A Test for Professionals(???)
Jun. 21st, 2007 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kokopelleA friend of mine sent me the following via e-mail. This is suppose to be a test of whether or not one is qualified to be a professional. The 'joke' is that most professionals fail this quiz. I did.
Why? Well, to make a simple thing complicated, I believe it is because professionals are taught to address each question as a stand-alone situation. Additionally, the professional attempts to take all situational parameters into account. These are good methods, but they fail to address the supplied test. This test both disregards assumed boundary conditions AND has a direct linearity of thought. The odd thing is that "thinking outside the box" and "connecting the dots" are suppose to be qualities of the discerning professional. Odd... I wonder where the disconnect is. Does anybody additional insights?
A TEST FOR PROFESSIONALS
The following short quiz consists of four questions and will tell you whether you are qualified to be a professional. The questions are NOT difficult.
_____________________
1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.
_____________________
2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator? Wrong Answer.
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.
_____________________
3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All of the animals attended except one. Which animal did not attend the conference?
Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. Remember, you just put him in there. This tests your memory. Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.
_____________________
4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?
Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across it. Have you not been listening to anything I've said? All of the crocodiles are attending the animal conference called by the Lion King. This tests whether you learn quickly from your previous mistakes.
____________________
According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around ninety (90%) percent of all professionals tested got all of the questions wrong, but many of the preschoolers tested got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.
Author Unknown
Why? Well, to make a simple thing complicated, I believe it is because professionals are taught to address each question as a stand-alone situation. Additionally, the professional attempts to take all situational parameters into account. These are good methods, but they fail to address the supplied test. This test both disregards assumed boundary conditions AND has a direct linearity of thought. The odd thing is that "thinking outside the box" and "connecting the dots" are suppose to be qualities of the discerning professional. Odd... I wonder where the disconnect is. Does anybody additional insights?
A TEST FOR PROFESSIONALS
The following short quiz consists of four questions and will tell you whether you are qualified to be a professional. The questions are NOT difficult.
_____________________
1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.
_____________________
2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator? Wrong Answer.
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.
_____________________
3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All of the animals attended except one. Which animal did not attend the conference?
Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. Remember, you just put him in there. This tests your memory. Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.
_____________________
4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?
Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across it. Have you not been listening to anything I've said? All of the crocodiles are attending the animal conference called by the Lion King. This tests whether you learn quickly from your previous mistakes.
____________________
According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around ninety (90%) percent of all professionals tested got all of the questions wrong, but many of the preschoolers tested got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.
Author Unknown
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-21 01:47 pm (UTC)For successful mature individuals in our culture, context signals how info is ordered.
If you ask "professionals" in our culture you are asking someone who's pretty successfully locked down in the task to project, project to program, program to goal organizational heirarchy. If they're not, they're driving everyone else crazy.
Outside the box and creative thinking is helpful in that organized and locked down work context IF AND ONLY IF it can accessed from within the working sequence. Since you're a computer guy, think in terms of interrupts. The successful talented professional is the individual able to stay on track and in sequence who still has extra computing resources in play to run ON TASK outside the box creative options and still stay on track and on task and not disorient everyone else.
In my favorite language, quantum genuis in our culture are those folks who can line up their quantum experiences like pearls in a strand rather than the intermittent blips all over the screen most folks have. Real quantum doesn't line up like that, ever. It's more like bubbles in a bubble bath.