Kindergartners Perform Better than Business Graduates!

Introduction

This week’s blog focuses on the video Build a Tower, Build a Team. The video features host and speaker Tom Wujec. In a few short minutes, Tom illustrates how the most successful teams are good better at collaboration than others by using a team exercise where the charter is to build the tallest tower out of spaghetti, tape, string and a marshmallow. I really connected with the video and I hope you will to. The following is a discussion of the key points of the video.

Kindergartners Perform Better Than Most Adults

Concerning the groups with the worst and best performance “…among the worst are recent graduates of business school. They lie, they cheat, they get distracted and they produce really lame structures. And of course there are teams that have a lot more ta-da structures, and among the best are recent graduates of kindergarten.” (Ted Video, 2010 Feb.).

How is it possible that a team of kindergartners could outperform graduates of business school? Easy. For starters the kindergartners are not afraid to be wrong and they have the freedom to think outside the box without needing permission. (Ted Video, 2007 Jan). Secondly, they have not had years of schooling that was focused on subjects that have one right way to do something (math and English), also known as determinate thinking versus non-determinate thinking that include the liberal arts. (RSA Animate, 2010).

            Both the topics in each of these video, Do Schools Kill Creativity? and Changing Education Paradigms, are narrated by Sir Ken Robinson and he has really grabbed my attention. One of his primary assertions is that our educational system model is broken and we can do better for our children. I agree with him. Not sure I would have 12 months ago. What has changed? The leadership program I am currently enrolled in at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has opened my eyes to the nature of complexity / complicated and deterministic / non-deterministic thinking. In these videos, Sir Robinson zooms into a core problem that needs to be addressed, and that is we condition our children into a predominately deterministic way of thinking when complexity demands a healthier balance between deterministic and non-deterministic thinking. While deterministic thinking has an important role in solving problems, non-deterministic thinking needs to have a much larger role if our children are to have the essential tools needed for tomorrow’s challenges.

One other reason why I believe kindergartner's performed better than business graduates is that they have fewer “frames” that have been constructed to match their ideas against. Consequently, the kindergartners are may be less likely to “force fit” a frame into the team exercise and instead they develop a new frame. “The frames we use to view the world determine what we see, locking us into certain ideas and shutting out new possibilities.” (Hoch & Kunreuther, 2001, p. 131). Framing, complexity / complicated, deterministic / non-deterministic thinking, and our educational system all need to be considered as a system in developing a national maintenance plan for sustaining our economy and our society in a healthy and competitive state on the global stage.

Why did Executives Teamed up with Their Assistants do Better than when They were left on Their Own?

Easy answer. The executive only has so many frames to draw on and he does not have the creativity of a kindergartner anymore <smirk>, so he / she has a limited amount of tools to work with. Bring in the executive assistant and we have instantly increased the amount of frames that are available to build a tall marshmallow tower. In addition, if the executive and assistant work together well as a team, new ideas or frames is likely to be created as ideas begin to flow between teammates.

How Would I Use the Content of Build a Tower, Build a Team Video to Facilitate a Process Intervention Workshop?

I believe using the exercise of building a spaghetti tower brings to light some of the things we take for granted in building our day to day real-life projects. “…it helps them identify hidden assumptions.” (Ted Video, 2010). I would make this exercise the first task that teams in the Process Intervention Workshop perform and then we would watch the video. After watching the video and spending some time discussing, we would do the exercise again and compare the results and have another discussion on the new results. This kind of team exercise is an invaluable group maintenance action that should occur on a regular basis.

References:

Hoch, S. J., & Kunreuther, H. C. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. (1st edition.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

RSA Animate (Producer). (2010). Changing education paradigms. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U.

Ted Video (Producer). (2010, Feb.). Build a tower, build a team. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower/transcript?language=en#t-23180.

Ted Video (Producer). (2007, Jan.). Do schools kill creativity? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY.