Use the Einstein levels

THE PRINCIPLE

One way to get over a block is to change the level at which you consider the problem

Albert Einstein said that you cannot solve a problem at the level at which is was created.

What follows is my own interpretation of the process, not Einstein’s (as far as I’m aware he never went into detail on this). I begin by stating the basic task I’m finding problematic. Let’s suppose that I am offering a workshop and have not been able to find enough people to sign up for it.

First we reduce the project to the basic steps we would usually follow:

  1. Publicise the workshop.
  2. Enrol paying customers.
  3. Give the workshop.
  4. Make money from the workshop.

If we try to solve the problem at the same level, we would just try to do one or more of these a bit better. That might mean sending out more press releases, reducing prices or adding some additional value by handing out more support materials. In each case we’re trying for incremental improvement.

If we follow Einstein’s advice, we will step up a level. Now we will be looking for a new way to reach the outcome, rather than optimising the current means to that end.

In our example, the end result is to generate revenue from the workshop. How else can I do that, without going through the first three steps? Ideas that come to mind include:

  • Get sponsorship from a company so I only need to convince one person (the corporate officer) to spend money instead of the 50 or so who attend.
  • Forget about doing it live. Do it on video and sell the DVDs.
  • Give it for free and thereby attract enough people so that back-of-the-room sales of my books, CDs and DVDs generate the revenue.

We could step up another level, at which point the object is to come up with alternatives to the outcome itself. In that case, I would have to question whether giving workshops is the best way to make money.

Going up three levels becomes even more philosophical and questions whether the values represented by the outcome are valid. In this case, that would mean examining whether I’m doing the right thing by trying to earn money. By this level, we’re pretty close to Zen-type thinking.

Most of the time, going up just one level is the most productive on a practical level. To sum up, here is that process:

  1. Describe as basically as you can what you are trying to accomplish.
  2. Instead of trying to improve the steps leading to the desired outcome, brainstorm new ways of achieving the outcome.
  3. Evaluate these new solutions and if they seem more likely to work than what you were doing originally, implement them.

Give it a try. If it was good enough for Einstein…

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