Design Article
An engineer on safari—what African animals teach about problem solving—part 1
Tamara Schmitz
2/20/2013 9:54 AM EST
Editor’s note: Every so often, an article, written by a very capable technical contributor, gets published on EDN in one of my Design Centers for a special reason. My goal and EDN’s goal is to publish articles and features on what's really going to make a difference for designers of next-gen systems/devices and ideas to overcome current-day design problems. Although this is not a technical article, Schmitz’s article has struck a chord in me and I want to share it with you; especially those who have been in the industry for 10 years or less (IEEE GOLD members, for example).
I love nature, especially animals. We can learn from them. She has turned her visit to Botswana into an entertaining and educational exercise in problem solving techniques she has garnered from the natural instincts of these amazing animals living and co-existing in the wild. The editor’s notes I have added are not to complete or enhance her article because it stands alone. I only interject these personal perspectives to share a bit of my 40 years of experiences in electronics with EDN readers in this enlightening article Schmitz has created.
—Steve Taranovich
Africa is as wild and wonderful as I imagined. What I didn’t expect, was to learn lessons about problem solving that I could apply to my career as an engineer back home in Silicon Valley. After the first few sightings being “star struck” by seeing so many different species in their natural habitat, I started paying more attention to their behavior, their interactions and their choices. Many of those turned into life lessons for me to bring home. The top ten are presented here along with photos I took this past November in Botswana.
Number 1: Face your problem head on. For an animal in Africa, the problem is usually an enemy that wants to eat one of their young ones. If our truck approached a herd of elephants, the first thing they would do is turn and face us (Figure 1). While that made for a great photo opportunity, they were placing the adults in front of the youth, waving their ears to look bigger, putting their trunks up to smell us, and making a blockade. Antelope and zebra also always turn to face a potential attacker. In fact, one day we encountered several zebra intently staring toward the same grassy area. Our guide stopped and said, “Watch.” About 30 seconds later a lion’s head popped up from between the reeds.
Figure 1 Elephants turn and face us as we approach in the truck.
Notice that all of these animals didn’t accept a peripheral view of the problem while they multitask five or six other priorities. Even if they were hungry or dehydrated, they do not continue eating or drinking while diverting part of their attention to the predator. All nonessential activity is stopped and complete focus is given to the problem. In this way, the group can act together and have the highest probability to remain safe.
Editor’s note: The most frequent cases I experienced in my career were when
a problem came up with an IC that was either an inherent design error or a quality issue. I have seen many, many engineers hesitate to tell the customer the full truth about the issue immediately. Procrastination just makes the situation worse when the customer finally finds out. Face the problem head on quickly and honestly with a plan of action to remedy the situation in the short- and long-term and you might be pleasantly surprised with the customer’s reaction.
Number 2: Take time to listen. With no cell phone, radio, TV, or other entertainment, necessity forced me to take a lot of time to listen to the sounds of the African wild surrounding our campsites. That’s not the case with problems in engineering. We don’t usually clear our schedules and sit quietly waiting for that big phone call or that weekend-ruining email. For us, it normally feels like problems come “out of the blue,” or just blindside us. I’ll bet there may be warning signs we just don’t notice. For instance, the animals of Africa work together to avoid becoming “recycled” (the guide used this kinder word to represent the predator catching and eating a meal). Birds are often the first to sound the alarm of an approaching predator or predators (Figure 2). Baboons also happily join the chattering. In fact, by the time predators prowl through an area, it can be clear of the thousands of creatures that were grazing there just minutes before.
Figure 2 These Cape Turtle Doves are perched high in a tree to get a good view of the area. Their call is nicknamed by the locals as "Work harder, drink lager."
Listening is always a good idea. I don’t think many of us would disagree with that—we usually just feel too busy to know when we should take the time to listen. Maybe a little each day? Since I didn’t see any African animals practicing meditation or yoga, I won’t suggest that. Instead, I experienced them in a state of hyperawareness. The luxury of a large group (like antelope or elephants) meant that they could take turns listening. Maybe that is the key to our success in the business world—we have to trust the chain of command, trust that each manager listens to his/her reports and can relay relevant information effectively.
Editor’s note: My grandmother used to say that God gave us one mouth, but two ears, so we should listen at least twice as much as we speak. A good listener will find out the facts quickly and resolve a problem or answer a question more promptly.
Next: page 2
I love nature, especially animals. We can learn from them. She has turned her visit to Botswana into an entertaining and educational exercise in problem solving techniques she has garnered from the natural instincts of these amazing animals living and co-existing in the wild. The editor’s notes I have added are not to complete or enhance her article because it stands alone. I only interject these personal perspectives to share a bit of my 40 years of experiences in electronics with EDN readers in this enlightening article Schmitz has created.
—Steve Taranovich
Africa is as wild and wonderful as I imagined. What I didn’t expect, was to learn lessons about problem solving that I could apply to my career as an engineer back home in Silicon Valley. After the first few sightings being “star struck” by seeing so many different species in their natural habitat, I started paying more attention to their behavior, their interactions and their choices. Many of those turned into life lessons for me to bring home. The top ten are presented here along with photos I took this past November in Botswana.
Number 1: Face your problem head on. For an animal in Africa, the problem is usually an enemy that wants to eat one of their young ones. If our truck approached a herd of elephants, the first thing they would do is turn and face us (Figure 1). While that made for a great photo opportunity, they were placing the adults in front of the youth, waving their ears to look bigger, putting their trunks up to smell us, and making a blockade. Antelope and zebra also always turn to face a potential attacker. In fact, one day we encountered several zebra intently staring toward the same grassy area. Our guide stopped and said, “Watch.” About 30 seconds later a lion’s head popped up from between the reeds.
Figure 1 Elephants turn and face us as we approach in the truck.
Notice that all of these animals didn’t accept a peripheral view of the problem while they multitask five or six other priorities. Even if they were hungry or dehydrated, they do not continue eating or drinking while diverting part of their attention to the predator. All nonessential activity is stopped and complete focus is given to the problem. In this way, the group can act together and have the highest probability to remain safe.
Editor’s note: The most frequent cases I experienced in my career were when
a problem came up with an IC that was either an inherent design error or a quality issue. I have seen many, many engineers hesitate to tell the customer the full truth about the issue immediately. Procrastination just makes the situation worse when the customer finally finds out. Face the problem head on quickly and honestly with a plan of action to remedy the situation in the short- and long-term and you might be pleasantly surprised with the customer’s reaction.
Number 2: Take time to listen. With no cell phone, radio, TV, or other entertainment, necessity forced me to take a lot of time to listen to the sounds of the African wild surrounding our campsites. That’s not the case with problems in engineering. We don’t usually clear our schedules and sit quietly waiting for that big phone call or that weekend-ruining email. For us, it normally feels like problems come “out of the blue,” or just blindside us. I’ll bet there may be warning signs we just don’t notice. For instance, the animals of Africa work together to avoid becoming “recycled” (the guide used this kinder word to represent the predator catching and eating a meal). Birds are often the first to sound the alarm of an approaching predator or predators (Figure 2). Baboons also happily join the chattering. In fact, by the time predators prowl through an area, it can be clear of the thousands of creatures that were grazing there just minutes before.
Figure 2 These Cape Turtle Doves are perched high in a tree to get a good view of the area. Their call is nicknamed by the locals as "Work harder, drink lager."
Listening is always a good idea. I don’t think many of us would disagree with that—we usually just feel too busy to know when we should take the time to listen. Maybe a little each day? Since I didn’t see any African animals practicing meditation or yoga, I won’t suggest that. Instead, I experienced them in a state of hyperawareness. The luxury of a large group (like antelope or elephants) meant that they could take turns listening. Maybe that is the key to our success in the business world—we have to trust the chain of command, trust that each manager listens to his/her reports and can relay relevant information effectively.
Editor’s note: My grandmother used to say that God gave us one mouth, but two ears, so we should listen at least twice as much as we speak. A good listener will find out the facts quickly and resolve a problem or answer a question more promptly.
Next: page 2
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timbalionguy
2/22/2013 3:02 PM EST
I am enjoying this article! My other main interest outside of work is zookeeping, and I primarily work with big cats. Besides lions and other big cats, I get a regular opportunity to be around some of the other animals that are being discussed here, and always appreciate the chance to learn more from them. I also have been on safari in 1999, and that was one of the great experiences of my life (and I recommend it for anyone!) In any case, I will now have a reason to see what lessons I can 'extract' from being around many species of unusual animals. For those of you who aren't lucky enough to be zookeepers (which is another thing you should do if you ever get the opportunity! Many zoos have volunteer programs.), there are many lessons to be learned from the 'more common' animals we may be around every day, such as our pets (or, visit your local zoo). Here's an example: Engineering, for instance can be a very stressful job, especially when its our job to deal with everyone else's problems. One day, I was watching one of our big cats (a liger!) just play and enjoy life. A sweet, innocent creature who loves life, and those who care for her! Sometimes, we let the stress of our careers 'get to us'. We need to regularly take a step away from our careers and 'enjoy life', whether it is with animals, family, a favorite pastime, etc. Without this regular 'reset', our jobs and the associated cares can drag us down.
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TamaraISchmitz
2/22/2013 11:54 PM EST
Thanks for the comment! It sounds awesome to be a zookeeper. And I definitely agree that there is a lot to learn from "everyday animals". My three dogs (akita, Bernese mountain dog and retriever mix) teach me things every day.
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Gita
2/23/2013 9:47 AM EST
I taught Surveying for some years and my two dogs, Kali and Carol, both bird dogs, would accompany me to school on weekends when I would take the instruments out to calibrate them or set out a test for the following week. Sometimes, I would take a break to eat and while seated, would throw a treat for the dogs. Immediately, they would set off to track it by their outstanding sense of smell but would follow a pattern - an algorithm. Each time they put their noses to the ground and got a "hit", they would turn directly towards that direction, then pause again when the scent got weaker and do it again to "triangulate" and, in successive iterations, reduce the "triangle of error" to home in on the reward! I did not need to teach them any surveying fundamentals; they were born with a built-in GPS.
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TamaraISchmitz
2/23/2013 10:21 AM EST
Fantastic!
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zeeglen
2/22/2013 8:31 PM EST
This is a very interesting topic. Reminds me of two animal thought process stories:
The sun had just popped back out after a spring shower. There was a cable TV wire strung across our yard and I noticed lengths of grass mysteriously appearing on the wire, and watched closer. A bird (grackle I think) was draping the grass over the wire to dry! 20 minutes later, the bird gathered them up again and got back to building its nest. You can say that nest-building is an instinct, but how does a bird figure out how to dry its building materials?
Our tabby cat "Scratch" used to stalk and attack my model train locomotives since this particular scale was the size of a mouse. Had to always watch her closely when running them. One day I was taking one apart for maintenance and cleaning; Scratch as usual was sitting on the back of my chair supervising. She got up on my workbench and sniffed over all the tiny parts, then concluded that it really was not a live mouse - it was some silly mechanical human contrivance and therefore beneath a cat's dignity. She never bothered my trains after that, in her pussycat mind she apparently made some kind of connection to the concept of mechanical.
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timbalionguy
2/24/2013 6:23 PM EST
Zeeglen, that is truly an amazing observation! This is an example of an animal using a tool, in this case the CATV wire as a drying rack. This is something you should share with a animal behaviorist, if you can.
A friend of mine had a lioness who was quite 'mechanical'. She would loosen nuts on the caging with her teeth. I think she was doing this not so much to escape, but because she found this fascinating in a 'cat' way.
Being very interested in lions, I have many documentaries about them in my video library. My cat ignored them. But the first time I ever screened 'the Lion King', he watched with rapt attention. A week or so later, he emulated one of the behaviors shown in th film, by ramming me in the head as I laid in bed!
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Parthive Zaveri
2/26/2013 3:31 PM EST
Great article Tamara. Observing and learning is an important lesson we learn as an engineer - which you have! I can hardly wait for the part - 2 of the article - is there a way I can get the entire article in one go?
Thanks for sharing this great article.
Parthive
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Racerjerry
3/1/2013 1:36 PM EST
The last segment, “Defend your territory” brought back thoughts of encountering so many people who were unwilling or unable to share their hard won knowledge and ‘secrets.’ Their short-sightedness was harmful to both themselves and their company. Every time you teach someone, you learn a bit more about the subject AND about people.
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knuckledragger
3/1/2013 7:02 PM EST
Do we really need the editor's condescending comments peppered through this article? Get your own column (I'm defending her territory for her) !
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