« Right Brain Workouts

Fail to Solve

By Peter Lloyd

So it happened again. A typical home repair project. Then, as usual, a problem arises which challenges my creativity. Once again an expert at the hardware store beats me to the solution. When will I learn to take my own advice?

It was a simple mechanical problem. How to drill a hole and drive a screw into the wall behind a hot-water radiator? The wall stands an inch or two behind radiator. I did not even consider using an L-shaped screwdriver. That could possibly work for driving the screw but not for drilling the hole.

photo of radiatorThe only way to the wall, it seemed, was through the spaces between the radiator tubes. My longest screwdriver reaches eight inches from handle to point. But the wall turns out to be 12 inches from the front of the radiator.

I also have an extension for my drill, but the connectors at both ends of the extension are too wide to fit between the radiator tubes. So I headed for the hardware store. They had an extension 12 inches long, but its head, I could tell, would not pass between the radiator tubes either. The other end, the end that goes into the chuck of the drill would fit but, no help there, I thought.

At this point, I would like to insert the advice of problem solver friend. “The biggest mistake everyone makes is that they try to force a solution to work, the perfect one will jump right up and hit you in the face.”

What was I doing wrong? Where was my creative thinking failing me?

The man at the hardware store thought for a second and asked, “Could you pass the thin end of the extension through the radiator from behind it, then connect it to the drill?”

Of course! Yes, it jumped right up and hit me in the face. I had limited myself to trying to solve the challenge of getting the extension between the tubes—from the front. For that matter, I had been thinking only of getting something, anything—through the front.

Another way to look at it: I failed to admit defeat. That is, the failure of my first approach. I did not stop working on other ways to make the approach, because I did not fully embrace the fact that going through the front of the radiator just wasn’t going to work. Then and only then would I be ready to approach the challenge from another angle. In most cases, the first other approach amounts to a reversal of the original.

Peter Lloyd is known around his home as The Amazing Fix-It Dad. He and his family live in a restored Queen Anne Victorian house in the historic Mansion Hill district of Newport, Kentucky.

Right Brain Workouts Explained
Next Workout »
Newsletter Sign Up

Join 40,000+ subscribers who receive our Open Innovation Newsletter every other week.

Subscribe