Information or knowledge is important only to the extent, clarity and effectiveness with which it serves as "input data" to the problem-solving or innovation process. Any data residing in the"hard-drive" of your mind is worthless - in fact, a hindrance to the problem-solving process unless fetched to the "RAM" of your mind with the right content, the right sequence, and the right "chunks".

 

Consider, for example, the experiments conducted by the social psychologist Howard Levanthal in the 1960s. Levanthal wanted to see if he could persuade a group of college seniors at Yale University to get a tetanus shot. He divided them up into several groups, and gave all of them a seven-page booklet explaining the dangers of tetanus, the importance of inoculation, and the fact that the university offered free tetanus shots at the campus health center to all interested students. The booklets  came in several versions.

 

Some of the students were given a "high fear" version, which described tetanus in dramatic terms and included color photographs of a child having a tetanus seizure and other tetanus victims with urinary catheters, tracheotomy wounds, and nasal tubes. In the "low fear" version, the language describing the risks of tetanus was toned down, and the photographs were

omitted.

 

The results of this study were as follows :

 

- all the students appeared to be well educated about the dangers of tetanus

- those with high-fear booklet were more convinced of the dangers of tetanus and the importance of the shots

- those with the high-booklet were more likely to admit that they intended to get inoculated.

 

However, all these differences were thrown to the trash when it was found that almost none of the subjects (only 3 percent) actually went and got a shot, even one month after the experiments.

 

What was the problem that the experiment had intended to solve ?

 

It must have been to educate the students about tetanus and tetanus shots, SO THAT THEY GO AND GET THEMSELVES VACCINATED.

 

What was the problem that the experiment eventually solved ?

 

It did educate the students, but didn't result in any action.

In the second stage of the experiment, one minor change in the campaign took up the vaccination rate to 28 percent. It was simply including a map of the campus, with the university health center circled and the times that shots were available clearly listed.

 

The most interesting point is that in the group which got inoculated, the distribution of the high-fear and the low-fear group was almost similar.

 

The students knew, without seeing the booklets, about the dangers of tetanus.

As seniors of the college, they knew where the health center was and the route to that building. It is highly unlikely that any of them would have used the map as a reference to find the place when they went for vaccination.

 

What, then, did the additional map achieve ?

 

The mind is an excellent pattern-recognition system. Every problem-solving or innovation activity is nothing but the mind making sense of a given input set of data, one part of the input data being the problem statement.

 

However, what you know doesn't affect your problem-solving activity much, unless you are "aware" of that data "during the process of innovation". Just as any data sitting in the hard drive doesnt help an executing program till it is brought in the RAM, it is the "awareness" and NOT the "knowledge" of the input data that affects the innovation process.

There is a significant difference between "awareness" and "knowledge" and it is a very common phenomenon that one is confused for the other. If you have ever used the phrase, "I know that, but still ..... ", you know what I mean !!! Knowledge abused can be a big deterrant to innovation !!! However, it doesn't mean that ignorance will spark off innovation, either !!!

 

In the above example, the students knew what the dangers of tetanus where.

They knew that tetanus shots could help them avoid those dangers.
They knew that the health center administered the tetanus shots.
They knew the route to the health center.
They knew the health center timings.
They had been asked again and again by several volunteers to get vaccinated as early as possible.

 

But, none of the knowledge translated into action.

 

Once, all this data was presented to them such that it was present in their focus of awareness in the RIGHT manner, the mind could create the pattern of "visiting the health-center and getting vaccinated" -  which was more likely to be translated into the appropriate action.

 

In fact, the right presentation of the input data to the mind is one of the most important links in the creation of a solution or a new idea. Innovation or Problem-Solving involves communicating the required data-set appropriately and "allowing" the mind (your own or

others') to recognize a solution.

 

THE MIND IS A BUSY MECHANISM, ALWAYS MAKING INFERENCES AND RECOGNIZING PATTERNS IN WHATEVER INPUT DATA IT HAS ACCESS TO. It doesn't need to taught to recognize patterns. It only needs to be presented the appropriate input data in the right presentation sequence !!!

 

However, "content" is only one of the several aspects of the input data that affects innovation. The sequence of the data, the timing, the chunks in which the data is administered and a host of other factors can move the innovation process forward

or backward exponentially.

All the problems where all your knowledge didn't seem to work ...

 

All those marketing campaigns that didnt seem to translate to sales ...

 

All those management pep-talks that only led to the employees ridiculing the management behind their backs ...

Could they be  dealt with more powerfully by streamlining the presentation of the data or the message to the respective minds

?

Would flooding of information of inaccurate and irrelevant data delivered in an inappropriate sequence help the innovation process ?

 

We will talk a lot about these in the future newsletters. Keep Listening.

Visit the TENEX home-page http://mindstones10x.com for more information on developing skills of accurate, streamlined and optimal thinking that multiplies your efficiency and effectiveness at problem-solving and innovation many times.