March 13
Personality and Problem Solving
Topics: The hidden value of unsolved problems. Types of problems. What is intelligence? Three types of intelligence. Identifying and harnessing your optimal cognitive style. The role of personality diversity in team problem solving.
Let's begin with a quiz (will form the basis of an in-class exercise, but if you're lurking about this Web site, you can start to ponder it now). Below are listed sixty questions or problems. Your job is to categorize or classify these questions into groups of similar problems. How many distinct categories do you find? (You can get extra credit in the class by answering all 60 questions, although this isn't the point of the exercise; you're likely to struggle a bit with #29, however, which stumped mega-genius Stephen Hawking, as well as #47, the favorite question of literary marvel G.K. Chesterton.)
Sixty Problems
Copyright (c) 2002 - Marlowe C. Embree, Ph.D.
All rights reserved
1. What does 2 + 3 equal?
2. What is the basic theme of Finnegans Wake?
3. My kindergarten age son is shy and does not make friends easily.
4. What do I want my life to be like in twenty years?
5. My sister and I have been alienated since an argument we had last Christmas.
6. Of the different religious viewpoints in the world, which is most likely to be correct and why?
7. I lost my checkbook last night and can't find it.
8. What is the quickest way to get from West High to the Log Cabin Restaurant by car?
9. How can I ensure that I will have enough money to live on when I retire?
10. My middle school age daughter was caught "huffing".
11. Is light more like a wave or a particle?
12. What would life be like in America today if Germany had won World War II?
13. My wife and I aren't getting along very well these days.
14. My psychology teacher's lectures are boring.
15. My favorite TV show was just cancelled.
16. What is the second derivative of x3 - 2x + 5?
17. The leaky faucet in my bathroom keeps me awake at night.
18. Frankly, I'm not that much interested in life any more.
19. Does human consciousness survive the death of the physical body?
20. Who was the most influential person of the twentieth century?
21. I need to lose twenty pounds but am having a hard time doing so.
22. What are 10 innovative, creative uses for a rock?
23. Where should I go out to eat tonight?
24. Why doesn't anyone understand my sense of humor?
25. How can our society develop a means of providing universal health coverage without bankrupting the economy?
26. My job is boring and frustrating.
27. What can be done about global warming?
28. In the chess game I am playing, my opponent opened with the Queen's Gambit Declined. What move should I make next?
29. Why are we capable of remembering the past, but not the future?
30. What new kind of toothpaste could be developed that would capture the market?
31. My husband annoys me by always leaving the toilet seat in the upright position.
32. I work with an abusive colleague.
33. How can we best account for the origin of the universe?
34. I'm getting too old to shovel snow by hand any more.
35. When I go to my mother's house for dinner, she always serves brussels sprouts. I hate brussels sprouts.
36. I have just been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that is invariably fatal within one year.
37. What can be done about the Arab-Israeli conflict?
38. What was the primary cause of World War I?
39. What is the square root of 5 - 3i?
40. I'm having trouble finding paint to match the existing color of my spare room.
41. I have a hard time controlling my temper.
42. I wish I were more assertive (if that's okay with you).
43. What would a truly alien (nonhuman) consciousness be like?
44. I can't get promoted at work because I'm a woman.
45. Could there ever be such a thing as a truly universal language?
46. What shall I do about the stray cat that is living under my back porch?
47. Which is better, cheese or Wednesday?
48. I'm in the middle of making a recipe that calls for coriander, but I've run out and the local grocery store doesn't have any.
49. What is a four-letter word that means "baby horse"?
50. What was I doing exactly one year ago today?
51. I'm a Boomer scheduled to give a lecture to an audience of Gen X-ers. Given our different experiences and values, how can I best connect with them?
52. If the price of food keeps going up, I won't be able to afford to eat at all.
53. If I wanted to corner the market in pork belly futures, how would I begin?
54. I think I'm a caffeine addict.
55. What would a person who weighs 100 pounds on earth weigh on the moon?
56. I think I might need bifocals.
57. What is the meaning of life?
58. I have trouble remembering other people's names.
59. What can be done to prevent the collapse of the Social Security system?
60. What shall we name the baby?
As you can see, there are a wide variety of different problems (or unanswered questions) in the world! Those who are skilled at solving one class or category of problems may be very poor at, or generally clueless regarding, a different kind of problem. (It was said that Albert Einstein, who developed the general theory of relativity in his spare time while working as a patent clerk, could not follow a simple movie plot.) That's the whole point of this exercise.
In class, I'll reveal the "answer" (or, at least, one answer, based on the multivariate theory of intelligence developed by Sternberg) as to how many different kinds of problems there are in the list above.
Why might a person who excels at one kind of problem solving struggle deeply with another kind? Because of the way the human brain develops. During the first several years of your life, the brain actually discards many (at least half) of the connections between neurons that were originally formed. Why? Because it's necessary for you to become an intellectual specialist if you're going to develop any measurable strengths. If all mental pathways were equally well developed, you'd have no way to break a mental deadlock -- you'd be hopelessly stuck (just to pick a few obvious examples) between your "heart" and your "head", or between a close-up focus on details and a long-range focus on the big picture. To function well, the brain has to have a "default mode", which means that some connections must be strengthened while others are allowed to atrophy.
In class, you'll be provided with some additional tools for identifying your own intellectual strengths. Many of these go far beyond what educators think of as "intelligence" in a narrow (academic) sense. One example -- a current "hot topic" among educators and human resource directors alike -- is "resilience".
What is resilience?" It can be defined as
the ability to make the best of changing conditions…
to bounce back after a defeat, loss, or setback… to survive tough times rather
than being overcome by them. It
means knowing how to cope with problems and difficulties, and how to turn them
into opportunities. It is closely allied to the concept of "emotional
intelligence" and emotional self-management, and is very definitely a type
of problem-solving ability.
Why
does resilience matter? For one thing, studies
indicate that resilience is one of the best predictors of an employee’s
capacity to be an effective contributor and to add value to an organization. In one study, 2/3 of all new hires failed within 2 years
due to the lack of resilience. Some
of those failures were obvious and outward (the employee was terminated or chose
to leave the organization to avoid termination). Others were more subtle (lessened productivity, negative
impact on employee morale, resistance to change, cultivation of an entitlement
mentality).
What
qualities do resilient individuals have? Technically speaking, resilience
is a cluster of skills, not one single capability.
In general, resilient individuals demonstrate:
Willingness
to take responsibility
for themselves, rather than blaming others or passing the buck
A
perception that problems are opportunities rather than obstacles; “possibility
thinking”
Optimism
and trust regarding themselves, others, and circumstances
Solution-focused
thinking as
opposed to catastrophizing, worrying, or panic
A
“lifelong learning” orientation
that includes mental curiosity and a thirst for knowledge
Social
competence
including a recognition that others have value and that no one can make it alone
Resilience
isn’t an all-or-nothing phenomenon. It
is a set of learnable skills and attitudes.
All of us can begin where we are to enhance our resilience and to help
those around us to do the same. (If
you recognize a lack of resilience in yourself, that’s an opportunity for
growth in disguise!)
Here are some suggestions for how to foster resilience in others (e.g., those who report to you at work):
Model
resilience in your own life
– employees focus more on what you do than on what you say
Reward
employees
for acting resiliently – for taking chances, for admitting mistakes, for
learning
Be
honest with employees
about the changing world of work and how it may impact their careers
Provide
opportunities for learning and
development, even at the risk of helping some people move on
Cut
yourself and others some slack
when you’re less than perfect – growth is a process
It's not surprising that there are clear links between personality (e.g., the Big Five model discussed on the first night of class) and problem-solving capabilities and approaches. Can you guess what some of them might be? (We'll discuss this in class, so I won't reveal the answer here.)
Why do diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams on most problem-solving ventures (and the more so as the complexity of the problems increases)? Because most problems call for multiple perspectives and multiple strengths. In fact, studies show that teams of "ordinary" people routinely outperform individual superstars on most problem solving tasks (assuming sufficient diversity of the kinds of problems that have to be solved, or the kinds of capabilities required to solve them). It's not that others are smarter than you are, but they are stupid in different ways, which is just as good! Besides, they can help you break out of mental ruts, which frequently plague us all; as Einstein put it, "No problem can successfully be solved by the same mind that originally identified and defined it."