We sent our kids to the grandparents for a week. This used to mean we would take a week off and build something at the house (bookcases in the living room, an entertainment center under the stairs, a bridge over the little creek in the back); now it means we get to work extra hours--but we do see a lot more late movies. Anyway, one thing I noticed after the kids come back is that for the first day or so when they ask us something they start out with Grandmother or Daddio and then realize they need to change to Mom or Dad. Sample conversation:
"Grand---Mom, can I eat a Snickers for breakfast?"
"No"
"OK. Daddio--Dad, can I eat a Snickers for breakfast?"
"Sure, just don't tell your mother."
The point is that in one short week, their pattern has changed from Mom and Dad to Grandmother and Daddio. It takes only a day or so for them to switch back, but it is noticeable. Their pattern-making and pattern-breaking mechanisms are quite pliable. This, I surmise, is one good reason why kids are also so great at imagining things. Their patterns aren't yet set. They haven't been exposed to the same constructs over and over, so they can forget things easier and make new connections. Until we beat all the creativity out of them in school or through routine, they can make infinitely better connections than adults can. They also suspend their judgments more readily.
When is the last time you took a problem you were trying to solve to a child? A teenager? You'd be surprised at the viewpoint you get--and sometimes how readily they solve the problem you are having. Have you thought about setting up a session at the local elementary school where you go in and present a few problems you are wrestling with or client needs and let them have at it? I know from first hand experience organizing the Science Fair at a couple of schools that student solutions sometimes work really well.
When was the last time you thought like a child? Go look out the window and tell me what that cloud looks like. I'm serious. I've been in Europe the last several weeks and I sat by a pool in Italy with a high powered real estate guy and we started the "that one looks like" game. After a couple minutes, you could really start loosening up the patterns and seeing lots of different shapes. And not once was it a Word document.
So here's my advice. Start doing some things you did as a kid. Ride your bike. Build a sandcastle. Make an automatic mailbox announcer for those boring summer afternoons (my colleagues tell me that was probably just me). At work, start singing hot dog theme songs ("oh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener"...or "hot dogs, Armour hot dogs..."). Soon everyone else will join in and the patterns will be easier to make and break. Your goal is to loosen up the pattern machine we call a brain and kick yourself out of the rut.
If you manage innovation at your workplace (or someone else does), suggest adding a new item to the performance appraisal: examples of when you thought like a kid. That should be in there with "times I failed and was rewarded" and "risks I took". If you aren't doing these, you need to start.
So start now. Nobody seems to have a problem being seen reading the new Harry Potter book. Start taking kidding around seriously, just like risk taking and failing forward.
Are you kidding?
Comments