![]() |
Page 1 of 4 |
Using your best problem-solving methods to find even better methods ![]() If you have a good method for solving problems, one of the better uses of that method is on the problem of how to create better methods of solving problems! And one of the best uses of such better methods is on the problem of how to create even better such methods! Likewise, let your process teach you better processes! Let these better processes teach you even better processes . . . . . Keep that up for a while and you eventually begin to get some processes, some methods, that are truly worthwhile. We call this concept "Toolbuilder" because the tools use a specific method of process to create new tools, methods or processes... This is the simple Principle of Reinvestment, of methods into better methods. There is no limit apparent as to how far or how high this can ultimately go. We shall continue to apply it, hopefully, for many years to come. And you might come up with even better methods! "Toolbuilder" is any procedure used for the purpose of inventing a better (or at least equivalent different) procedure. Much progress has been made on two fronts: 1. Take the basic Osborn-Parnes, Springboard-type method which started the world-wide creativity movement back in the 1950s and 60s....One element of that, of course, is everyone's favorite brainstorming. One particular brainstorm on "all possible CPS methods" resulted in the drafting of a taxonomy to identify and sort out and classify all possible answer-finding methods. One obvious further step could be to run a follow-up brainstorming session on all possible types of answer-finding method this initial draft overlooks, or all possible improvements to be made on this draft taxonomy, or all possible improvements to be made on that brainstorming method itself.In Socratic Method, one gets people to examining their perceptions, inner and outer, and responding from or describing in detail what they discover there. In the combinations employed by Project Renaissance, we pursue various ways to elicit and focus mental imagery and impressions, and not only retain alertness while doing this but considerably develop those images and impressions, by describing them in detail to one-another while examining them. ![]() Highly effective process In one of our most effective "Toolbuilder" formats, you experience a garden one with a wall and gate which separates it from the scene beyond. That scene beyond contains what we are looking for and in this instance, we are looking for an experience or situation which trains a high level of performance in the chosen skill but in the form of an imagined highly advanced civilization which has developed its own special ways to train or teach. We usually not only get an experience which trains us to higher performance levels in the chosen skill, but often entirely new, special ways to train or teach that skill. Again, when your images do unexpected things instead of following the script, follow what those images are actually doing instead of what you think they ought to be doing these seemingly undirected images are taking you by a much more direct route toward the intended payoff....or toward an even-better-for-you payoff. As an example of what happens when you let your images develop freely instead of trying to make them conform to your expectations, we have the following written description of the Toolbuilder experience of one of our workshop participants. ![]() A case history Mr. M.R., a teacher, relates experiencing a garden whose trees were all willows, quaking aspens, other trailing-limb or loose-or-feathery-foliaged trees and shrubs which make almost an exaggerated response to even light breezes. Shrubs, tall cane grass and other plantings were all based on the same principle. "Whenever there is any breeze at all," writes M.R., "(in this experience) I get an almost overwhelming impression of movement and I think that this would be a marvelous principle for landscape design in real-life gardens."
Still writing in the present tense as instructed during the exercises, M.R.
describes the rest of an experience in which he first experienced whatever
images his "right brain" provides him for experiencing a garden. In this
version of the "Toolbuilder" exercise, a high wall stands between M.R. and
what is outside the garden, in this instance a highly advanced
civilization. As per instructions, this advanced civilization was to be
biologically ordinary human, yet so highly advanced that any ordinary
ten-year-old could outperform any virtuoso in the skill, art or subject
knowledge selected by M.R.
Note here as elsewhere that until this point, at least, M.R. had no conscious idea of what his "right brain" or higher consciousness was setting forth to show him. Had he directed his imagery to follow his expectations, rather than letting his images direct themselves while he described them aloud as he went to keep them focused, he could have never gotten such a discoveries-rich experience as this one proved to be. M.R. continues: |
Toolbuilder, page 2 of 4 continues on next page please click here: ![]() |
Home | CPS Techniques index | Toolbuilder | 2 | 3 | 4 |