Issue 30: Problem Solving for the Amateur Radio Operator

The issues of attracting new people into a hobby are not unique to ham radio. The antique car clubs I belong to also face these issues. We've had many discussions about how to attract younger people. I think people have to be in their late 40s or 50s before they have fewer responsibilities raising kids or trying to climb the corporate ladder. By that time, they also have more money to devote to a hobby. It is possible to attract the teens and twenty-somethings but they are usually brought in because a parent or family friend is involved. When you spot one of those "youngsters", give them as much support as you can.

I've also been through those corporate committee activities. The worst ones were when top management assigned a nearly-random group of people to a task and picked the team leader. Much better were groups with a dedicated champion who had identified a particular problem or challenge and had at least a partial vision of a path to a solution. When the "champion" was able to select a team who acted in a consultative basis, results were good. Some people are interested in solving problems, have experience doing it, and bring knowledge to the effort; others are just dead weight.

I am unaware of any great art or great books created by teams.

I was a terrible employee of big companies because of my cynicism about team activities. On the other hand, I do have 25 patents and created two products that have each sold more than $1 billion worth of goods. Too bad no royalties for me.

 

Hi Dave, The only fun in my comment was the pipe comment. Those poses from the 70's were virtually all the same, and if you would have inserted a pipe, it would have been perfectly stereotypical. No harm was intended.

To be fair, Dr. de Bono had his share of contemporary critics - so from the reader standpoint, one needs to keep an open mind.

The rest was an honest assessment of what I took from the article.
Though I appreciate being exposed to another way of looking at things, Dr. de Bono seemed to only be interested in thought process.
Now days we call lateral thinking "Thinking outside the box". And Hams are great at doing so.
You can have a problem and a solution, but only by acting on those "solutions" can change happen (the road to perdition is paved with good intentions).

Actually, corroded connectors have always been a go to when shot gunning antenna issues. Insufficient waterproofing, especially in areas of the country with salty air, causes corrosion which causes not only SWR problems, but unwanted emissions.

 

Thanks Ron. deBono is known as the "father of Lateral Thinking," as he came up with that terminology. I hope you'll see how action was taken (near future) when we roll out the solutions that come from the "colored hats" approach to thinking through the next few years with Ham Radio. Stay tuned. Dave

 

On the topic of creativity and management, check out the book Every Tools a Hammer by Adam Savage (yes that Adam Savage!). I'm currently reading (listening) the book now and find it fascinating! He also has a website www.tested.com devoted to this subject.

73

 

Thanks John, I had another recommendation of that book, so I'll have to read it for sure! Dave, W7DGJ

 

I read the page and realized that I've basically been doing this all along, especially with respect to my antenna experimentation. I also basically used the same process in my former career in IT support. Regarding antennas I usually end up at the "green hat" stage: "Hey, I wonder what will happen if I do this? Let's try it and find out!" That's the most fun, and if "this" makes the problem worse I revert to the scientific thinking ("tartan hat?") that the experiment was a success because now I know that "this" has such-and-such negative effect on the problem, which is another datum leading to the solution. It's like playing the game "Am I warmer or colder?" like when we were kids.

 

Hey, that's great Jay! Thank you . . . Antenna experimentation is the perfect place to use lateral thinking, Dave

 

This is an interesting subject. Many many years ago I designed a graduate school experiment on creative thinking. Specifically, "can creativity be taught?". We tried a number of approaches to channel human thinking toward creative outcomes. Did not work. In psch terms were were trying to influence or guide affective domain behaviors of subjects using a cognitive approach (logic, rational thinking, etc.) It seems as if part of our brains resist, at least some of the time, that stuctured approach and somehow we come up with "out of the box" solutions without knowing exactly how we got there. Positivity or negativity seem to have little influence except that one has to be somewhat positive to keep trying to find something that works! Charles KQ4IJW

 

It can also require thinking on your feet where time is of the essence. Law Enforcement is an example. You simply don't have the time to ponder the very best solution so you come up with the best solution/resolution in the moment. I suppose you could also call it an "out of the box" solution.

 

Hi Charles - how interesting! We are told that there are so-called "creative types" in the population, such as writers, artists, musicians, and so on. And that they are the ones who hold the "secret" to total creativity. But what deBono taught was that you can take these individuals and walk them through a process that the creative types employ without even knowing it. My son is a good example of a creative type person. He's a production designer working in Hollywood for some of the world's best musicians (Kenny G, The Weeknd, Billy Eilish, The Pretenders, Green Day, etc). They tell him what kind of a feeling they get from their song, and then he plans out how the video should look. It's such interesting work. An artist for Amazon Music Live told him that the song made him feel like he was "on fire," and my son had to figure out a way to make it look like the stage was on fire, but without breaking any laws or endangering anyone. He has to go through so many ways of thinking about the problem. The result was incredible, really, and I'm not just speaking as his dad. Also, I remember in a group setting how the team I was working with consisted of some very NON-Creative types, and it was interesting how they alone couldn't see all the different and creative ways to solve a problem, but in the group setting they could be assigned one "hat" and they would use their own process with that style of thinking to contribute to the group's overall solutions. My wife seems to view things from a negative perception most times (I call her "the griper"). But her black hat thinking has at times been the reason we've made a certain decision. She influenced us positively by thinking negatively, Dave W7DGJ

 

You're sure right about this Dan. And a good example, with law enforcement. If you gave me two people, one of them capable of making their best-choice decisions on a problem quickly and from the gut, and moving all the time, I'd take that person over the great thinker who would go through a lengthy "think" about the issue before doing anything. Sometimes, it's crippling to put too much process into a decision. I guess this goes a little against what it is that deBono was teaching, but I have a feeling that he'd agree that your "out of the box" solutions sometimes need to come quickly with action and momentum behind them. Dave, W7DGJ

 

I, too, was trained in de Bono's Six Thinking Hats and have used it with many groups. It is an effective framework for stimulating thinking and getting ideas from a group. It adheres to a basic principle of group conversation that I use, and that is, to always involve a group in discussing what is working well before brainstorming problems and potential solutions, even though group members want to discuss problems first.

Another of de Bono's work is Lateral Thinking, and that is more challenging but equally stimulating.

 

Thanks Hoop! Bet you never expected to read Edwards stuff on QRZ! Dave