Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Creative Problem Solving in a Tough Market

“The world is a grindstone. Life is your nose.” Fred Allen

The 1200 MPH fighter I flew for several years had a bad flight characteristic called a “pitch up” which could cause it to tumble right out of the sky. At twenty miles per minute, things happen fast.

My pitch up started at 56,000 feet (that’s eleven miles up). In this violent tumble I lost 30,000 feet of altitude. That’s almost six miles! This was the 9th pitch up experienced in this kind of a fighter and three pilots had survived. Not good odds! My goal? Be the 4th one!

The experts said that what saved my life was neutralizing the controls and popping the drag chute on the rear of the plane. This got the air flowing normally over the wings and I was able to recover.

That’s good advice for anyone. If you’re facing a major problem neutralize your controls and pop the drag chute. In other words, take a deep breath and don’t panic.

Out of conflict comes creativity. Expect your creativity to kick in. That’s when you come up with some amazing solutions. A perfect example follows:

In the mid 19th century there was a project to build a suspension bridge that would carry trains back and forth from Canada to America. This bridge would cross the 800-foot wide Niagara gorge and 230 feet below this structure would be the turbulent river formed by the Niagara Falls close by.

Keep in mind this is the mid-1850’s. What would you do to start this construction?

The engineers came up with an ingenious solution. They launched a kite-flying contest. Whoever got the kite string to the other side first would win a $10.00 prize. A nine-year-old boy, Homan Walsh won the prize!

His kite string was pulled across and it was tied to a heavier string, which was tied to a rope, which was tied to a cable, and thus the bridge was started.

We need to get more kite strings across our problems and not wait for the kite that’ll fly the bridge across!

Point to Ponder: It’s always too soon to quit!!!

The best is yet to be!
Danny

No comments: