#28: A Foolery of Fun
Overview: |
Participants will work with one or two others to figure out the answers to deceptively simple problems, designed to “fool” participants who do not analyze the questions carefully enough. |
Objective: |
To encourage participants to apply deliberate, critical thought to problem scenarios. |
Supplies: |
• Copies of Worksheet #28-1, one per participant |
Time: |
About 20 minutes |
Advance |
Prepare copies of the worksheets. Ideally, you can arrange seating so participants can work in pairs or triads. |
Participants/ |
The questions on this worksheet activity are designed to fool the problem solver, in that the answers are not obvious but are definitely solvable. Any number of participants can work on this activity. |
Introduction to Concept:
“There’s this faculty in the human mind that hates any question that takes more than ten seconds to answer,” author Norman Mailer once observed. We humans, especially we Americans, like to move. We like fast cars, time-saving machinery, and labor-saving devices. But when it comes to problems, we often move too fast, failing to give the situation the attention it deserves. Some problems, it is true, can be solved quickly. The majority, however, demand critical analysis rather than guesses. They ask problem-solvers to shift paradigms, to put assumptions aside, to deal in facts rather than conjecture.
The activity in which you will be engaged today has a number of problems for you. They are all solvable. However, they will take more than ten seconds to answer.
Procedure:
1. Distribute Worksheet #28-1 and allow about 10 minutes for completion.
2. Share the answers with participants:
1) It may have been the apple, although there really is no evidence to suggest it was. The Bible simply refers to the fruit of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
2) Karloff played the monster created by Dr. Frankenstein.
3) Leslie is Anthony’s son.
4) The rearrangement of the matchsticks spells the word “nil,” which, of course, means “nothing.”
5) There were six managers representing four different professional organizations.
6) The answer is “G-I ants.”
7) The answer is 28. (To help participants understand how the answer was arrived at, ask them to imagine the team members standing side by side. Team member A shakes hands with B, C, D, E, F, G, and H. That’s a total of seven handshakes in the first round, because team member A is not shaking hands with himself. Then it is time for team member B. Remember, she has already shaken with A, so she shakes with C, D, E, F, G, and H, for a total of 6. Add the 7 and the 6 and you have 13 so far. Continue this way and you will get the final total of 28.)
8) Portland Trailblazers.
9) Skiing would be the penultimate experience. “Penultimate” means “next-to-the-last.”
3. Distribute Worksheet #28-2 and allow a few minutes for participants to solve the mystery. (The reason Joe Saturday suspects Janice is that if Veronica had come home after Janice, Veronica’s raincoat would have been on top, not Janice’s.)
4. Wrap up the activity by leading a discussion regarding the kinds of things in the workday and workplace that are seen but overlooked and that could spell disaster if not attended to. Point out that Quality-meister Dr. Joseph Juran claims that American workers are so busy fighting fires that they no longer hear the alarm signals going off. Ask whether there are any alarm signals being set off in the workplace that we have been ignoring. Tie the question to events or people on the national scene who are sending out signals that we are ignoring.
Extending the Activity:
1. Have participants create a workplace mystery story of their own, in which an important clue is presented but not emphasized. The stories might center on a common problem a team is facing, for example, or a challenge with which a whole department is coping. They can exchange their stories and see how good the others were at analyzing the clues to solve the mystery.
2. Encourage a discussion of unexplained phenomena in the natural world often presented in television programs or videos (“Mysteries of the Seas,” “Mysteries of the Universe,” “Mysteries from the Animal Kingdom”), and puzzling events in the business world as well. (“How does the European Commonwealth function as well as it does?”)
1. Recommend that a group of participants work as fund-raising volunteers to design a murder-mystery evening with employee-actors interacting with employee-guests.
2. Rent classic murder mystery movies, such as Dial ‘M’ for Murder, and show them over a several-day period at lunchtime. Ask for a volunteer to “moderate”—i.e., stopping the video at certain points to discuss the clues spotted up to that point.
Questions for Further Consideration:
1. What specific elements go into the creation of a good “whodunit”?
2. What mysteries have recently been solved in your workplace?
3. What mysteries still remain?
4. How can organizations tap into the pleasure employees find in reading a good mystery outside of work in order to generate excitement in solving a problem at work?
5. Is your own mystery-solving style a deductive or inductive one?
Directions: Working with one or two others, you will now have an opportunity to test your critical-thinking skills—especially your analytical skills—with these questions. Read them carefully, discuss them, and then write your answer in the blank space.
1. What fruit caused Adam and Eve to be banished from the Garden of Eden? ____________
2. Boris Karloff is known around the world for his masterful portrayal of an abnormal character in the movies. What was the name of that character? ______________________________
3. Assume that Leslie is a man. If Anthony’s son is Leslie’s father, what relationship is Leslie to Anthony? _________________________
4. How can you move only two matches so that you leave nothing in this existing row of six matches?
5. A group of managers, fully aware of the importance of networking, shared the following facts with each other:
• Each man belongs to exactly two professional organizations.
• Each organization is represented in the group by exactly three managers.
• Every possible pair of professional organizations has exactly one member of the group in common.
How many managers are there in the group and how many different professional organizations are represented?
6. Combining a common verbal reference used to describe solders with a common bug, can you come up with the name of a National Football League team?
7. There are eight team members in a warehouse. Each shakes hands just once with each of the other members of the same team. What is the total number of handshakes?
8. Can you figure out which team in the National Basketball Association is represented by this sesquipedalian sequence: “Pathway pyromaniacs from a left-sided land”?
9. Joe has been daydreaming of ways to spend his upcoming vacation. Among his choices are scuba-diving, horseback riding, roller-skating along Muscle Beach, visiting relatives, attending a series of baseball games, skiing, and swimming in the Pacific. The choices are arranged in ascending order of preference. Knowing this, what would you say Joe regards as the penultimate experience?
Directions: Work with one or two others to solve the mystery presented here. All the clues you need are contained in the story.
Two newly hired customer service representatives have decided to room together. Things have been going well, both on the job and in their personal lives. But approximately two months after the two women moved in together, a tragedy occurred. Detective Joe Saturday was called to the scene in response to a 9-1-1 call at about six in the morning. Here’s what happened when he got to the scene.
Janice Huerrerra, visibly shaken, let the detective in. Her roommate, Veronica Barclay, lay on the floor, a long-handled knife protruding from her chest. When the detective examined the body, he found that Veronica had been dead for several hours. He gave the apartment a cursory inspection, knowing the forensic technicians were on their way. He saw a knife missing from a rack of kitchen knives, bloody towels on the bathroom floor, and two raincoats on a chair. The top one had a .38 caliber gun sticking out of the pocket.
Before he could even ask about it, Janice admitted that the gun belonged to her but claimed she had a permit for it. Saturday then asked Janice about the events that led to her phone call to 9-1-1. She explained that she had been out on a date and returned about 10:30 p.m. She went right to bed after finding a note from her roommate saying she would not be in until 1:00 a.m. or 2:00 a.m.
The next thing she remembered was hearing Veronica come in, complaining about the rainstorms. She vaguely recalled hearing Veronica throw her raincoat on a chair and whisper to someone Janice assumed was her boyfriend. Then she heard Veronica in the bathroom. Just before she dozed off again, Janice heard Veronica’s bedroom door close. She is certain, however, that she heard a man’s laughter coming from Veronica’s bedroom.
When Janice arose early the next morning, she found the body on the floor. In response to the detective’s question, she assures him that she has not touched a thing, other than the phone to call 9-1-1.
The detective decides Janice is a suspect. On what basis? ___________
