How Jigsaw Puzzles Improve Our Collaboration

One of my readers emailed me recently with a suggestion for creating community: jigsaw puzzles! Interesting… why don’t I do jigsaw puzzles?

• Arguably, I’m too busy.
• Practically, I want to focus on projects that progress my goals.
• Realistically, what’s the point? I already know the end result (the picture on the box!)

As an experiment, however, I bought a 1,000-piece puzzle and dumped it on my unused dining room table… fighting the urge to do something more productive.
Here’s what I discovered:

1. Patience. The puzzle was too complicated to solve at one time. So I played with it in spurts over a month.
2. Pause. Turning to it gave me a much-needed pause from the chaos.
3. Perspective. I often walked to the other side of the table just to study pieces, progress, and the big picture from a different angle.
4. Partnership. Instead of watching TV, my family started helping me, even cheering when we found a missing piece or completed a section.
5. Practice. It forced me to practice thinking critically. By definition, critical thinking involves recognizing patterns and understanding how information is connected together.

A Mentor in one of our programs reflected that being a Mentor has taught him to think critically about how he leads so that he can share valuable and practical advice with his Mentee.
Like jigsaw puzzles, mentoring and other ways we collaborate require patience, pause, perspective, partnership, and practice. Ultimately, completing the jigsaw puzzle did not allow me to cross anything off my to-do list. And the final picture was not a surprise. But the experience definitely offered me a new way to strengthen essential collaboration skills.

So now I’ll be bringing a jigsaw puzzle whenever I need to encourage people to connect, collaborate, and cheer!