Here’s a great video from Tom Wujec about the Marshmallow Challenge; a team exercise to build a simple structure from pieces of dried spaghetti and a marshmallow. When he tried this game out on many different groups, he found some of the worst performers were Business School graduates and some of the best were Kindergarten children.

Why? Because the Business School grads were trained to look for the one right plan to follow and then implement it (which often failed at the last moment when the structure collapsed). Children, in comparison, just play; they try things out and experiment and work iteratively to find the solution.

Tom’s conclusion is that “Design truly is a contact sport. It demands that we bring all of our senses to the task and that we apply the very best of our thinking, our feeling and our doing.”

When you’re designing your irresistible offer at the heart of your business, who would you rather model? The business grads or the kids?

Read more about the challenge at marshmallowchallenge.com