Work In Colour - Work. Think. Live. In Colour
Monday 16th February 2009 | No comments
Try this small puzzle...the answer is at the end, but do all the parts before taking a peek!
You are standing by a lake with 3 empty jars of different sizes. The first jar holds 17 cups of water, the second holds 37 cups and the third holds 6 cups. Your challenge is to see whether using these three jars you can measure out exactly 8 cups.
Once you've done that, try the same puzzle - but this time the jars hold 31, 61 and 4 cups respectively, and the target is 22 cups.
And again, but this time the jars hold 10, 39 and 4 cups respectively, and the target is 21 cups.
And for the last time, where the jars hold 23, 49 and 3 cups respectively, and the target is 20 cups.
Now, a couple of thoughts:
Did you notice that all the problems could be solved by filling the largest jar, and from it filling the middle sized jar once and smallest jar twice?
Did you also notice that the last problem has a much easier and more elegant solution than the one that works for the first three?
So, the problems all look the same, but the last one has two solutions, not just one - and the second solution is much more efficient. It is easy to imagine this happening in a work context...a series of problems come along and we solve them all using the same techniques or ways of thinking. This is so even though things change over time - and not all problems are in fact the same type, even though they might look like it on the surface.
So, next time you have a problem at work, think - is there another way of looking at this?
(This problem was initially developed and tested by Abraham and Edith Luchins in 1950, as cited in Guy Claxton's book, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind)
Tags: ideas, creativity
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