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I’m currently reading the second edition of ‘Thinkertoys’ by Michael Michalko. The author’s background is army intelligence and over the years he has developed a collection of thinking tools that can be used to re-adjust your creative thought process, or just give some fresh inspiration. It’s brilliant and a seriously thought provoking and useful book regardless of whether you are involved in the creative thought process, or not.

This exert is taken from a chapter titled ‘False faces’ and outlines why assumptions are dangerous in any given situation. The chapter itself then goes on to give you the tools to reverse any initial assumptions and shows how it’s possible to gain an entirely new perspective of what the actual ‘problems’ are that need to be tackled in the first place.

I thought this was bang on the money!

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Imagine a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb toward the banana. As soon as he touches the stair, spray all the monkeys with ice-cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result – all the monkeys are sprayed with ice-cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and will want to climb the stairs. To his surprise, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

Again, replace a third monkey with new one. The new one goes to the stairs and is attacked. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing the fourth and fifth monkeys with new ones, all the monkeys that have been sprayed with ice-cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been around here.

Don’t be a monkey. Challenge all assumptions.