Applying Principle of 360 degree approach
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| 360 degree approach |
Story 1
You are traveling by the
Underground with two other friends in London. At Tottenham Court Road station
all of you feel very hungry and decide to have something filling from a fast
food outlet. You and your friends are new to UK and are not aware of its
custom. Entering a nearby fast food outlet, all of you look at the attractive
large pictures of burgers with many different names on the walls. Two of you
choose your items but the third friend hesitates, he asks you, “Well, can I get
any vegetarian burger here?” He was a pure vegetarian. He depends on you. You examine the attractive
names and find one with mention of “Cheese” in it. Unhesitatingly you refer it
to your friend.
However, after finishing
three quarters of his burger, the friend expresses his doubt to you, “Is
it really a cheese burger? What is this thick brown colored cake between the
two loaves?” You look at him, and ask without faltering, “How do you like it?”
He confirms, “It is very tasty.” “Well then, finish it if you like it. Look at
the name, it is written over there-Cheese burger.” You say. Somewhat reassured,
he finishes.
Satisfied you start your
jaunt again.
But you have your doubts.
To clarify, you put your doubt later to one of your UK friends, and come to
know for sure that a Cheese burger at Tottenham Court Road Station fast food
outlet contains cheese, but the brown cake between the two loaves is not veg.
Analysis:
Question: Your friend is a pure vegetarian. Was your decision that day wrong? Was
it proper for you to allow a pure vegetarian person to eat meat?
From your point of view: Firstly, you didn’t know. Once your friend had started eating, checking
the nature of the food was meaningless. Rather it could have caused grave
complications. So you would think that your decisions and actions were
right.
From his point of view: All of you were very hungry. A burger name with cheese in it should be
cheese burger, especially when vetted by his friend (that is you). If he were
particularly inquisitive, all of you might have had to search much longer for food.
Why bother everybody!
Most possibly, he also must have inquired later and found the truth. A permanent
guilt would have been created in his mind, and even though indirectly but it is
you who would have had guided him to it.
What would you have done
in his position? Being a pure vegetarian, you might have inquired the
salesperson at the shop more closely before committing.
Recommendation: To avoid committing to a possible permanently compromising option, you
could have guided him to checking the nature of the food before taking the food.
If he himself decided not to go for detailed inquiry and went ahead to have his
cheese burger it would have been his decision and possible compromise, unguided
by you. If he decided not to go for the food after knowing its nature, a new
decision problem would have been created, with some possible discomfort, but
conscience of both of you would have been clear.
You don’t like the
recommendation? Well, each real life problem and its solution are
very closely tied to the people involved and the environment in which they act.
This technically is termed as Context Embedding. Real life problems are
deeply context embedded and so are inherently complex. No general solution
here.
With this story, I only
wanted to give you the idea of thinking from another person’s point of view. Put
on the other person’s shoes. Only then you will understand how he feels. If you
do that, you will discover new aspects of the problem and its possible
solution. If this approach is used appropriately for real life problem solving,
it is possible to enhance the quality of solution significantly.
If you extend this idea to
all stakeholders in a problem, you have what I call: the Principle of 360
degree approach.
Story 2
You are a working couple
with both partners quite busy with your careers. Your wife makes special
efforts to come home before you and prepare the food. One day she calls up and
informs you she would be late by an hour. You reach home before her and wait
till she comes and prepares food for both of you.
Please do not think that
it is you whom I am referring to in the story.
Getting over this slight
problem, let me ask you, what would you have felt if you were the wife instead
of the husband? What would have been the gain if you had that other point of view and acted on it? What would be the possible loss otherwise?
Story 3
In a meeting with your
junior officer, your views differ on a particular point. He is cautious and you
are in favor of taking the bold step. Being the boss, you forcefully establish
your view in the decision making process. In excitement you also reprimand your
junior as having a negative mindset.
Next day, you review the
case and find that your decision was wrong. You make the required course
correction. But you do not call up your junior.
You know, I know and
everybody knows that the boss is always right, no?
This principle is very
useful in negotiations. Generally in negotiations, if you are not prepared to
release some ground you may not gain any ground at all. How much ground would
you release? If you put yourself in your opponent’s place you may have a better
idea and finally may have a satisfactory ending of the negotiation process.
Professional Psychiatric
Counselors, Lawyers, Mediators and many other professionals need to use this
principle heavily.
Basic Problem Solving Principles
Okay, we are talking about principles and only principles. How many have we discussed? As far as my memory goes, we just mentioned three:
·
Principle of Exhaustivity
·
Principle of Precision, and
·
Principle of 360 degree approach
From my long problem
solving experiences and various other learning, I have found these and more
than two dozen other principles to be effective in real life problem solving.
Are these all comprehensive? Not at all, this list is open and personal.
Being a self-aware problem
solver by now, you start identifying which abstract principle you have used in solving a particular problem. Go
on identifying and accumulating the effective principles in a list of your own.
These will form your collection of “Basic Problem Solving Principles”. In time,
explicit awareness of these principles will make these ingrained in your mind
and move you, along with other such problem solving armory resources, towards becoming a powerful real life problem solver.
Are these the only
resources and guidance for real life problem solving? Think over the
possibilities. Till we meet again in the next session.
Read my other blogs on Innovative idea generation and its basic principles and Get smart, get innovative usingTRIZ
Read my other blogs on Innovative idea generation and its basic principles and Get smart, get innovative usingTRIZ
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