Materials for the Duncker Candle Problem

If I placed these objects in front of you (exclude my business card which would, of course, go straight into your pocket or onto your smart-phone) and asked you how to fix the lit candle to a cork pin-board so that the wax would not drip onto the surface below, how would you go about it?

I first encountered this problem when I was a student at the University of Aberdeen in the late 1980s and I am proud (and a little smug, I confess) to be able to say that I solved the problem within seconds. The psychology student who was testing me told me that some people fail to solve the problem even after fifteen minutes. Let me give you a hint. When Duncker first presented this problem to subjects, with the drawing pins contained within the box, only a small number solved the problem. However, when the pins were placed on the table outside the box, a much higher proportion of subjects came up with the solution.

What was the answer? Successful subjects used the box that had held the drawing pins as a ‘shelf’ to hold the candle and used the drawing pins to fix the ‘shelf’ to the pin-board. Hey presto! An elegant solution. Why, you may be asking, is this relevant to creativity?

The answer is that this simple test demonstrated a concept that is called functional fixedness. Functional fixedness occurs when an object that is initially presented as having a particular function (such as a box having the function of being a container for drawing pins)becomes less likely to be subsequently thought of as having other functions, such as being an improvised shelf. When the drawing pins are presented separate from the box this cognitive bias is less likely to exist and limit problem-solving opportunities.

At Watt Works, on our Creativity Skills courses, we look at ways to overcome personal and organisational functional fixedness in order to generate exciting and creative problem solving.

If you find this concept interesting, keep an eye on this Blog as more information on overcoming functional fixedness and other creativity blockers will be coming soon.

It’s a serious matter, however, as satisfaction and trust in immediate Line Management is one of the critical factors determining staff morale and engagement. I read recently (and I apologise for forgetting the source) that the single best way of assessing staff engagement is to ask an employee the simple question “Do you feel that your Line Manager cares about your development?”

The disparity between Managers’ self-assessment and that of their staff can flag up several issues for any organisation to consider. Firstly, what mechanisms exist in your business for harvesting accurate information about how staff perceive their management, rather than leaving such assessments hostage to the understandable tendency for managerial self-flattery?

Secondly, hand on heart, how would your organisation respond to negative feedback from staff about management performance? Would this be used productively, no matter how hard it might be to hear, or would there be a tendency to bury the feedback or label it as malicious grumblings from malcontents? I remember many years ago, when I worked in a local governmental agency, a staff attitude survey being carried out in our office of about a hundred people. I don’t think any of the staff on the ‘factory floor’, so to speak, had any illusions as to what the results would be as morale was rock-bottom. Sure enough, when the survey was published it was a devastating indictment of the relationship between management and staff.

So what was done with the survey after it was circulated? Nothing. Management never mentioned it again or took any steps to address its findings. I heard that the overall manager within the agency, who had responsibility for our office above local management, had decried staff using the survey to air unreasonable grievances! The saying ‘don’t ask the question if you don’t want an honest answer’ comes to mind.

The third issue to consider is whether any management deficiencies are due to a skills deficit. Lack-lustre and defensive managerial performance can sometimes be a consequence of a manager feeling under-skilled and out of his or her depth. Providing Leadership and Management Training or one-to-one Coaching, such as that offered by Watt Works throughout the UK, could be the key to developing an organisation where your staff are proud to assess their managers as highly as the managers themselves.

Now, let’s set aside whether or not that belief is true (and I for one would not necessarily conclude that a nervous presenter was a dishonest presenter) and look instead at the inevitable consequences of this belief.

Some degree of nervousness is a natural and inevitable correlate of any important presentation. Indeed, it would be alarming if someone wasn’t a bit stimulated and ‘up for it’ during an important meeting. As mind and body are an interlinked system this nervousness will inevitably express itself to some degree in the body – shaky hands, a dry mouth, wobbly legs, butterflies in the stomach etc. All this is normal and natural. The moment this is labelled as a problem, however, something to be concealed for the above-mentioned reason, the presenter gets into a battle with him or herself.

Instead of focusing on the material or the interaction with the audience, the presenter is focused upon his or her own body and internal experience and the completely unrealistic expectation that it should be possible NOT to feel nervous on an important occasion. The presenter becomes distracted and feels he or she has to hide a part of them from the audience. This hidden struggle can only feed whatever degree of nervousness was there in the first place – a vicious circle is created.

Many congruent and confident presenters, on the other hand, do not respond to apprehension in the same way. They accept and value any nervousness they may have and some even acknowledge it light-heartedly to the audience. The beliefs and expectations they hold facilitate great presentations much more readily. Once nerves are acknowledged and accepted, they can turn their focus to where it needs to be – with the material and the audience – and build powerful rapport with the audience based upon the personal congruence of being allowed to acknowledge, rather than deny or battle, aspects of themselves.

These are just some of the many approaches to delivering compelling and congruent presentations that we look at on our Presenting Persuasively courses available throughout the UK.

Whistle-blowing is NOT an easy thing to do. Historically, it has required guts, moral courage and a fair bit of personal resilience. An organisation simply having formal policies is often not enough. In the first instance, particularly at a local level, guilty management will often attempt to intimidate and browbeat a complainant rather than follow proper procedures. It’s a gamble – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Whatever the result, the initial response may have added the legal offence of Victimisation to whatever other misconduct may have taken place. If the whistle-blower refuses to be intimidated and pushes the matter forward, it is possible that the initial response to the complaint will have entrenched the two sides in protracted attrition-style warfare. This is in no-one’s interests.

Professor Davis suggests that ways to make companies more accountable for their response to whistle-blowing would be to make it a criminal offence to victimise whistle-blowers and to encourage government to formally reward whistle-blowing. Along with such statutory provision, however, companies could well consider shaping company culture to make it more acceptable to challenge wrong-doing and provide structures to empower staff to do this.

At Watt Works we are very proud of a model we have developed to facilitate exactly this sort of process. The RISE Model – Resources for Challenging Wrong is being made available as both an open-access and an in-house training, enabling staff at all levels to develop a personal and collective ability to become the moral compass of their organisation.

Please Contact Us to find out more about The RISE Model and how it can help you develop as an organisation.

The debut products – The Seven Secrets of Setting Goals with NLP and Mastering Motivation: How to Motivate Yourself and Others with NLP – are now available for online purchase through iTunes, Amazon and audible.com.

These initial products were written and voiced by the company’s Director of Training, Damian Hamill, a Master Practitioner and Certified Trainer of NLP, and are available in MP3 format, allowing easy online purchase and download to any computer or Internet-enabled MP3 player such as the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.  They will also soon be available through the Watt Works website.

The company will be following these initial releases with the release of a guided hypnosis product – Managing Stress: A Guided Hypnosis Session - and subsequently will be releasing products on subjects such as Dealing with Difficult People, Systems Thinking and an Introductory Guide to NLP.  These subsequent products will be co-developed and voiced by Damian Hamill and David Kerr, the Founder and Managing Director of Watt Works Consulting.

The products are being distributed through AudioInk, a leading Seattle-based digital distributor and it is anticipated that they will be accessible to approximately 95% of the English speaking audio-book and e-book market.

Damian Hamill commented: “We are delighted to be releasing these products to such a wide potential audience.  We believe that the content of the products is stimulating and of the highest quality and showcases the application of a rich blend of approaches, including NLP, to a wide range of work, business and personal settings.  We look forward to increasing the number of titles available as we move through 2012 and beyond.”

The famous psychiatrist and hypnotherapist, Milton H. Erickson, once observed:

“In any work, you are going to use words to influence the psychological life of an individual today; you are going to use words to influence his organic life today, you are going to use words to influence his organic life twenty years from today.

So you had better know what you are saying.  You had better be willing to reflect upon the words you use, to wonder what the meanings are, and to seek out and understand their many associations.”

Erickson, a major influence on NLP, was absolutely right.

The particular piece of research on names exemplifies this.  A poll of 3000 teachers in the United Kingdom found that almost half admitted to forming opinions about new pupils solely based upon seeing their names on the school register.  A full third of teachers stated they believed that names such as Callum, Crystal and Chardonnay were potentially indicative of badly behaved children.

When you appreciate the Pygmalion Effect and the Golem Effect you will understand how such expectations (even if the teacher attempts to suppress them) will nonetheless have a powerful effect.  I look at this process in depth in our forthcoming audio-book Dealing with Difficult People).

Words, not merely names, have the powerful ability to set expectations and shape our responses to events.  Knowing this, I cringe a little when I see how carelessly people use language.  I watched a documentary recently that followed the medical team in an Australian Accident & Emergency department.  A young woman was brought in with a broken ankle and in less than a minute the doctor must have used the word “pain” half a dozen times.  Yes, a broken leg is painful and the procedure he was about to do was not going to be fun but research clearly shows that using the word “pain” primes people to experience much more pain from the same stimulus than using a word such as “sensation”.  By using the word with such little awareness the doctor was effectively amplifying the distress the patient was likely to experience (unintentionally, I am sure).

Recently, I have watched the news about Kofi Annan’s diplomatic mission to resolve the conflict in Syria.  In interviews he has repeatedly stated that the task will be “difficult”.  Maybe it will, but by using that word he is setting a frame that will shape the responses and beliefs of all those he negotiates with.  Is the frame a helpful one?  Ask yourself what language he could have used instead.

Erickson’s exhortation to be aware of the complexities and connotations of the language we use applies not just to medicine, therapy and diplomacy but to every encounter we have in business and the workplace.  Are you placing restraints upon what is achievable by the language you use or are you using language to expand possibilities?

“Unless I have completely missed it, the Occupy Wall Street campaign has no such clear objective and therefore no way of knowing when or if it will be achieved. The upshot is that protesters are either obliged to stay put indefinitely or else demonstrators will gradually drift away over time if the authorities wait long enough, leaving perhaps a much diminished hard-core to continue.”

It seems that this is exactly what happened and after the final eviction of protesters a number of City workers who had worked close to the impromptu camp voiced opinions which come to much the same conclusion. An IT worker in a bank, Linda Aldroish, commented:

“If they had a better case I might have been more understanding but they were railing against everything and anything.”

A Corporate Financier, Will Forbes, observed:

“I came to speak to a few of them and they all have different agendas. They were just complaining but not offering any solutions.”

Anyone who has worked in Coaching will have had similar experiences at an individual level with clients. Many people are well aware of what they don’t like in their current situation and are very good at complaining but have no perception of what they want instead. An important step in coaching, therefore, is to help clients construct a clear, compelling and positively stated goal to move towards. NLP tools such as the SCORE Model can be powerful ways to do this.

So, whether you are looking for personal coaching services or are looking to change the world through political protest, take some time to consider exactly what it is that you want to have happen, rather than just raging against the machine.

Knowing that the mysterious force seeks his destruction and awaits him once he leaves the protective walls of the wizard school, Ged nonetheless must seek his way in the world and he travels far through the Earthsea Archipelago, helping others along the way. He is constantly aware of the shapeless evil he has loosed into the world relentlessly pursuing him. Several times it nearly overwhelms him, causing him to run further and live with fear as a constant companion. After escaping from one encounter back to the help and counsel of his first Master, Ogion, Ged realises he cannot flee forever. He decides that if he must die he will choose the time and place. Furnished with a new magical staff carved for him by Ogion, he sets of to confront his pursuer with a new resolve.

The fascinating thing is that once Ged turns to confront his pursuer it starts to flee from him! The dark shapeless force becomes wispier and less threatening and Ged must speed in pursuit of his quarry. Assisted by a loyal friend, Ged chases his nemesis to the outmost parts of the Archipelago and closes with it. He finally comes face to face with his quarry and finds that he is looking into his own face. He embraces the disowned part of himself and becomes whole again, allowing him to re-enter the world no longer a hostage to his own fears.

This wonderfully crafted story contains great wisdom about how to deal with our fears and concerns. We know that avoidance magnifies fear and apprehension. When we proactively turn to address what frightens us it almost inevitably becomes less intimidating and we feel more empowered and resourceful.

What fears or challenges in your life have you been hiding from that you could choose to confront instead? Sometimes professional Coaching Services can be an excellent way of obtaining support in doing so (remember Ged’s mentor, Ogion, and the friend who accompanied him on his journey?) Watt Works can provide the services of professional coaches in many parts of the UK.

I have worked privately with many individuals who have been utterly terrified of presenting or speaking in front of a group.  It is no exaggeration to say that presentation anxiety has thwarted otherwise highly promising careers and caused more than enough sleepless nights and sweaty palms.

Although I deeply empathise with those I work with to become confident presenters, I do not share their experience.  I love presenting to and teaching others – it is when I feel most alive.  Yet it has not always been so.  I remember when I joined the school Debating Society.  Something inside me compelled me to make my Maiden Speech but in the minutes leading up to it I was shaking like a leaf. I got through my speech and the rest is history – I have not shut up since.  Part of the reason I feel I am now a reasonably confident presenter is that I have had lots of practice, in many different contexts.  Whilst practice isn’t the whole story it certainly helps as a method of desensitising to the unique stimuli of the presentation situation.

What do I mean by “unique stimuli”?  Well, there is probably no other time in your life when you have had to stand directly facing a number of other people, arranged in a unified group, who are looking at you with the expectation that you will provide input and content for the next period of time whilst they sit silently and assess you.  We don’t experience this in any other context and for many it is deeply unfamiliar and uncomfortable.  We are used to being ‘part of’ the group in our interactions and conversations, yet presenting can (doesn’t have to but can) create a sense that we are ‘apart from’ the group.  In short, I am hypothesising that the unique sensory perspectives of presenting to a group triggers within us deep visceral fears.  Instead of ‘group’, we could use the word ‘tribe’ and from an evolutionary perspective, scrutiny by and potential expulsion from the tribe has huge associated risks.

This isn’t the whole story, as some people layer on top of this all sorts of other pressures, expectations and concerns that maximise their discomfort, but it is an important point.  Reassuringly, however, people can become familiar and comfortable with these new sensory experiences if they are given the opportunity to do so.  Furthermore, the many other common beliefs, expectations, inner pressures and so on and so forth that can contribute to presentation anxiety can also be explored and evolved.

Our three day course, Presenting Persuasively, enables delegates to explore their expectations and assumptions, develop skills in stagecraft and audience interaction and challenge limiting beliefs they may have about presenting.  The outcome is a more confident, flexible and resourceful presenter and, who knows, perhaps the ‘risk’ that you might even start to enjoy it.

When circumstances are not as we desire, it is easy to go into a ‘problem mind-set’ in which all our attention goes onto the problem – its causes, its intricacies and its lamentable effects on our lives.  The states that are generated as a result are rarely positive and resourceful. We ruminate and worry and are not in optimal states to generate change.  Furthermore there is a risk that we feed and nourish the problem.  The highly regarded American psychologist, Dr Michael Yapko, has observed that whatever we give our attention to we amplify in our awareness.  This is consistent with the old principle from Chinese medicine that “Qi flows where attention goes.”

When we start to search for solutions, however, the states we generate are very different. We are encouraged to focus on possibilities, positive outcomes, what things will be like when the problem is behind us (note the spatial metaphor – where do your problems go when they are solved?). We can connect with our resources, strengths, energy and optimism. The whole experience is different as we start to feed and nourish positivity. Our chances of generating positive change are significantly enhanced.

Another limitation with focusing on problems rather than solutions is that it plays to the assumption that we need to fully understand the problem in order to construct a solution and that the solution in some way must mirror the problem. These are not always useful assumptions. Problems are often generated by limited perspectives or disempowering beliefs. Staring at and studying these more intensely is likely to reify them rather than allowing them to be destabilised in order to evolve new possibilities. Paradoxically, effective solutions may have nothing to do with the causes of the problem.

An analogy I sometimes use is that of a lobster in a lobster pot. The lobster got in through the funnel-like opening but you can bet your bottom dollar that staring at and contemplating the way into the pot is NOT going to provide a way out.

At Watt Works we offer professional, empowering Executive Coaching, Business Coaching and Life Coaching services to enable clients to identify and implement the solutions they seek.