To test your mental acuity, answer the following questions (no peeking at the answers!):
1. Johnny’s mother had three children.
The first child was named April.
The second child was named May.
What was the third child’s name?
2. A clerk at a butcher shop
stands five feet ten inches tall and
wears size 13 sneakers.
What does he weigh?
3. Before Mt. Everest was discovered,
what was the highest mountain in the
world?
4. How much dirt is there in a hole that
measures two feet by three feet by four
feet?
5. What word in the English language is
always spelled incorrectly?
6. Billie was born on December 28th, yet
her birthday always falls in the summer.
How is this possible?
7. In British Columbia you cannot take a
picture of a man with a wooden leg.
Why not?
8. If you were running a race and
you passed the person in 2nd place,
what place would you be in now?
9. Which is correct to say,
“The yolk of the egg is white”
or
“The yolk of the egg are white?”
10. A farmer has five haystacks in one field
and four haystacks in another.
How many haystacks would he have if he
combined them all in one field?
Answers
1. Johnny.
2. Meat.
3. Mt. Everest. It just wasn’t discovered yet.
4. There is no dirt in a hole.
5. Incorrectly (except when it is spelled
incorrecktly).
6. Billie lives in the southern hemisphere.
7. You can’t take a picture with a wooden
leg. You need a camera (or iPad or cell
phone) to take a picture.
8. You would be in 2nd place.
You passed the person in second place,
not first.
9. Neither. Egg yolks are yellow.
10. One. If he combines all his haystacks,
they all become one big stack.
Okay, some of these are a bit corny. But they all illustrate several brain idiosyncrasies that affect how we make decisions in the world.
Thanks to the way our brain works, we have a very strong tendency to see what we want to see and what we expect to see. This has huge implications when studying our customers, markets, competitors, and other data that influences key business decisions.
When we only see what we want or expect to see, we miss competitive threats because our brain tells us a threat couldn’t possibly come from that direction. We miss opportunities because we only see what has worked in the past rather than what could be. And we miss major market shifts and changes in customer needs that seem obvious in hindsight but are easily overlooked when focusing on what we already know.
Our brain doesn’t like information gaps, so we tend to jump at the first answer/solution that looks good rather than take the time to examine all the data. This is especially true in a world where we receive more information every day than we have time to assimilate. Finally, our brains love to see patterns and make connections. This trait serves us well in many ways as we move through the world. But the brain doesn’t always get it right.
For example, how did you answer question #1 (be honest)? For most people, the first word that pops into their head is “June,” because the brain quickly spots the April/May/June pattern. Upon re-reading the question and analyzing the data, the answer “Johnny” becomes obvious.
And what about the man with the wooden leg? Your answer depends on how you interpret “with.” Does it refer to the man with the wooden leg or to the camera? A bit of a trick question, but it clearly illustrates how the language we use shapes the way we look at the world.
Perhaps the best example of how we miss things is the egg yolk question. Everybody knows egg yolks are yellow. But the question’s phrasing puts our attention on selecting the correct verb, so we overlook an obvious piece of data and an even more obvious answer.
We can’t change how the brain works – at least not yet. Give science another 50 years and who knows what our brains will be doing! For now, we can become more aware of how our brain works, then pause from time to time to consider what we’re missing. This includes the data we’re unconsciously screening out as well as different sources of data to counterbalance what we expect to see.
Get in the habit of teasing your brain. You’ll be amazed at what you end up seeing that you didn’t see before.
Earlier this year, I posted a blog entitled “Tease Your Brain.” It offered 10 brainteasers that showed how our preconceived notions, combined with the brain’s tendency to see what it wants or expects to see, greatly affect how we solve problems and make decisions. To my amazement, it quickly became one of the most popular blogs I’ve ever posted in terms of the number of hits and reader comments. So in keeping with the Hollywood tradition of following up a huge hit with an even better sequel, here’s another round of brain teasers to test your wits.
1. A man stands on one side of a river, his dog on the other. The man calls his dog, who immediately crosses the river without getting wet and without using a bridge or a boat. How did the dog do it?
2. A sundial has the fewest moving parts of any timepiece. Which has the most?
3. What is unusual about the following words: revive, banana, grammar, voodoo, assess, potato, dresser, uneven?
4. What makes this number unique — 8,549,176,320?
5. Put a coin into an empty bottle and insert a cork into the neck. How can you remove the coin without removing the cork or breaking the bottle?
6. Two boxers are in a match scheduled for 12 rounds. (Pure boxing only – no kicking, UFC takedowns, or anything else). One of the boxers gets knocked out after only six rounds, yet no man throws a punch. How is this possible?
7. In 1990, a person is 15 years old. In 1995, that same person is 10 years old. How can this be?
8. A man takes his car to a hotel. Upon reaching the hotel, he is immediately declared bankrupt. Why?
9. What do these words have in common: polish, job, herb?
10. You’re standing in a hallway with three light switches on the wall, each of which turns on a different lamp inside a closed room. You can’t see inside the room, and you can’t open the door except to enter the room. You can enter the room only once, and when you do, all the lamps must be turned off. How can you tell which switch turns on which lamp?
***
Ready for the answers?
1. The river was frozen.
2. An hourglass, with thousands of grains of sand.
3. Take the first letter of each word and place it at the end. It will spell the same word backwards.
4. It contains each number, zero through nine, in alphabetical order.
5. Push the cork down into the bottle. Then shake the coin out.
6. Both boxers are female.
7. The person was born in 2005 B.C.
8. The man is playing Monopoly. He lands on a property with a hotel and doesn’t have enough money to pay the rent.
9. All three words are pronounced differently when the first letter is capitalized.
10. Turn on the right switch and leave it on for two minutes. After two minutes, turn on the middle switch and leave it on for one minute. When that minute is up, turn off both switches and enter the room. One light bulb will be hot (1st switch) and one will be warm (2nd switch). The cold bulb will correspond to the switch you didn’t turn on.
How many did you get right?
It doesn’t matter because this isn’t an IQ test. The value lies in stretching your brain beyond its normal ways of thinking. And that can come in handy when trying to innovate and add value to customers in new ways.
To stretch your brain on a regular basis:
1. Johnny’s mother had three children.
The first child was named April.
The second child was named May.
What was the third child’s name?
2. A clerk at a butcher shop
stands five feet ten inches tall and
wears size 13 sneakers.
What does he weigh?
3. Before Mt. Everest was discovered,
what was the highest mountain in the
world?
4. How much dirt is there in a hole that
measures two feet by three feet by four
feet?
5. What word in the English language is
always spelled incorrectly?
6. Billie was born on December 28th, yet
her birthday always falls in the summer.
How is this possible?
7. In British Columbia you cannot take a
picture of a man with a wooden leg.
Why not?
8. If you were running a race and
you passed the person in 2nd place,
what place would you be in now?
9. Which is correct to say,
“The yolk of the egg is white”
or
“The yolk of the egg are white?”
10. A farmer has five haystacks in one field
and four haystacks in another.
How many haystacks would he have if he
combined them all in one field?
Answers
1. Johnny.
2. Meat.
3. Mt. Everest. It just wasn’t discovered yet.
4. There is no dirt in a hole.
5. Incorrectly (except when it is spelled
incorrecktly).
6. Billie lives in the southern hemisphere.
7. You can’t take a picture with a wooden
leg. You need a camera (or iPad or cell
phone) to take a picture.
8. You would be in 2nd place.
You passed the person in second place,
not first.
9. Neither. Egg yolks are yellow.
10. One. If he combines all his haystacks,
they all become one big stack.
Okay, some of these are a bit corny. But they all illustrate several brain idiosyncrasies that affect how we make decisions in the world.
Thanks to the way our brain works, we have a very strong tendency to see what we want to see and what we expect to see. This has huge implications when studying our customers, markets, competitors, and other data that influences key business decisions.
When we only see what we want or expect to see, we miss competitive threats because our brain tells us a threat couldn’t possibly come from that direction. We miss opportunities because we only see what has worked in the past rather than what could be. And we miss major market shifts and changes in customer needs that seem obvious in hindsight but are easily overlooked when focusing on what we already know.
Our brain doesn’t like information gaps, so we tend to jump at the first answer/solution that looks good rather than take the time to examine all the data. This is especially true in a world where we receive more information every day than we have time to assimilate. Finally, our brains love to see patterns and make connections. This trait serves us well in many ways as we move through the world. But the brain doesn’t always get it right.
For example, how did you answer question #1 (be honest)? For most people, the first word that pops into their head is “June,” because the brain quickly spots the April/May/June pattern. Upon re-reading the question and analyzing the data, the answer “Johnny” becomes obvious.
And what about the man with the wooden leg? Your answer depends on how you interpret “with.” Does it refer to the man with the wooden leg or to the camera? A bit of a trick question, but it clearly illustrates how the language we use shapes the way we look at the world.
Perhaps the best example of how we miss things is the egg yolk question. Everybody knows egg yolks are yellow. But the question’s phrasing puts our attention on selecting the correct verb, so we overlook an obvious piece of data and an even more obvious answer.
We can’t change how the brain works – at least not yet. Give science another 50 years and who knows what our brains will be doing! For now, we can become more aware of how our brain works, then pause from time to time to consider what we’re missing. This includes the data we’re unconsciously screening out as well as different sources of data to counterbalance what we expect to see.
Get in the habit of teasing your brain. You’ll be amazed at what you end up seeing that you didn’t see before.
Earlier this year, I posted a blog entitled “Tease Your Brain.” It offered 10 brainteasers that showed how our preconceived notions, combined with the brain’s tendency to see what it wants or expects to see, greatly affect how we solve problems and make decisions. To my amazement, it quickly became one of the most popular blogs I’ve ever posted in terms of the number of hits and reader comments. So in keeping with the Hollywood tradition of following up a huge hit with an even better sequel, here’s another round of brain teasers to test your wits.
1. A man stands on one side of a river, his dog on the other. The man calls his dog, who immediately crosses the river without getting wet and without using a bridge or a boat. How did the dog do it?
2. A sundial has the fewest moving parts of any timepiece. Which has the most?
3. What is unusual about the following words: revive, banana, grammar, voodoo, assess, potato, dresser, uneven?
4. What makes this number unique — 8,549,176,320?
5. Put a coin into an empty bottle and insert a cork into the neck. How can you remove the coin without removing the cork or breaking the bottle?
6. Two boxers are in a match scheduled for 12 rounds. (Pure boxing only – no kicking, UFC takedowns, or anything else). One of the boxers gets knocked out after only six rounds, yet no man throws a punch. How is this possible?
7. In 1990, a person is 15 years old. In 1995, that same person is 10 years old. How can this be?
8. A man takes his car to a hotel. Upon reaching the hotel, he is immediately declared bankrupt. Why?
9. What do these words have in common: polish, job, herb?
10. You’re standing in a hallway with three light switches on the wall, each of which turns on a different lamp inside a closed room. You can’t see inside the room, and you can’t open the door except to enter the room. You can enter the room only once, and when you do, all the lamps must be turned off. How can you tell which switch turns on which lamp?
***
Ready for the answers?
1. The river was frozen.
2. An hourglass, with thousands of grains of sand.
3. Take the first letter of each word and place it at the end. It will spell the same word backwards.
4. It contains each number, zero through nine, in alphabetical order.
5. Push the cork down into the bottle. Then shake the coin out.
6. Both boxers are female.
7. The person was born in 2005 B.C.
8. The man is playing Monopoly. He lands on a property with a hotel and doesn’t have enough money to pay the rent.
9. All three words are pronounced differently when the first letter is capitalized.
10. Turn on the right switch and leave it on for two minutes. After two minutes, turn on the middle switch and leave it on for one minute. When that minute is up, turn off both switches and enter the room. One light bulb will be hot (1st switch) and one will be warm (2nd switch). The cold bulb will correspond to the switch you didn’t turn on.
How many did you get right?
It doesn’t matter because this isn’t an IQ test. The value lies in stretching your brain beyond its normal ways of thinking. And that can come in handy when trying to innovate and add value to customers in new ways.
To stretch your brain on a regular basis:
- Put a daily calendar with a puzzle, problem, or poser on your desk. Spend a few minutes each morning trying to figure it out.
- Post a weekly brainteaser in the company lunchroom or common area. Have fun prizes for the winners – the one who gets it “right” and the one who comes up with the most creative answer.
- Once a week, read a blog or magazine article that has nothing to do with your industry. Once a month, read a book outside your normal area of interest.
- Visit a trade show or convention from a very different industry. Focus on what you can learn from that industry that applies to your own.
- Take a long walk on the beach or in the park and think about nothing at all. Just let the mind wander.