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The Nature of Problems - Part 12

We even tend to overlook the direct approach to a problem in much simpler affairs. One New Year's day a man had a real problem: he was notified that his father was seriously ill in a distant city. It was suggested that he fly there immediately. Being a busi­nessman with many connections, he tried to think of someone who might be able to get him space on the crowded plane on New Year's day, and called a friend that he knew had some connection with the airline. This friend, in turn, called another man from his office who was directly concerned in doing business with the airline. This man began to call people at the airline to find out the possibilities of getting this one seat. But here he hit a stone wall. All of his connections were out of town or otherwise unreach-able. Then it occurred to him to try the direct approach. He called the number listed under "Reservations" for this airline in the phone book and asked the young lady who answered if there was any possibility of getting a seat to the distant city for an emergency trip. The reply, there were several seats available on a flight leaving one hour later! If the first man had tried the same approach, instead of making the assumption that all seats were sold out because it was a big holiday travel time, he would have had about twenty-five minutes extra in which to pack his bag and make the flight!

Sometimes the people whose job it is to get facts are the last to think of the direct approach to getting them. A major department store was overhauling their entire advertising and public relations program. They had decided to make themselves seem a little less formidable and a little more friendly to the people of their city. Under consideration was a change in the official company name. They had been using the formal corporate title ever since the founding of the company, but there was some question whether this was what the public thought of as the store's name. A research consultant proposed a survey, with a price tag of several thousand dollars, to go out and sample the opinion in the city. A member of the store's advertising department thought of a more direct approach. He, and three other members of the department, went down to the sidewalk across the street from the store; each stopped twenty-five persons, pointed to the store, and asked, "What store is that?" Every single person answered with the shorter, abbrevi­ated name of the store, and the whole survey took less than one hour.

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