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April 2013 Issue #152 |
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Greetings, With all the touch pads and mobile devices around, "thinking outside of the box" is obsolete. To encourage creative problem solving in your workplace, think off- screen! Scroll to read or click here to hear how over-dependence on menu choices can kill creativity in your work place (2 minutes, 15 seconds).
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To your success! Managing Director |
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Menu-Driven Thinking Kills Creative Problem-Solving Life’s truly important questions have no clear-cut answers. When decisions really count, the best solution depends on many factors, each having its own risks and rewards. This phenomenon seems to run counter to society’s desire to know the right answer to everything. Much of this has been fostered by the introduction of menu choices into daily life. It’s human nature to seek closure, to have the right answer, to know that you are correct. You feel comfort. You feel secure. You know where you stand. But of course, the critical parts of our lives — personal relationships, career choices, and parenting — defy this expectation. I bring this up because it illustrates one of the major differences between digital immigrants and digital natives. Those who came of age before the digitization of the world developed a sense of how to solve problems and overcome obstacles without being surrounded by a universe of possible options presented on screens. As they figured something out, they were rewarded by both a sense of knowledge and an emotional fix, which resulted in newfound confidence. Digital natives are not so lucky. Sure, they’ve learned to navigate through most of life’s daily tasks at a pace never matched by those of generations before. But society has foisted upon them the canard that there will always be an option from which to choose and escapable fix when incorrect. But the older you become, the more you realize that the big choices are relative and permanent. The practical point to what I’m saying is that the more we reinforce in those we supervise the idea that results can be had with the touch of a screen, the more we inhibit in them the development of skills and confidence necessary to solve daily challenges on their own. So what will you do today to make the people around you think outside of the screen in front of them? Read more about menu-driven thinking on the Generations Blog |
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