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Imposing imaginary constraints and false assumptions 359
to their US rivals and almost led to the demise of the US car industry.
The US managers had become stuck in a particular frame, which led
them to invest considerable effort in solving the wrong problem.
Get hooked on complexity – overlooking
simple options
It is often tempting to view decision problems through a ‘technical
frame’ and to become so absorbed in the complexity of this approach
that simple solutions go unnoticed. For example, there were a large
number of complaints from passengers arriving at an airport terminal
about the long waits they had to endure before their luggage appeared
on the carousel. Much effort was expended in trying to improve the
logistics and in investigating if the baggage handling system could be
redesigned. Despite this, the solution to the problem turned out to
be simple.
Passengers alighting from aircraft had to follow a longer route before
they got to the carousels by which time their baggage was usually
waiting for them. The number of complaints dropped to zero. 3
Edward de Bono 4 reports a similar simple solution to a problem.
The Red Telephone Company in Australia was losing money because
telephone regulations meant that local calls cost the same amount, irrespective
of the call’s duration. As a result people were often occupying
its telephone kiosks for long periods, but generating only small amounts
of cash for the company. The company needed a way to discourage
long telephone calls, but financial disincentives were not permitted.
The problem was solved simply by putting lead weights into telephone
handsets so that people experienced discomfort if they made excessively
long calls.
Imposing imaginary constraints and false
assumptions on the range of options
Sometimes decision makers limit the range of options that they consider
because they wrongly assume other options are infeasible. Beliefs
like: ‘our customers would never accept this change to our product’ or