Exercise
Ten Random Things
On the next page, make a list of 10 random items- it could be 10 things that you see while you're sitting at your desk.Now write as many associations as you can think of between those things and the issue at hand. 'What does a stapler have to do with my problem?' What are the qualities of a stapler? It binds things together, it opens up, it's something that you can use gently or you can bang your fist on, it's something that can hide in your drawer, it's an object of envy (how often do staplers get 'borrowed' permanently?), it's something that hasn't changed much over the last 50 years . . . and so on and so on. As you go through this exercise with each of the 10 objects, you may stumble upon the 'aha!' moment: You see your problem in a new way.
What's Going On Here ¿
Making connections between seemingly unrelated things pushes us to think about an issue in some very unexpected ways.