You can't always solve your problems by methods that worked in the past.
"We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them."
-Albert Einstein
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
?????????????-Abraham Maslow
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Two weeks’ ago Dave and I were heading to the conference center to join Actuarial Services for a lunch to honor soon to be retired Mike Groves. Both of us joined Grinnell Mutual as marketing representatives. Mike moved on to underwriting and later we were both working in the Iowa commercial underwriting team. Naturally, I did not want to miss his honor luncheon. As we left our offices Dave went down the stairs and I entered our elevator/lift, waited for the door to close, and pushed the down button. The elevator didn't move. I thought my thumb slipped off the button (the elevator stops has soon as you release the button). I pushed again, properly and although the lights in the elevator were on the elevator refused to move.
While this was strange?it didn’t create a serious problem, or so I thought. I would just back out of the elevator. Now for the second issue, the door remained locked. This is where I asked Kim to bring my cell phone that I left on my desk so I would have something to do and to try to get some assistance. Dave contacted John Guthrie and he came to assist. There is a key to unlock the door but it was no where to be found. John, after some quick problem solving used a small pliers to?unlock the door and I was free from the elevator but couldn’t make Mike’s retirement luncheon.?
Later we learned?that the electrical breaker to the lift was turned off. This bothered me. My dad was an electrician and if something that runs on electricity fails the first thing you do is check the power source. How could I fail to think of this. I can just imagine my dad’s reaction when I tell him this story! I am sure he will challenge my problem-solving abilities. Since the lights in the elevator turned on when I pushed the down button, I assumed the unit had power. But the power was from the back up battery that only had enough?power to light the lights, but not enough to unlock the door. This wasn’t my first experience being stuck on a small lift. I have one at home to get me from the garage to our first-floor entrance. In that case we checked the breaker box, and the breaker was not tripped, we then checked the outlet for the lift, and it had electrical power as well. What created the problem with my home lift was the fact that the motor burned out and needed to be replaced. ??
Solving problems can be difficult and takes a certain critical thinking skill set. Sometimes we fall into the trap of depending on prior experiences and succumbing to our cognitive biases. In this case my prior experience was the situation where the electric motor burned out and my cognitive biases centered upon, if the lights worked inside the lift that meant that the lift had electrical power. As we deal with current and future problems, and future industry changes, we need to think outside the box and not get trapped by depending solely on our past experiences and cognitive biases. ?This is required if we want to be successful in tomorrow’s world.
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