After viewing Tom Wujec’s TED talk, I completely agree with
his analysis of why kindergartners perform better at the challenge than MBA
students. When thinking about
kindergartners, they are not going into a process with the idea that there is
only one way to go about solving this problem.
They may not even look at it as a problem, and more of a task that together,
they need to find a solution for. I took
many design classes when I was working on my undergraduate degree, and I
remember in a Creative Thinking class that I was in, we were faced with many
similar challenges and we had to work together as a group to find a
solution. As a contributor to a group, I
always see myself as the person injecting weird ideas or saying whatever is on
my mind. When I learned about 100 mile
per hour thinking, where you say whatever comes to your head first, I was
hooked and used this method often in groups.
Usually, I don’t receive much attention for my suggestions, but I do
recognize that what I do suggest is not going to be the solution for a final
product, but they are strategies to help people think outside of whatever area
they are too focused on. When I think
about this approach for me, I see a lot of similarities in the way
kindergartners and children function and think.
They are thinking about whatever solution comes to mind first and are
not concerned with whether or not it will work; its more about the process and
refinement of the steps.
This also plays an important role in the way we are educated
and how that works to form our ways of thinking. Children look at the tools they are given and
see nothing more than what they are, whereas MBA students are looking at these
tools as tools, cutting off any potential for creative ideas because they are
too focused on what each item represents in terms of building a structure. Children, on the other hand, are not so much
focused on the individual pieces, but the way those pieces work together to
build a structure. Through trial and
error, they are able to determine what will work best and what wont. I also think another contributing factor to
these results is experience and perceived views of other individuals. I think most children interact with each
other very similarly and are not focused on individual attributes of people,
but instead on communicating and working together through fun. MBA students are too focused on not just
themselves, but the other team members, the competition, and the thought of
failure. The pressure, I believe,
increases for adults because they are too focused on the goal and if they feel
like they are reaching that goal, they go into panic mode. I think these are learned and develop traits
because you don’t see much of this behavior in children, even in sports. Yes, children want to win at competitions,
but they view the competition differently than adults, making their abilities
to adapt to the process more efficient.
I think CEO’s tend to perform better with assistances
because they are used to functioning in one way and the assistance have more
experience in communicating in a variety of different ways, as well as offering
strong management of group members and processes. CEO’s are usually focused on the big picture
in a broad sense, but on a daily basis, assistances have to focus on the
details of different tasks and activities, making their thought process and
ability to manage groups effectively more dynamic.
The video relates to process intervention in a lot of
ways. I have always been interested in
what Tom Wujec is discussing in his presentation. I love creative ways to get people thinking
and actively engaged in a learning experience, and I think group and team
building through these types of activities is an effective way of highlighting
these process intervention tools. The
first main topic related to process intervention tools includes the ability to
problem solve and make decisions. This
always seems like the area where most teams struggle from my experience. It is important to make sure everyone is
heard and that all ideas are shared, while still maintaining progress. You don’t want to get too stuck on the
discussion step in these types of activities because then it becomes too
focused on a final idea instead of a process.
Recognizing that, as a group, you are working together in a process and
not just a final idea would be a crucial point to make. What makes these activities more challenging
is that through process and refinement, the discussion and group consensus
comes from just doing instead of talking about it.
Another important step would be to probe and ask questions
while working on developing the process. If someone is on to something with the
spaghetti, asking questions about their process and where they are going could
help to spark more ideas and suggestions, furthering the process intervention
method.
Overall, I love the idea that Tom Wujec has shared and I
think it can be an incredibly useful and beneficial concept that can help teams
in all sorts of areas. In my immediate
career, I can see this being useful when working toward problem solving ideas. Maybe not doing this exact activity, but
utilizing the steps and the idea of process and refine, this would be
beneficial in seeing that development of new hires is a journey and not
something that happens right out of the gate.
These ideas can also help to build confidence and establish stronger
staff in the long run.
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