so. People are sometimes propelled to this heightened stage of readiness by a dramatic event ── a heart-to-heart talk with a supervisor, a disaster on the job, a crisis in their personal life. One executive was jolted into bolstering his self-control competence when the police stopped him on the way home from a business dinner and arrested him for driving drunk. At this point people are ripe for change; this is the time for formulating a specific, detailed plan of action.
■ Action: Visible change begins. People embrace the plan, start practicing its steps, and actually change how they act ── their emotional patterns, the way they think about themselves, and all the other facets of transforming a long-standing habit. This stage is what most people think of as “making the change”, though it builds on the earlier steps in getting ready.
p.264
“A large number of people at our training seminars feel like prisoners of the human resource department”,
“They just don't want to be here. And their resistance is infectious.”
Willingness is crucial, but many organizations pay no attention to whether the people they send for training really want to learn or change.
the “eager beavers”, who are ready to change;
the “vacationers”, who are happy to get out of work for a day or two;
the “prisoners”, who were told by their manager they had to come.
p.264
; if people aren't really ready to change, then that fact itself can become a first focus for them.
p.264
If people are not ready to take action, forcing them will lead to disaster: the sham of going through the motions only to satisfy others, resentment rather than enthusiam, quitting.
p.264
a first step is to help people assess their own readiness.
p.264
There are four levels of readiness: obliviousness or outright resistance, contemplating a change at some vague point in the future, ripeness to formulate a plan, and readiness to take action.12
p.264
“Before they come to the first session we try to talk to each person about any concerns they might have”, Kate Cannons says.
p.264
to see if they want to change at all.
“”─“”‘’•─“”
Daniel Goleman, Working with emotional intelligence, 1998
hardcover
658.409 Goleman
other books by Daniel Goleman
Emotional Intelligence;
Vital Lies, Simple Truth;
The Meditative Mind;
co-author, The Creative Spirit.
____________________________________
Michael Michalko, Creative thinkering : putting your imagination to work, 2011
p.xviii Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology
As Brian Arthur argues in his book The Nature of Technology, nearly all technologies result from combination of other technologies, and new ideas often come from people from different fields combining their thoughts and things. One example is the camera pill, invented after a conversation between a gastroenterologist and a guided missile designer.
pp.xv-xvi Hubble mirror
p.xv
When the Hubble telescope was first launched into space, scientists were unable to focus it.
p.xv
The problem was how to deliver the mirrors and insert them precisely into the right locations. The right location was in a light bundle behind the main mirror.
p.xv
Electrical engineer James Crocker was attending a seminar in Germany when he found out about the problem. He worked on it all day. Tired, he stepped into the shower in his hotel room. The European-style shower included a showerhead on an arrangement of adjustable rods.
pp.xv-xvi
While manipulating the showerhead, Crocker suddenly realized that similar articulated arms bearing coin-shaped mirrors could be extended into the light bundle from within a replacement axial instrument by remote control.
p.xvi
Crocker was startled by his sudden realization of the solution that was immensely comprehensive and at the same time immensely detailed. As Crocker later said, “I could see the Hubble's mirrors on the shower head”.
( Creative thinkering : putting your imagination to work / Michael Michalko.,
1. creative thinking., 2. creative ability., 3. imagination., FB408.M485, 2011, 153.1'5--dc23, first printing, September 2011, )
____________________________________
Frans Johansson, The Medici effect: what elephant & epidemics can teach us about innovation, 2006
pp.74-75
p.74
Of course, in order for it to work we must be able to associate freely between the different backgrounds, as discussed in chapter 4. If we can manage that, though, we can often transplant old methodologies or frameworks into the new environment and generate unusual idea combination.
pp.74-75
Consider, for instance, what happened when an engineer became curious about the long loops we have in our kidneys. For many years physiologists had assumed that the loops had no special function and were a relic of the way the kidney had evolved. But they reminded the engineer of a countercurrent multiplier, an engineering device for increasing the concentration of liquids. And he was right, that is exactly what they are used for in our bodies.4
4. Edward DeBono, New Think: the use of lateral thinking in the generation of new ideas (New York: Basic books, 1968).
(The Medici effect: what elephant & epidemics can teach us about innovation, Frans Johansson, 2006, 658.4063 Johansso, )
____________________________________
Theodore Rockwell., The rickover efffect : how one man made a difference / 1992,
pp.231-232
In the spring of 1951, hostility and distrust were beginning to build up between Naval Reactors and its new partner, the Bettis laboratory run by Westinghouse. Efforts to pin the blame for this only exacerbated the problem, so Rickover called for a “Quaker meeting”.
“Do you know what I mean by that?” he asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he continued: “The Quakers have an excellent approach to thinking through difficult problems, where a number of intelligent and responsible people must work together. THey meet as equals, and anyone who has an idea speaks up. THere are no parliamentary procedures and no coercion from the Chair. They continue the discussion until unanimity is reached. I want you guys to do that. Get in a room with no phones and leave orders that you are not to be disturbed. And sit there until you can deal with each other as individuals, not as spokesmen for either organization.”
He sent Ray Dick, Bob Panoff, and Eli Roth to deal with three senior Bettis engineers, one of whom he named chairman. It took ten days to get past the barriers, but the process finally worked. You could not pin down what did it, but all agreed that things were permanently changed for the better after that.
p.232
Rickover tried the process again in 1952, with the GE people at the Knolls laboratory. Dick and Panoff joined Robert V. Laney, to bring the Bettis experience into play, but there never seemed to be the same degree of trust, and the process was abandoned after a few meetings. Relations between NR and Knolls grew steadily worse. It was a long time before a reasonably satisfactory environment was developed.
p.232
Some time after that, Rickover decided to try the process at home. This time he was concerned not with ..., but with the broader issue of how we could improve our way of operating. He called in a few of his senior people and said that he wanted us to get together, including some of his field reps, and have a Quaker meeting.
“Go somewhere with no phones and stay two or three days. Then give me a report of your conclusions. Do you have some place you can go? Don't go where there are kids or dogs. Some place isolated.”
member of the Sycamore Island Canoe club.
a completely isolated island, no phone, in the middle of the Potomac river.
The only way to get to it is to pull on a rope, which rings a bell on the island, and a guy pulls a raft across, hand over hand on the rope, and carries you back to the island the same way.
just six miles from downtown. We can get there in half an hour.
pp.232-233
“OK, go”
“What's the question, Admiral? WHat are we trying to answer?”
“Dammit, that's what you're trying to find out! We're working on all the questions we've identified. What ones have we missed? Getting the right questions is harder ── and more important ── than getting answer. Now go!”
So we went, and swam, and talked, and ate sandwiches, and surprisingly some useful ideas came out of it. The Admiral didn't always buy all our recommendations, but the mere process of unstructured talk among ourselves proved to be valuable. We did it several times.
“”─“”‘’•─“”
p.233
“That's why we're going to have the meeting, Admiral. To try to reach some conclusions”, I said, ingenuously.
“Dammit, that's why everyone else is going to the meeting”, said Rickover.
“You're supposed to be going to achieve certain clearly defined objectives. They should be written out in advance and discussed with me and other appropriate people here before you go. If you can't do that, you shouldn't go. How will you know if you've accomplished what you wanted to, if you haven't defined your objectives in advance? You'll end up agreeing to somebody else's objectives without realizing the implications of what you've done. Dammit, Rockwell, you sure are naive.”
“”─“”‘’•─“”
pp.233-234
Conclusions had to be agreed by all participants.
the dissenting view was spelled out and attributed to the appropriate party.
Action section was always written in the form of agreed commitments by named parties to do certain things by stated dates.
But when it came time to write the Conclusions, it was amazing to discover that there was not so much agreement after all.
there was no mutual understanding as to who was committed to what action.
pinning down exactly what was agreed to and who was going to do what.
(The rickover efffect : how one man made a difference / Theodore Rockwell., 1. rickover, hyman george., 2. nuclear submarines ── united states ── history.
3. admirals ── united states ── biography., 4. united states., navy──biography,
V63.R54R63 1992, 359.3'2574'092--dc20, united states naval institute, Annapolis, Maryland, 1992 )
____________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment