1. Cray Winfrey and Ngai Ukwelli
A whack on the side of your head: Unlocking mental lock chapter 1 the right answer
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2. Shapes.
Chose the odd one out?
A B C D.
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3. Shapes answer All of you pat yourself on the back
They’re all right. A is the only one with no points . B is the only one that is asymmetrical. C is the only one with all straight lines. D is the only one with a straight and curvy line.
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4. Throughout your life…
You take over 2600 tests based on if you can get the right answer. WHY… to get the right answer !
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5. Many right answers
Life is ambiguous there are many “right answers”- all depending on what you’re looking for. But if you think there is only one answer, then you’ll stop when you find one.
( just like the shapes in the first exercise)
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6. The Right Answer
One 10th grade teacher put a dot on a chalkboard and asked her students what they thought it was . They only had one answer --a dot on a chalkboard. The day before she had asked kindergartners what it was, and they said about fifty different things.
In the ten years between kindergarten and high school they learned how to find the right answer and lost their imaginative power.
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7. First Graders
A teacher asked her first graders to color in an outline of a house, tree, flowers, clouds and sky the appropriate colors.
On one paper the teacher put an x. The student later came in and asked the teacher why she put an x on her paper.
The teacher responded “the grass isn't gray its green, the sky is blue, not yellow as you have drawn it; why did you draw it like this?” The student said, “Because that’s how it looks to me when I wake up early and watch the sunrise. “ The teacher had assumed there was only one right answer.
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8. Consequences!!!
Looking for the right answer results badly most times.
Most people look for the easy way out.
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only one you have.
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9. The Second Right Answer
A leading business school did a study that its graduates performed well at first. But after 10 years they were overtaken by more streetwise people.
The business school said the reason was because “we taught them how to solve problems, not recognize opportunities. When opportunity knocked they put up a do not disturb sign.”
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10. The Second Right Answer
Many companies such as a computer company the author worked with, when asked to make proposals would only make one idea which made it less likely to have an innovative idea.
So look for a second right answer instead of being content with one.
Why stick with just one
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11. Look for the second right answer
Often the second right answer ,although off-beat or unusual, is exactly what you need to solve a problem in a more innovative way.
One technique for finding the second right answer is to change the questions you use to probe a problem.
If you train yourself to ask questions that solicit more than one Idea, people will think more deeply and offer more ideas.
Linus Pauling said “The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.” That is why photographers take so many pictures.
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12. Change Your Question
“The second assault on the same problem should come from a totally different direction. “ –Tom Hirshfield, Physicist.
Another technique for finding more answers is to change the wording in your questions.
For instance if an architect looks at an opening between two rooms and thinks ,“What type of door should I use to connect these two rooms?” he will be limited to making a door, whereas if the architect asks ,“What sort of passageway should I put here?” he has so many different possibilities.
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13. Change your question in action
There was a plague in a small village in Lithuania. As soon as a person contracted it, they would go into a deep deathlike coma. Most people died within a day.
The problem was a lot of the time people couldn’t tell if the person was dead or alive.
One day the village heard of someone being buried alive, so they called a town meeting. One group decided to put food, water, and an air hole in each casket; the other group proposed attaching a twelve inch stake to the lid of the casket so that when it was closed the person would die.
The difference was the questions they asked. The first group asked “What should we do if somebody is buried alive?” while the second group asked “ How do we make sure someone isn't buried alive?”
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14. The Sufi Judge
Two men had an argument. To settle it they went to a Sufi judge for arbitration. The plaintiff made his case and the judge responded “That’s right, that’s right.” After hearing that, the defendant jumped up and said, “You haven’t heard my side of the story yet.” So he told his story and upon finishing it, the judge responded “That’s right, that’s right.” Then the clerk jumped up and said, “Judge, they can’t both be right, and the judge responded, “That’s right, that’s right.”
The moral of this story is Truth is all around you; what matters is where you place your focus.
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15. Tips:
The answers you get depend on the questions you ask. Play with your wording to get different answers.
One technique is to solicit plural answers.
Another is to ask
questions that
whack
people’s
thinking.
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