The course of the world was revolutionized and shaped by many great inventors and
astounding discoverers. They have called upon their flair with commendable courage in times
of problems and have solved it by thinking smartly. For instance, the man who
invented the printing press did not bring it out just out of nothing. He has constantly worked on
the root of the problems to yield the essential fruits.
Harnessing the Resources: During his times, there were carved wooden plates to do printing,
but they were highly laborious and time consuming as it requires a lot of carving and a great
pressure required to lay the paper against the inked wooden plate to create a good impression.
But, the great Gutenberg overcame these two problems which is placing the plates quickly and
then printing it more effectively. He solved the whole jigsaw puzzle with creative thinking and
with a burning desire to solve the issue. He harnessed the then present stamps and seals to
create efficient plates by developing chunks of metal with letters on it. And, regarding the
pressure issue he thought it simply out of the box!
Lucked out: He happened to go to a wedding and there he saw the wine press which gave him
the principles of quick pressure printing and he ultimately stumbled upon the idea of a modern
printing press, in the words of David Perkins, he lucked out! Though the wine press was a
sudden and chance encounter but his thoughts were always groping for such a high yielding
chance. It is the same with Newton, Darwin, Archimedes and many other such great people
who revolutionized the world with their thoughts and then thoroughly converted those
thoughts into desired actions and results.
Synchronizing Thoughts for Accelerated Actions: It just didn’t happen out of nothing,
Gutenberg and other great people like him have already had their thoughts and wills
synchronized for such a discovery or creative invention and that highly increased the chance of
encountering events which accelerated their thoughts into powerful actions. He also had the
breakthrough thinking by having sought through questions like: How could we generate good
pressure to print a page in a single moment? And, for Newton he asked the question, why does
an apple fall? Such curious questions are the threshold of changing the world for better.
Resistors of Reasoning: David Perkins explains wonderfully about what is resisting such
sequential reasoning and how to increase our chances of luck out to beat out the odds of the
common world. Perkins also talks about the gold rush in Klondike, Alaska. He greatly compares
its character with the resemblance of breakthrough problems. He discusses about the
difficulties of finding the gold as it does not leave any merciful tracks of where it is hiding. He
briefly and elegantly explains about the four challenges that are to be encountered while going
through breakthrough thinking.
The Logics of Luck – The Four Challenges: There is a wilderness of possibilities for finding gold
as there are a lot of places to be searched before one could have a glorious breakthrough. There
must be perseverance and persistence in such occasions. He calls it the “wilderness trap”.
Hence, there are many ways but few that provide the desired results. Secondly, he talks about
the clueless plateau which implies that there are no signs showing where the gold is available.
Otherwise it is also called as the plateau trap where the lonely prospector is looking for a
mother lode of gold trapped in a plateau of low gold concentration without any direction
indicators for the huge sands of gold. This clearly resembles that in breakthrough problem
there is no mercy of apparent clues which lead to the solution.
Canyon of Nowhere: Now, the third challenge he discusses is about the narrow canyon of
exploration. The gold could even be present at a completely different place from where the
prospector is actually searching with so much trouble and pain. And, this poor prospector who
is heavily preoccupied with today’s pits or way of thinking can never realize the tremendous
possibilities available elsewhere. It is almost like journeying on a track which takes to another
city, being the irony that the desired destination could as well be on the side parallel track! He
terms this trouble as “the Canyon Trap”. The problem solver could be searching for solutions
without any clue that is completely unavailable within the realm of his search.
Oasis of Vacuum: Finally, the fourth challenge he talks is about the tempting and little
promising signs of gold which makes the prospector to be preoccupied with the little nuggets of
gold, whereas the mother lode of gold is just a few steps away. He calls this as the Oasis of false
promise or in other words the Oasis Trap. In the similar fashion a problem solver could be
attracted to the little oasis in the middle of their journey and mistaken them to be the final
destination and end up being stuck in that rut.
Example for Exploring Problems: So, the four traps are the wilderness trap, plateau trap,
Canyon trap and the Oasis trap. And, now he comes up with the best ways to tear these traps in
order to achieve the celestial glory of solving the problem. He gives a simple example of the
nine dots for exploring such breakthrough problems. It is all about drawing four straight lines
which pass through all the nine dots without lifting pencil from paper. Most of times we happen
ending up connecting all the dots except one and the way it can be solved is by drawing a line
just a little outside one dot. It perfectly resembles all the four thinking traps where we try
drawing different conclusions as we generally tend to think inside the box instead of taking a
little leap into the out of the world senses. It is all about extending your edges to explore and
annihilate the problem with a creative thinking. It just proves that near solutions are not real solutions!
Fuel for Breakthrough Thinking Vehicle: In order to have a breakthrough one must have a
consistent inquiring spirit combined with careful experience. David Perkins provides with four
solutions for the four traps. And, he terms them as Roving, Detecting, Reframing and Decentering.
Cognitive Snaps - Roving: It is all about exploring and having a constant flow of mind to crack
the possibilities in the wilderness trap. It is about trying everything you can lay your hands
upon. Just like the Thomas Edison’s 10,000 experiments leading to the light of the world, the
bulb. It is the intense spirit of extensive cruising and far range flying to catch the hunt in the
wilderness. Such extensive search across all the symmetries shall compress the space of
possibilities and lead to the desired destination. It is all about not lingering long in just one
place but exploring actively in many different places. It is also vital to avoid any duplication of
earlier efforts and squeezing the actual area of possibilities.
Detecting: It is all about being able to detect several hidden clues in a plateau of apparently no
clues. It is all about diligently searching for such clues which point a direction. A good and
creative thinker will detect the rules and find what doesn’t imply in the rule or what is absent in
the conditions of a problem and then use it to bring out the effective presence of the required result.
Reframing: Now consider the method of reframing after a mountain of fruitless work. It is not
about trying old things over and over but trying things in a new way of thought can heighten
the chances of crossing the dead sea of problem and achieving the immortality of success! One
must ask themselves what kind of constraints are being taken for granted and what must be
done to come out of that spoiling frame and seek out the absolute freedom for the fruits of
success. It is always good to challenge the existing assumptions to bring alive the extinct
features of solving a problem.
Decentering: A partial solution or a temporary solution can beguile and mask the actual
solution from the eyes of the problem solver and thus dissolving any further persistence
required to crack the problem. It is required from the part of the problem solver to leave the
oasis of pleasure and take the extra pain to take a new approach or an opposite path to acquire
the breakthrough. It is all about refreshing your approach and idea of fresh possibilities.
All of these operations or solutions can work as a team to bring about the best and desired
results. Each of these procedures complements and completes the solution for a breakthrough
problem. If a breakthrough problem is a jigsaw puzzle then your mind’s innovative way of
approach is the missing part!
Synchronizing Our Thoughts For Site Dancing
Our collaboration group went for a site dancing which is a form of dance where a particular site
itself becomes the stage for dancing. It’s a form of dance which mainly focuses on making
people aware of the historic and aesthetic values of the particular site where the dance is
performed. We as a group had our own traps and webs to overcome.
Roving and Reframing our Site dance: The first one being a myriad of possibilities for finding a
right site to perform our site dancing. We were all arguing about different sites to perform our
dance. And, we were in a wilderness of thoughts as everyone wants their voice to be heard.
Finally, we reached to a point where we were are all stuck in a clueless plateau. We definitely
wanted a breakthrough decision regarding this issue and finally we formed as groups and wrote
our choices on a piece of paper and this was after roving about our indifferences and the
different places available. We have decided to reframe the issue by detecting and diligently
searching all the places where we can perform a site dance.
Dissolving our Indifferences: We all of us then agreed on three possible places where we could
perform our site dance and wrote them on three pieces of paper and rolled them. One of us
cherry picked a roll of paper and finally we came up on a place where there was a big tree to
perform our dance. And, this was agreed by all of us because the chosen place was a simple
chance of luck through the breakthrough idea of rolling our choices on a piece of paper.
We did not rely on partial solutions where only a few were satisfied and the rest of them
weren’t nor did we depend on temporary solution but came up with a simple solution by
involving luck into our issue and decentered by taking a new approach to solve our issue. This
has dissoved all our indifferences regarding the location of the site and we performed a sizzling site dance!
