Problem Solving Techniques – A Moral Story

A king was looking for a suitable candidate for the post of prime minister. After several tests, three people were short listed. The next day was the final test. There was a rumor that the king had a magic lock which can be opened only with great skill and knowledge. And whoever unlocked it, would be the prime minister.

Hearing the rumor, two of the selected candidates acquired a lot of books on locks. They spent the whole night going through the mathematical equations relating to locks. The third person was very relaxed. The next morning, all three were taken to the palace. And the rumor turned out to be true. The king said whoever unlocks the lock will be prime minister.

These two people felt very happy thinking that it was good that they had referred to many books and then went and looked at the lock. Once again they returned to the books, whereas the third person, looking relaxed, went there, looked at the lock and pulled it, and to his surprise, it opened. In fact, it was not locked at all. The other two were still busy referring to books.

In the meantime, the king announced that the third person had been selected as prime minister. The other two asked him, “You never referred to any book on locks, how you unlocked it?” The king said, “The very first thing that a prime minister should do is that he should know whether the problem really exists or not, before trying to solve it.”

If you do not know whether the problem exists or not and if you try to solve it, the whole effort becomes futile. Here the problem was that the lock was not fastened. And these two persons assumed it was locked and with that assumption they tried to solve the problem.