During the Summer of 1965, we were returning home to New Jersey. We had to go through Wheeling, West Virginia. It was a hot and muggy day in August, and we hit stand-still traffic two miles out of the city. Several of us decided to walk ahead and find out what caused the delay.
When we arrived at the source of our problem, it proved to be a large tractor-trailer that had been jammed under a railroad overpass. Asking a police officer at the scene, we learned that several attempts to move the tractor-trailer had failed.
A six year-old boy kept coming over and saying, "Mister, I can get the trailer out". He received annoyed responses, "Sonny can't you see we're busy". When the irate mayor arrived, there was a hush in the crowd, and you could hear the little boy saying, "But I can get it out". Finally the mayor in frustration said, "OK, sonny how're you going to do it?" The little boy took his mother's hairpin and proceeded to let some air out of the tires. This lowered the tractor-trailer, and it was easily driven out.
The second story was in reference to a new six-story apartment house in Manhattan, during the Great Depression. It begun renting when complaints came in to the management about the elevator. It seems that it took the elevator too long to arrive.
An engineering analysis determined that a second elevator was needed. This is simple to do when a building is in the early construction phase, it's another matter to in a completed building.
First, the architect would have had to make a set of drawings removing a section of an apartment on each floor. In addition to the inconvenience, noise and dirt would be produced. The owner would have had the cost of construction, and the loss due to reduced rentals on the smaller units.
My dad told me how this problem was solved. A woman came to the landlord and said she could solve the problem. She needed $100 for labor and material, and asked $100 for the idea. This is what the woman did.
She placed a mirror alongside the elevator door, on each level. When a person came and pushed the button, he/she looked in the mirror and this time took the edge off, permitting a longer delay than was acceptable prior to the mirror installation.
What is the message in this last story? The problem was not stated correctly. It wasn't that the elevator moved too slowly. It wasn't that there weren't enough elevators. The problem was in the perception of time by the waiting tenants.
Look for novel ideas. Look at your problem as if YOU were a stranger. Often the solution is simple. It is coming from a different perspective—lateral thinking.
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