My daily commute has two parts. First, I walk through Beacon Hill to Arlington Station. Then, I board the Green Line going west, making sure to get the ‘D’ train that runs to Brookline Village, my eventual destination. On some mornings, I arrive at Arlington and make a peculiar choice – instead of waiting for the ‘D’ train, I board the ‘B’ or ‘C’ and take it to Kenmore, the last stop before the trains separate into unique tracks. I do this because I know from decades of using the ‘T’ that sometimes an unannounced ‘D’ train will start at Kenmore, often to make up for a delayed train. A couple of times in the past few months, I’ve boarded a fresh ‘D’ train at Kenmore alone, eventually arriving at work a few minutes earlier than those I left behind at Arlington.
This tactic demonstrates my broader approach to solving problems. I almost always take things as close to the solution as possible, moving forward until I encounter an obvious obstacle. The helmet football analogy is to a running back, running as far as possible until stopped. I see the value of plans, itineraries, and procedures, but I prefer a faster method, quickly identifying a promising approach and committing my perseverance, preparation, and instincts to get me as close as possible to the goal.
No approach beats another – it’s more a question of finding the best method for solving a given type of problem. I tend to do well with messy, vague, or ever-changing problems. I manage discomfort, invent novel techniques, and battle through setbacks (1). My style is a poor fit for many situations, including but not limited to park cleanups, cooking from a recipe, or succeeding in a large corporation (editor's note - also add 'pandemics' to this list). When you know how to do it, don’t get me involved. The Amish would hand me a smart phone and tell me to buggy-off after my first barn raising.
The ‘T’ is like my training gym for these skills, presenting me with an endless array of messy, vague, and ever-changing problems. Just the other day, I made a Friday night trip to Chelsea that was like a final exam for Mass Transit 101. (10 points - describe how to reach Chelsea, located across the harbor, and arrive at your destination, which is only indirectly serviced by multiple bus routes.) My options included the Blue Line, which would link me to the several bus options at Maverick, or catching a bus from Haymarket. The Maverick buses ran only every fifteen to thirty minutes but would take me closest to my destination. The sole Haymarket option ran every few minutes but forced a longer walk through Chelsea. Further complicating the calculus was my not having a smart phone (no phones in the exam room) and my specific Green Line terminating short of Haymarket.
I headed east from Brookline Village with a printout map of Chelsea. My first decision was to stay on the train for as long as possible. I knew from experience – see above – that schedules change quickly on the ‘T’. Might some combination of delays, luck, or conductor impulse see my train extended beyond the original terminus, Government Center? I could always reassess if nothing happened, but of course it did, perhaps the adjustment surprising the tourists or BU first-years. I switched over to the Haymarket bus without incident and soon enough we were barreling over the Tobin Bridge toward Chelsea.
The next decision was when to get off the bus. Riding the bus in broad daylight over familiar pavement is challenging enough – I was in the dark on an unfamiliar path. I exercised my cartography skills and noted that the bus was on one of Chelsea’s main roads, wandering vaguely toward my destination. I decided to get off and walk as soon as the bus turned off this main road. A few minutes later, we turned left. When I returned on foot to the main road, I crossed and walked on the right hand side even though my destination was on the left. This allowed me to occasionally turn back and see if one of those infrequent buses from Maverick was approaching – with some luck, I could get on the bus and take it a little closer to my destination. I admit it would have made for a nice ending to this story if I’d indeed caught a bus, but I ended up walking the last fifteen minutes without further incident.
Not the most compelling story ever told, but that’s kind of how it goes with this approach. I usually go one step at a time and end up doing simple things. On the surface, there is very little going on. As I noted above, a lot of problems would suffer if those in charge had my attitude – let’s just start working on it, and see. But I wouldn’t trade my approach for any other. My philosophy is a bit unusual but it gives me an advantage when I’m faced with a complex, confusing challenge. The biggest step in these cases often involves getting started despite uncertainty, but I’m used to that from a lifetime of practice.
I also think it protects me from competition, the prospect of being a ‘running back’ generally unappealing to the average person. It’s possible that natural running backs deliberately abandon their method for something else, perhaps seduced by the promise of planning, but I think it’s a one-way street, I don’t think the natural planners become running backs. So over time, experienced running backs tend to go away, but since they aren't replaced by experienced planners becoming running backs, I end up quickly accumulating relative expertise within my cohort of problem-solvers. I see it as one of my most valuable skills.
The big question is, if this skill is as valuable as I claim, can it be taught or learned? I don’t think so, partly because I haven’t seen any examples but mostly because it seems like one of those ingrained habits that get stomped out of us as we grow up. Aren’t all babies running backs, at least in the sense of how they solve problems? They just crawl around until they become uncomfortable, then they start yelling. I guess that’s the story, because growing up is the process of encountering discomfort, then learning how to avoid it in the future through your experience and agency. The issue is that it guides us naturally away from the running back approach because the entire method is premised on being able to forge on through discomfort to solve the problem. It leaves me with a parting thought – though this skill cannot be taught or learned, it can be cultivated, and done so by becoming increasingly tolerant of discomfort.
Footnotes / endnotes
0. If you fail to plan…
I have no axe to grind against planning. There is a point, however, when plans become ideas that aren’t good enough to implement to right away. In these moments, you still might need to do something, but you won’t know what to do. So what do you do?
I guess you go find a running back.
1. Other running back characteristics
Like a running back, I’m often asked to respond quickly to sudden obstacles. If others make errors, I have to think on my feet and find ways to keep moving forward. I have a relatively high tolerance for pain and often deal head-on with crumbling, hopeless situations. I’m versatile enough to handle multiple tasks but prefer to exercise my versatility selectively, applying the most appropriate set of skills for the specific problem at hand. I rely heavily on teammates to get started but often contribute the most when I follow my instincts to the frontiers of the mission. I’m a leader through example but my teammates are reluctant to follow until they see some evidence of recent success.
