Functional Fixedness

Let’s say you have a candle, a box of thumbtacks, and a book of matches. Can you figure out a way to affix the candle to the wall in such a way that when lit, the wax will not drip onto the floor?

There’s a psychological bias that sometimes prevents us from seeing possible solutions that are right in front of us. One common bias is called functional fixedness.

Last summer, I was lucky enough to spend a number of weeks in Alaska. As part of this trip, I got to spend a bit of time on the Mendenhall Glacier, where some beautiful glacial water happened to be flowing. Not expecting it, I didn’t have a cup or glass or container to use to drink the water. It was a little below the surface, so lying down and putting my face directly in the water wasn’t really an option – I guess I could have made it work. But being the creative person I am, I used a flash diffuser I happened to have in my camera bag, while others who were with me couldn’t enjoy the pure, ice cold, crystal clear, glacier water.

When it comes to innovation, people and businesses are constantly hampered by functional fixedness (and other biases), which causes us to overlook elegant solutions hidden in plain sight.

Consider deflating a soccer ball and using it as a bowl. Why not?

Sometimes, the words we use constrain our thinking. It’s important to use the most generic words when we first start talking about a problem or an opportunity.

There’s a great quote about buying a drill. The quote is that people don’t want a drill; what they want is a hole.

But I’d like to take this a bit further – we don’t really want a hole. What we want is somewhere to put in a bolt. But even that isn’t what we want. What we really want is to bolt pieces of wood together. And we could explore that further by understanding why we want to connect those pieces of wood. Maybe there’s a better solution. Maybe not. What if I changed my goal to “connect” pieces of wood? What if I used the word adhere. Or laminate. Or join. Do different possibilities come to mind when I simply change the word? A functional fixedness can be caused by how the problem is framed.

The most dangerous words I hear in organizations are “that’s how we do it here”.

By the way, here’s a solution to the candle problem I started this post with:
If you empty the box of thumbtacks, you can attach the candle to the inside of the empty box with some melted wax, and then tack the box to the wall. The box acts as a shelf that supports the candle and catches the dripping wax. Because the box is presented as simply a container to hold the tacks, it’s often difficult to see it as anything else.
It’s Duncker’s Candle Problem.

As you’re going through your day, challenge those things you consider absolutes.