CHAPTER 1
The MacGyver Mindset
"With a little bit of imagination, anything is possible."
-Angus MacGyver
In the 1980s, throughout the popular television series MacGyver, the title character is admired for his resourcefulness and talent for solving problems using everyday items. His imagination and ingenuity help him solve complex problems, catapulting the narrative forward with his cognitive skills. In one episode of the show, MacGyver used a ballpoint pen case to fix a car's fuel line. In another, he plays back an old phonographic record on a black cylinder using a piece of paper and a safety pin. In another example of functional flexibility, MacGyver fixed a broken rowing boat using a stick with a fork, a sleeping bag cover, some ropes, and a tarpaulin. MacGyver consistently escaped difficult situations by repurposing objects beyond their intended use, using his extensive knowledge, problem-solving mindset, and cognitive skills. The term "MacGyver" has become a part of our cultural vocabulary. Merriam-Webster defines it as the ability "to make, form, or repair something using whatever is conveniently on hand."1 This skill involves looking beyond the intended uses of objects and repurposing their components to create inventive solutions.
MacGyver's success depended on many of the creative thinking skills we will cover in this book. For example, he demonstrated combinational and improvisational creativity, rule-breaking, and opposite thinking to tackle challenges, all of which will be discussed in later chapters. A lateral thinker, MacGyver was able to make associations between seemingly unrelated concepts. For example, in episode 6 of season 2, co-written by Kerry Lenhart and John Sakmar, whose interview appears at the end of this chapter, MacGyver used red wine to charge a battery. His ability to think on his feet and maintain an open mind when under stress were critical to his problem-solving skills. He was undeterred when faced with constraints because he was extremely confident in his understanding of how things worked and in his ability to improvise solutions with limited resources on hand. MacGyver was never hindered by knowledge of an object's conventional functionality when working toward his goals. He was naturally comfortable deconstructing the object to its simplest form, combining it with other items, or modifying elements of it to achieve a different purpose.
In the 1930s, German psychologist Karl Duncker identified the cognitive bias that blocks one's ability to repurpose objects beyond their intended use. By the 1940s, the term functional fixedness2 gained traction with social scientists. Since then, researchers have investigated the causes of this bias and explored the circumstances that can help people avoid it and adopt a MacGyver mindset, which accelerates creative velocity. They discovered that the ability to creatively repurpose items depends upon flexible thinking and an open mind.
Functional fixedness arises from ingrained beliefs and rigid mindsets about how things work based on prior knowledge and experience. Researchers learned that while we use these beliefs as a mental shortcut, they narrow our vision and imagination over time.3 Functional fixedness strengthens as we get older and can become part of our cognitive operating system. It can cause us to become focused or stuck on traditional and established solutions, preventing us from considering new and improved alternatives. This can hinder our ability to come up with creative ideas and may even make it difficult for us to consider innovative approaches to solving problems. The good news is there are techniques you can use to break fixations that will prevent you from seeing novel solutions.
For example, doodling engages our brain in a different activity, disrupting habitual thought patterns, which can help increase our functional flexibility. It encourages us to think beyond the usual associations with objects or tools. Doodling allows more abstract, free-flowing connections to form. Pat Copeland, whose interview appears in Chapter 9, has said, "Doodling serves as a stress reliever and gives us a view of our unconscious thoughts." This low-stress way of exploring our subconscious can open our minds to consider unconventional uses for familiar objects. In addition, the visual-spatial aspects of doodling can facilitate making novel associations and connections that can overcome a fixation on a single idea or approach. And since doodling is often described as aimless, it permits unexpected mixtures of shapes and forms without the pressure to produce a viable outcome. When we're less anxious about "getting it right," we're more open to exploring alternative solutions and breaking free from functional fixedness.
In a research study that explored the role of AI in extending human creativity, Northwestern researchers noted, "A key component of creativity involves abstraction, the process of learning how to make sense of information by identifying the conceptual components which are relevant" for meaning, mechanics and purpose.4 Observing and analyzing objects, focusing specifically on their structure and potential for reuse, is foundational for overcoming functional fixedness and helpful when using analogic thinking, explored in more detail in Chapter 3.
In Chapter 4, you will learn more about the SCAMPER technique, a methodology that also benefits from breaking down an idea into its core components to challenge existing assumptions about its structure and encourage a fresh perspective. Introduced in the 1970s, SCAMPER prompts different actions to take to reformulate a novel solution that looks different than the current sum of a solution's parts. The "P" part of the SCAMPER methodology considers what can be "put to other use." Abstraction facilitates repurposing by increasing awareness of an object's components, their relationships within the design space, and how they collectively contribute to the overall utility and experience. This opens the mind to considering other ways to utilize or modify the parts and is essential to busting the bias of functional fixedness.
Design thinking is based on foundational tools such as ethnographic research, problem reframing, and experimentation, which help to avoid being stuck in conventional thinking. When engaging in design thinking, it is essential to abstract the specific problem at hand to eliminate cognitive bias and reduce attachment to a specific approach when creating potential solutions. By framing the challenge in a less concrete manner, it becomes possible to explore a wider range of potential solutions and overcome functional fixedness.
Ethnographic research, observing and understanding your target customer behaviors, is foundational to design thinking, and often reveals how customers develop workarounds and shortcuts in their current processes. Your lead customers are often the most motivated to MacGyver a solution if it makes their life easier. Design thinking requires you to be open to the broadest view of the problem space, as MacGyver would, which ensures you don't miss unconventional solutions hidden in plain sight. You may realize that the original issue you were trying to address is just a symptom of a different, deeper underlying problem, or you may find a solution from a different domain that can be applied to a new context. The objective of this approach is to be open to seeing more than the limited set of solutions you are considering.5 Whether you use design thinking or SCAMPER, the important thing is to recognize the existence of conscious and unconscious biases that can constrain your capacity to generate initial ideas by limiting your openness to unexpected approaches.
When you hear a colleague say "This is how we have always done things" or "This is how things work," it may signal that the person is fixated on a specific way something functions and is resistant to considering alternative approaches. It can also indicate a closed mindset, which limits the possibilities they'd be willing to explore to identify novel solutions. These types of statements suggest a lack of cognitive flexibility and a resistance to looking at the challenge in a new way. After initially validating their fixed mindset, it will take a conscious effort to help them overcome that fixation because the conventional approach won't work. The goal is to move the person into a mental impasse when they realize for themself that the conventional approach isn't the only option.
Insight problems are one tool that can help challenge someone's specific assumptions or fixed mindset. They are a type of problem that requires a sudden restructuring or shift in perspective to solve. These problems are often difficult to solve using only logic and require visual, spatial, mathematical, or verbal skills. This type of problem requires restructuring the stated issue to overcome a mental block and reach a novel or counterintuitive solution. When trying to move a fixated person to a new perspective, begin by presenting a scenario or task that initially seems to require the functionally fixated use of the item. Then, slowly reframe the problem such that the functionally fixated solution is inadequate or impractical.
An example of an insight problem is the "Surgeon Riddle": A child is brought into the emergency room after a serious accident. The surgeon on duty looks at the child and exclaims, "I can't...
