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How to Play Job Force

By Peter Lloyd

As babies we all approached problems pretty much the same way. Problem... cry... solution. As you grew and craved independence, you started solving problems on your own through trial and error. Faced with problems today, I find trial and error at the foundation of all problem-solving techniques. It underlies the ageless force of evolution, which made you and your brain and the society in which you work, so why wouldn’t it underlie all problem-solving? But trial and error can be streamlined.

At the core of some problem-solving techniques, I find tricks for reducing the the amount of error. For example, one technique asks you to consider how someone else might have solved your problem. Why not look for solutions other people have found successful? Why try something someone else has tried and found inadequate? With these questions in mind, creativity gurus and brainstorming facilitators often ask creative thinkers to imagine how someone else would solve the problem at hand.

Why It Works
All problems can be reduced to similar arrangements of competing forces. Let the philosophers talk about why that should be. For problem solvers it means that people in all kinds of professions and walks of life solve the same problems, though the same problems present themselves in a variety of guises. That’s why, if you’re struggling with a problem, you will find fresh ways to look at your predicament by considering the way someone else might approach it. A farmer might find a novel way to mend a fence considering, for example, how an accountant might stretch a budget. An opera singer might learn how to approach musical interpretation from an engineer, a diplomat, or a fire fighter.

The idea, then, is to consider how someone in a much different predicament might solve a problem that is actually your problem in disguise. To make this technique quick and random, I created a very simple applet called Job Force. Read the directions and try it.

Job Force

Ask yourself, “How would someone with the job below solve my challenge?”

Refresh the page for another job.

Of course you don’t need the applet to apply the principle behind Job Force. But the applet will send your creative mind in more directions than you might go without using it.

While we all started out solving problems the same way, we all went in a variety of directions and have solved innumerable problems along the way. Job Force simply prompts you to consider those other directions.

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.

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