The Mystery of The Fortieth Floor
The fortieth floor is a mysterious question and answer puzzle to exercise the imagination and develop lateral thinking.
Challenge your group to solve the mystery as fast as possible by providing limited data. Gather your group together, invite them to sit down, and present the “facts, all the facts, and nothing but the facts” of a particular situation.
To help you find a solution, your group can only ask you questions that can be answered with “YES” or “NO.” Many times, a group will ask questions that are irrelevant or don’t help the group get closer to a solution, if this occurs, simply say “IRRELEVANT” and invite another question.
When you are ready, state the facts of the mystery:
A man lives on the 40th floor of an apartment building. Every day, the man rides the elevator to the Ground floor and goes to work. Yet, when the man returns home, he gets off at the 10th floor and then walks 30 flights of stairs up to his apartment. Why?
If, after ten minutes or more, your group has not solved the mystery, you can lead your group in asking questions about a certain topic to move them closer to a solution.
Moment of Reflection
The solution to the puzzle is that the man is very short and can only reach the button on the tenth floor.
- What feelings did you or the group experience during the activity? Because?
- Did you or the group make any assumptions? Please provide an example.
- How easy was it to identify and/or dismantle these assumptions?
- Where else in our lives do we often make assumptions that are not correct?
- How should I act when I have an assumption?
The topics of this publication: teamwork, creativity, motivation, interactions, active listening, imagination, brainstorming, lateral thinking
