On a Saturday night in Modena, a picturesque city in one of the most well-known culinary regions of Italy, a couple and their two young sons dined at the three-Michelin star restaurant Osteria Francescana. The father ordered for the family “Tradition in Evolution,” a tasting menu with 10 of the restaurant’s most popular dishes. One of them, “snails under the earth,” is served as a soup. Snails are covered by an “earth” of coffee, nuts, and black truffle, and “hidden” under a cream made with raw potato and a garlic foam. As maître d’ Giuseppe Palmieri took the order, he noticed a slightly desperate look on the boys’ faces. Palmieri turned to the younger boy and asked, “What would you like to have?” He answered: “Pizza!”
When Solving Problems, Think About What You Could Do, Not What You Should Do
It will help you generate more creative solutions.
April 27, 2018
Summary.
Nobody likes a troublemaker at work. We’ve all had colleagues who annoy us or deviate from the script. But there are also people who know how to turn rule breaking into a contribution. One study asked participants either “What should you do?” or “What could you do?” The researchers found that the “could” group were able to generate more creative solutions. Approaching problems with a “should” mindset gets us stuck on the trade-off the choice entails and narrows our thinking on one answer, the one that seems most obvious. But when we think in terms of “could,” we stay open-minded and the trade-offs involved inspire us to come up with creative solutions. Sometimes, the rule-breakers have a lot to teach us.