When you don't think critically, you don't get to the root of the problem. When you don't get to the root of the problem, you get trivial solutions.
Two real-life examples:
1) A local organization had issues with parking scarcity and traffic. This caused delays, lost business, unhappy clients, etc. After several weeks of brainstorming, what was the solution offered by their consultants (not me)? Add more parking in the parking lot... Yep, thanks a lot, that helps. 🙄
2) When I was an engineer, we hired a hydraulic engineering consulting firm to model some scenarios for us. Our main question: how much back pressure should we apply to this segment of pipe? We knew we needed to add a backpressure control valve, but didn't know exactly how to size it or how much pressure to set it to hold. Their answer, and I kid you not this was all it said: "We recommend installing a backpressure valve downstream of the line." What a brilliant use of $32,000.
Imagine if some prosecutor lays out a mountain of evidence against you for a crime, and your defense attorney stands up just to say this: "He didn't do it... ✨p e r i o d✨".
Or the circular logic I hear every time I ask my 2-year-old a "why" question like: "Why are you crying?" Her: "Because I'm crying!"... Ah. Yes... of course!
There is big money in giving useless advice, so I'll be offering my own and using the hashtag #dumbadvice to share terrible solutions to problems you didn't know you had.
Stay tuned for the comedy and remember that complex problems usually require non-trivial solutions.