Porg Problem Solving

Recently, as I was setting up a prank for my Dad by sticking magnetic Porgs to ceiling struts using a stepladder, an old fashioned back scratcher, and a scrunchie, I realized “this right here might be the most valuable skill I bring to a company.” No, not random pranks, but my ability to find creative solutions to problems is what my leadership has always found invaluable.

As much as my husband might tease me about it I love Porgs, those strange little squawkers from Star Wars. The reason I love them isn’t their bug eyed cuteness, or even that they are sea birds (sort of?) It is because of the story of how they came to be- a prime example of thinking creatively when confronted with an issue. The story goes that the island in Ireland where they wanted Luke Skywalker’s scenes to be filmed was covered with puffins. So many puffins in fact, that photoshopping all of them out was going to be time consuming and expensive. Instead of sitting down to erase thousands of birds, the team decided to create a Star Wars animal those puffins could be instead. Tada- Porgs!

Using a hair scrunchie to lightly secure a Porg with a magnetic butt to a back-scratcher stick, so that when standing on a stepladder I could extend my reach to attach the Porg to the ceiling is a rather meta (and ridiculous) example of a thing I have been doing since I was a kid. 

Much to my Mom’s chagrin I have always been a “creative” problem solver. Example- When I was 13, my brother and I put a hole in the wall (tobogganing down the stairs in the dog’s crate was a bad idea…who knew!) I found the spackling in the garage, patched the hole, used a kitchen sponge to make the texture match the rest of the wall, then painted it. We realized it wouldn’t dry before she got home, but hey! Hair dryers dry right? (Almost a decade later when she repainted the wall, she found the spot and had some questions.) As a kid, my creative problem solving was learned largely trying to stay two steps ahead of my terrifyingly smart Mom, and let me tell you I only succeeded half the time. Don’t worry I am trying to make up for being such a devious pain in the butt now that I am an adult! (Love you Mom!)

As I got older I realized I genuinely liked finding the creative ways to do what others said was impossible. The more impossible I was told something was, the more I wanted to solve the problem. If something had never been done, I wanted to create new path to get there. If it needed to be fixed, the tools I needed were likely there if I just looked at the problem differently.

No matter how much we prepare or study, we will never have all the tools for what life throws at us. Black Swan events are going to happen. That doesn’t mean your thinking can’t be adapted to think of everything as a possible tool. Sometimes you don’t have a hammer when you need to pound in a nail, but the thing is a hammer is just a specialized tool for that job. You really just need something sturdy that can produce enough concentrated percussive force to make the nail go into the wood.

The companies that we see doing well by their employees and customers in 2020 are those that quickly adapted to thinking outside the box to help keep people safe. I doubt most of them had a “break in case of global pandemic” plan in their offices. From working from home, to remote education for schools, to a delivery model from places that have never done delivery like Canlis here in Seattle, flexibility to adapt and overcome has been key. COVID has thrown issues at us we have only seen in movies before this, and we have needed to think as creatively as our heroes in those movies do. Clothing companies around the world are making masks at an unheard of rate, scientists are applying new ML techniques to try to find a cure. Taking the tools we have and applying them in new ways, creative problem solving, is what comes through when all the best laid plans stumble.

There you have it. The secret sauce to response. Even in the face of a global pandemic as a person or a company, you need to train, you need to build up your tool box as much as you can, then train your mind to be creative. It isn’t the ability to plan out the details for every possible thing that could happen, it is changing your mind set and planning and preparing to be ready to use what you have, what you know, and adapt. Plan, prepare, use your Porg powers.