THE ART OF SOLVING PROBLEMS

We like to use the blindfolded eeny-meeney-miney-mo technique for simplicity's sake, but Jackson here has made the problem of problems into a real megillah. Dr. Jackson is an engineer-occupational-psychologist-management consultant with a mania for method. Thus he demonstrates how you can break down even the simplest decisions into a seemingly infinite number of steps with diagrams and organizational models and, as Arlo Guthrie would say, with circles and arrows on the back of every last one of them. You say you need an idea, an invention, a strategy? There are five stages to every problem--to whit formulating, interpreting, constructing courses of action, decision-making, implementation. Most of this will be done on paper and it is assumed that many creative blocks will hinder the corporate way. And all the while we thought they were just doing acrostics behind those heavy oak doors.