Angry Learning

I have a dark, ugly secret to reveal: I still play Angry Birds.

Yes, it’s more than half a decade old, which is like 3,007,903 years in technology terms. And yes, it has been supplanted by so much more, even in just the last few months. But while everyone else is hunting Pokemon, I am content to relieve stress by knocking down structures with exploding birds.

I had resisted the game for the longest time. But after going for months without really understanding some of my friends’ Facebook posts, a friend showed me the game on his iPhone one day, and that did it. When I got home I downloaded the free versions to my iPad, and when those games were done (like, that evening) I caved in and paid for it. In my defense, I would like to point out that I only play it on the big screen of my iPad, and have never downloaded the app onto my iPhone. After all, one much have some standards. Also, it’s more fun on a bigger screen.

A couple weeks after starting I was stuck on one particular level…I mean, REALLY stuck. I did something I had so far avoided: I googled that particular level, and sure enough, found out that plenty of people with lots of time on their hands had posted solutions (not just directions, but videos) for pretty much every level that currently existed. I found mine, watched it on YouTube, and set out for glory.

What intrigued me about the video was that the solution was something I never would have considered. It involved hitting a particular block of wood that caused a chain reaction, but I had been ignoring that piece of wood, thinking of it as just something in the background. In reality (well, virtual reality) it was the key to the whole thing. And I never would have thought of it.

That revelation made me realize there were probably a lot of things I was missing. For instance, I realized I had been looking at each of the birds’ unique capabilities and figuring out how to use them, forgetting that each one could also be used merely as a battering ram if I chose. Because I had it in my head that each bird had a specific purpose, I never considered other uses for it.

I already knew that by playing Angry Birds I was slowly remembering some of the things I had learned in a physics course a couple decades earlier, and I was learning some things about engineering and architecture that my E-School and A-School friends at the university had understood for years. What I had not expected, though, was a reminder that, no matter how open I think I am to change, I am still susceptible to running along with blinders on, a preconceived notion locked into my brain that blinds me to alternatives. Seeing that solution allowed me to look at the game in a new way, and helped me identify good solutions a lot more quickly as I progressed through the levels.

Your employees can benefit from a similar wake up call. It does not have to be Angry Birds, or any video game at all, it could be some other activity that asks you to look at things one way, then forces you to look at them another. In his book A Whole New Mind, author Daniel Pink talks about taking an art class, one that specifically got him to think about the blank space in his drawing rather the filled-in space (and thanks to that discussion, I have never looked at the FedEx logo the same way again. Consider shaking things up every now and then by getting your employees to engage in something that will surprise them and open their eyes to new perspectives, because even the best of us get caught up in a routine.

And if you are in the restroom and hear the sounds of Angry Birds coming from the next stall, don’t interrupt. Someone’s working.