Tom Wujec's (2010)
analysis of the Marshmallow Challenge is one that instantly had me reflecting
on the days I spent coaching students in an exceptional program called Odyssey
of the Mind. This after-school club was
comprised of children at various ages and stages. They would all come to my room eager to see
what was in store for the day. They
would be tasked with group projects similar to the Square Peg in a Round Hole scenes
portrayed in the 1995 film Apollo 13. It never got as intense as having lives on
the line, but I do recall my pre-kindergarten classroom filled with young
children to adolescents breaking sweats as they raced the clock to find a
solution. The teamwork and camaraderie
was much the same between these elementary school aged children and the members
of NASA. The solutions these children
offered were also near the exceptional nature of rocket-scientists.
What was it about the
young mind that allowed such creative ideas to flow? What is present in the early stages of
development to rival the thinking of seasoned professionals? In my experience I have found that
inexperience is bliss.
I watch as my 15 month
old daughter learns to navigate the world around us. Right now she is seated beside me marveling
at the Star Wars light saber toothbrush we bought her today. At first she had no idea how to make this
interesting contraption light up. She
didn’t know how to place the cap back on the toothbrush to allow the light to
glow with greater intensity. Yet, she
didn’t give up and we didn’t show her how to do it. I watched as she completed trial and error
exercises over and over again, sometimes at a feverish pace. She wanted to get it right. Within 3 minutes she had mastered the art of
taking the cap on and off and pressing the button, which reinforced that the
force was with her.
Turning that light
saber toothbrush example into a work-related task, I ask myself would I be as
willing to try and try again at a fevered pace if someone had never shown me
how to do something. Would I throw a
mental tantrum or would I push myself until I figured it out on my own? Would I follow in the footsteps of the children
I once taught and allow what Wujec terms the “iterative process” to allow a
prototype/redefine cycle to continually occur until the most effective solution
is achieved?
Brown (2011) describes
a key element of process interventions as the ability to have a group own their
solutions, where they “learn to identify problems and then initiate their own
solutions.” (p. 226) It is interesting to note that when a Chief Executive
Officer’s assistant is at the table, Wujec found the solutions to be more
effective. Is there increased confidence
in a leader’s ability to develop and own a solution when the solution is shared
by a trusted colleague? I would venture
to say, “Yes.”
How does this
information prepare me to be a better leader?
Knowing that offering increased incentives without building skills is
ineffective, I can better budget time and money resources to improve skills among
employees and then reward those that utilize the skills with the greatest
solutions and productivity. This also
demonstrates how important it is to foster collaboration, creativity and
development through fun and interesting techniques such as the marshmallow
challenge. Once that synergy in the team
is developed it is easy to transition to a work-related problem and build on
that synergy to achieve the necessary solutions to build organizational
success.
Apollo 13 (7/11) Movie
CLIP - Square Peg in a Round Hole (1995) HD. (2011). Retrieved June 30, 2016,
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2YZnTL596Q
Brown, D. (2011). An
Experiential Approach to Organizational Development. Upper Saddle River, NJ,
Prentice-Hall.
Wujec, T. TEDTalk.
(2010, February). Build a tower, build a team. Retrieved June 30, 2016, from
http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower
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