The New Economy Requires More of an “Einsteinian” Approach

Einstein would feel at home in today’s world.  His creative genius in solving problems would be of great demand in today’s world. Gone are the industrial days where following simple instructions from start to finish guaranteed success in life. Today’s employment opportunities have a greater need for creative thinking, STEM, and unique approaches to solving problems.  The world is changing and society will need to catch up. 

A great many things in our society are still built off of the Industrial Era mentality. Our educational system, government offices, law enforcement, etc. continue to use a sequential pattern to process people and information in an inefficient and often ineffective manner. Contrary to institutional sluggishness, most businesses have already moved into the Information Era where they focus on competitive advantages to solve problems and reduce costs. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics between 1998-2004 30% of new jobs created were algorithmic while 70% involved complex heuristic work (Bradford, Manyika, & Yee, 2005). In other words, most jobs today don’t involve simple A to Z processing and require thinking at a higher level to effectively process information in a way the can generate new ideas. The use of creativity and intuition are not foreign in this environment. 

A paper in Educational Leadership highlights how creative thinking is more rewarded in today’s society than sequential thinking (Goodwin & Miller, 2013). The global economy requires new ways of educating people to use those skills and abilities that were second nature to geniuses. Education has the responsibility to meet the needs of preparing people for more complex work environments.

Einstein was considered “dim witted”, Thomas Edison had a “confused mind”, and Darwin was a “little slow”. They were characterized by “experts” in this manner because a healthy human mind was one that could easily follow instructions. Line up and take your number was the main criteria for success-not a whole lot of creative thinking needed. People were stuck where they were born regardless of their abilities.

Luckily things have changed for the better in most sectors of society. According to the paper divergent thinking, heuristic problem solving, and right brain thinking are needed in today’s world and should be taught, not thwarted, in education. There will be an increasing need for graduates to think beyond what is front of them and move into more complex thought patterns to overcome market challenges.  

When a person can think about problems from multiple vantage points they can be more creative. Likewise, it is necessary to try and understand problems as much as possible and make an intellectual leap when all of the information isn’t available. The right brain will need to be employed to tackle issues emotionally, intuitively, creatively, globally and analytically.

For those developing new products and solving complex problems they will need to come up with answers to very complex problems. They cannot solve problems simply by following pre-made steps but must move forward, upward, backwards, sideways and downwards to understand problems. The use of multidirectional perception is needed to tackle problems effectively. 

We can see this process occur in software creation, product development, consulting, science, and other fields that require heavy intellectual labor. As the economic output speeds up and relies less on physical attributes mental faculty will help in developing businesses to push the envelope of their industries. The educational process will need to adjust their processes to ensure that the brightest minds, not only the ones that can follow instructions, can move forward to meet the intellectual needs of employers. I’m sure that Einstein will find his employment options today much more to his liking than sitting on an assembly line.  

Bradford, C., Manyika, J., & Yee,L. (2005). The next revolution in interactions. McKinsey Quarterly, 4,25–26.

Goodwin, B. & Miller, K. (2013). Creativity requires a mix of skills. Educational Leadership, 70 (5).

The Illusion of a PayCheck!

From left to right the order is the same in both pictures. Illusion is often based upon our perception and how we use and make meaning from the environment to understand a particular concept. Illusions can be visual or mental. In many cases we prefer a particular vantage point and expand it to the general while we may more accurately assess our environment by taking the general and narrowing it into the particular.

"Subject's unwillingness to deduce the particular from the general was matched only by their willingness to infer the general from the particular" Nisbett and Borgida-Base Rate Fallacy

Think for a moment how people perceive the world. They look at themselves and then project that onto the world, others intentions, and their environment. This is taking our minute understandings of ourselves, which most of us have trouble with anyway, and then making an illusion of the rest of the world. For example, a person who has a particular vantage point may attempt to make understanding of everyone else through this particular lens. This creates a bias about the accurate perception of others.

To be more accurate in your thinking means viewing the world from its macro perspective and then placing yourself within it in relationship to everything else. This requires the ability to perceive the larger picture first and then putting oneself into that picture and understanding how our own personal perception may be different than the information coming from the environment. The bias associated with selective attention diminishes the more we are aware of the larger world.

In the picture we see a cognitive bias. We take the dollar bill and then apply it to the environment. The environment tells us that the largest paycheck is to the right. However, if we were to compare the paychecks against each other, which was the original question, we can better gauge their size relations. We may become aware that the way we view the environment is actually inaccurate because we are using the same paycheck as a vantage point.

One may find the same example in group relationships. If we were to analyze in depth the needs, wants and desires of the group members on an individual level we can find better comparisons between our needs and theirs that help us make better decisions. However, if we assume that the world revolves around us (i.e. a single vantage point) then we only take from the environment those cues that fit within our personal heuristic. Sometimes our first impression and assumption is not the best!