Post 574 - Reflections on how to think about the future:
We need to step back and learn from history, then learn to manage complexity with simplicity using more general ideas.
Learning from the past gives people security to be able to change. The challenge of learning to be able to go fast slowly.
We need to develop a new kind of complexity rather than just simplifying organizations by downsizing. Organizations must develop a capability to manage complex on-going change at all levels - pretty sophisticated stuff relative to traditional reactive change. This will require a whole new way of teaching employees so it becomes a never-ending ongoing exercise. Strategies now have to be developed on many levels and short term initiatives is as important as long range ones. There's a need to reinterpret the past to make it a part of the future - that is, to integrate the past and the future so people can resolve the split in their head which polarizes their choices between one or the other. A new world view should integrate both. This means reordering of how we in the west view the concept of time, differentiating between where M-time and P-time are appropriate to use, rather than using M-time all the time.
Our most cherished myths are often freely sculpted truths. For confirmation and comfort, we often turn not to a verifiable recording of the past but to a loose rendering of it. That fuzziness is our heritage, the other merely a record of what happened.
We need to learn about the future from the past and the present by looking for the patterns (principles) behind the patterns - these are the principles that endure. There can be no viable future that doesn’t have its roots somewhere in the past. New futures won’t spring into being without honoring the continuities that people value in their lives and their previous work habits. Examining the past is a way to appreciate these continuities in the present and provide a platform to evaluate the current system. The history of a system is as much part of its future as its environment. Strategy development can’t be detached from the system’s culture and history. Examining the past is a way to start dreaming about the future.
Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
How to turbo-charge your creative thinking.
Post 471 - Roger von Oech writes that the first principle of traditional logic is the law of non-contradiction. Logic can only comprehend those things that have a consistent and non-contradictory nature. This is fine except that most of life is ambiguous; inconsistency and contradictions are the hallmarks of human existence. As a result, the number of issues that can be thought about in a logical manner is small, and too much emphasis on the logical method can inhibit the exploring mind.
"Hard thinking" is logical, precise, exact, specific and consistent. "Soft thinking" is metaphorical, approximate, diffuse, humorous, playful and able to deal with contradiction. Hard thinking is like a spotlight, bright, clear and intense, but the focus is narrow. Soft thinking is like a floodlight, more diffuse, not as intense, but it covers a wider area.
Some people have little use for soft thinking because it's not logical. When faced with an issue, they immediately think, “Let’s see the numbers and get down to brass tacks.” And as Karl Albrecht points out, they'll never give themselves the opportunity to consider steel tacks, copper tacks, plastic tacks, sailing tacks, income tax, syntax or contacts. Using a little soft thinking early in the creative process may still cause you to end up going with the brass tacks, but at least you’ll have the confidence of having considered other alternatives.
Our educational system does a fairly good job of developing logical thinking skills but doesn’t do much to develop soft thinking. In fact, most of our educational emphasis is geared toward eliminating soft thinking, or teaching people to regard it as an inferior tool. As a result, most people aren't very adept at soft thinking, so it takes some practice to do it well.
Human intelligence is a complicated phenomenon, and yet almost all of our formal ideas of intelligence are based on logic and analysis - I. Q. tests are a good example. Musical ability, decorating, painting and cooking seem to have no place in many test-makers’ idea of intelligence. As Edward de Bono points out, if someone says he’s learned to think, most people assume that means that he’s learned to think logically.
When exploring a creative challenge, take a leaf out of Einstein's book and utilize the power of hard thinking followed by soft thinking. Einstein would pour over his calculations and cover everything he knew before having in-depth discussions with his peers. All this involved hard creative effort. But Einstein appreciated soft thinking as well, so he consciously set the problem aside and redirected his attention to playing the violin or sailing - two things he loved to do and could "disappear" while he was doing them. He found was that during these pleasurable pursuits, his unconscious mind would go on thinking about the challenge and surprise him with a breakthrough insight or innovation at the time when he least expected it. So following Einstein's method seems like a good way to turbo-charge your creative thinking breakthroughs.
“What concerns me is not the way things are but rather the way people think things are” – Epictetus.
"Hard thinking" is logical, precise, exact, specific and consistent. "Soft thinking" is metaphorical, approximate, diffuse, humorous, playful and able to deal with contradiction. Hard thinking is like a spotlight, bright, clear and intense, but the focus is narrow. Soft thinking is like a floodlight, more diffuse, not as intense, but it covers a wider area.
Some people have little use for soft thinking because it's not logical. When faced with an issue, they immediately think, “Let’s see the numbers and get down to brass tacks.” And as Karl Albrecht points out, they'll never give themselves the opportunity to consider steel tacks, copper tacks, plastic tacks, sailing tacks, income tax, syntax or contacts. Using a little soft thinking early in the creative process may still cause you to end up going with the brass tacks, but at least you’ll have the confidence of having considered other alternatives.
Our educational system does a fairly good job of developing logical thinking skills but doesn’t do much to develop soft thinking. In fact, most of our educational emphasis is geared toward eliminating soft thinking, or teaching people to regard it as an inferior tool. As a result, most people aren't very adept at soft thinking, so it takes some practice to do it well.
Human intelligence is a complicated phenomenon, and yet almost all of our formal ideas of intelligence are based on logic and analysis - I. Q. tests are a good example. Musical ability, decorating, painting and cooking seem to have no place in many test-makers’ idea of intelligence. As Edward de Bono points out, if someone says he’s learned to think, most people assume that means that he’s learned to think logically.
When exploring a creative challenge, take a leaf out of Einstein's book and utilize the power of hard thinking followed by soft thinking. Einstein would pour over his calculations and cover everything he knew before having in-depth discussions with his peers. All this involved hard creative effort. But Einstein appreciated soft thinking as well, so he consciously set the problem aside and redirected his attention to playing the violin or sailing - two things he loved to do and could "disappear" while he was doing them. He found was that during these pleasurable pursuits, his unconscious mind would go on thinking about the challenge and surprise him with a breakthrough insight or innovation at the time when he least expected it. So following Einstein's method seems like a good way to turbo-charge your creative thinking breakthroughs.
“What concerns me is not the way things are but rather the way people think things are” – Epictetus.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
How to deal with stalled meetings.
Post 470 - Most of us have a one sided view of the world and find it difficult to change when we're asked to think about a view that differs from our own. During meetings, some people argue their own point of view at length, and never seem to stop. How to solve the problems of time wasted in meetings? How to focus more on the points that really matter instead of concentrating on unrelated and inappropriate topics? How to reduce or stop endless discussions? How to improve communication and decision-making in groups?
Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats is a good technique for looking at the effects of a decision from a number of different points of view. To improve the quality of communication and decision-making, he suggests looking at the decision "wearing" each of the following "Thinking Hats" in turn. De Bono reports that this process reduces time spent in meetings by 20 to 90 percent, based on experiences reported to him since his book of the same name was first published. Each represents a different style of thinking as explained below:
• White Hat:
Here, look at the information that's available, and see what can be learned from it. Look for gaps in knowledge, and either try to fill them or take them into account. This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data. Care in characterizing what's actually known is important here.
• Red Hat:
Wearing the red hat, look at the decision using intuition and gut reaction. Think about how other people will react emotionally, and try to understand the intuitive responses of those who don't fully understand your reasoning. This allows emotion and skepticism to be brought into what would otherwise be a purely rational decision.
* Black Hat:
Using black hat thinking, look at things pessimistically, cautiously and defensively. Try to see why ideas and approaches being considered mightn't work. By highlighting the weak points in a plan or course of action, you can eliminate them, change your approach, or develop contingency plans to counter any problems that may arise. Black hat thinking helps persistently pessimistic people be positive and creative. Another benefit of this technique is that many successful people get so used to thinking positively that they often can't anticipate problems in advance, which leaves them ill-prepared for difficulties later on.
• Yellow Hat:
The yellow hat encourages positive thinking. An optimistic viewpoint helps to see all the benefits of the decision and to spot the opportunities that arise from it. Yellow hat thinking helps you to keep on going when everything looks gloomy and difficult. This view is helpful in opening up the possibilities.
• Green Hat:
The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It's a freewheeling way of thinking, where there's little criticism of ideas. Most ideas begin with the green hat and then get analyzed from the black and yellow hat point of view. This is the entrepreneurial hat - fertile, creative, provocative.
• Blue Hat:
The Blue Hat stands for process control and can be used to move between different thinking styles. This is the hat to wear when chairing meetings. Running into difficulties because ideas are running dry? Direct people's activity into green hat thinking. Then, when contingency plans are needed, ask for black hat thinking, and so on. You can use these different hats in meetings to help defuse disagreements when people with different thinking styles discuss the same issue.
People learn best when they're playing, and the six hat approach clearly encourages a spirit of play. By having everyone in a group focus on a specific element (Hat) at the same time, not individually, this technique reduces the amount of personality-based conflict, encourages more participation, and gives validation to many different ways to present the question at hand. It also suspends judgment longer so that more ideas can emerge.
I suggest you give this process a trial run with something unimportant before unleashing it on a big issue. Otherwise, you might be stalled by lack of understanding about how the process works. Keep practicing until you're satisfied that it's working well.
Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats is a good technique for looking at the effects of a decision from a number of different points of view. To improve the quality of communication and decision-making, he suggests looking at the decision "wearing" each of the following "Thinking Hats" in turn. De Bono reports that this process reduces time spent in meetings by 20 to 90 percent, based on experiences reported to him since his book of the same name was first published. Each represents a different style of thinking as explained below:
• White Hat:
Here, look at the information that's available, and see what can be learned from it. Look for gaps in knowledge, and either try to fill them or take them into account. This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data. Care in characterizing what's actually known is important here.
• Red Hat:
Wearing the red hat, look at the decision using intuition and gut reaction. Think about how other people will react emotionally, and try to understand the intuitive responses of those who don't fully understand your reasoning. This allows emotion and skepticism to be brought into what would otherwise be a purely rational decision.
* Black Hat:
Using black hat thinking, look at things pessimistically, cautiously and defensively. Try to see why ideas and approaches being considered mightn't work. By highlighting the weak points in a plan or course of action, you can eliminate them, change your approach, or develop contingency plans to counter any problems that may arise. Black hat thinking helps persistently pessimistic people be positive and creative. Another benefit of this technique is that many successful people get so used to thinking positively that they often can't anticipate problems in advance, which leaves them ill-prepared for difficulties later on.
• Yellow Hat:
The yellow hat encourages positive thinking. An optimistic viewpoint helps to see all the benefits of the decision and to spot the opportunities that arise from it. Yellow hat thinking helps you to keep on going when everything looks gloomy and difficult. This view is helpful in opening up the possibilities.
• Green Hat:
The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It's a freewheeling way of thinking, where there's little criticism of ideas. Most ideas begin with the green hat and then get analyzed from the black and yellow hat point of view. This is the entrepreneurial hat - fertile, creative, provocative.
• Blue Hat:
The Blue Hat stands for process control and can be used to move between different thinking styles. This is the hat to wear when chairing meetings. Running into difficulties because ideas are running dry? Direct people's activity into green hat thinking. Then, when contingency plans are needed, ask for black hat thinking, and so on. You can use these different hats in meetings to help defuse disagreements when people with different thinking styles discuss the same issue.
People learn best when they're playing, and the six hat approach clearly encourages a spirit of play. By having everyone in a group focus on a specific element (Hat) at the same time, not individually, this technique reduces the amount of personality-based conflict, encourages more participation, and gives validation to many different ways to present the question at hand. It also suspends judgment longer so that more ideas can emerge.
I suggest you give this process a trial run with something unimportant before unleashing it on a big issue. Otherwise, you might be stalled by lack of understanding about how the process works. Keep practicing until you're satisfied that it's working well.
Monday, April 19, 2010
The power of lateral thinking.
Post 469 - Reading Edward de Bono's book New Think over the weekend, I was reminded again of the difference between vertical and lateral thinking. Vertical thinking begins with a single idea and then proceeds with that idea until a solution is reached. Lateral thinking generates alternative ways of seeing the problem before looking for a solution.
DeBono explains this by talking about digging holes:
Logic is the tool that's used to dig holes deeper and bigger, to make them altogether better holes. But if the hole is in the wrong place, then no amount of improvement is going to put it in the right place. No matter how obvious this may seem to every digger, it's still easier to go on digging in the same place than to start all over again in a new place. Vertical thinking is digging the same hole deeper; lateral thinking is trying again elsewhere.
de Bono acknowledges the advantages of digging in the same hole, agreeing that "a half-dug hole offers a direction in which to expend effort." He also points out that no one is paid to sit around being capable of achievement. Since there's no way to assess such capability, we have to pay and promote people according to their visible achievements. So it can work to your advantage to dig the wrong hole (even one that's recognized as being wrong) to an impressive depth than sitting around wondering where to start digging. However, breakthroughs usually come when someone abandons a partly-dug hole and starts afresh in a different place.
Many successful people think from a very rational, positive viewpoint, and this is part of the reason that they're successful. Often, though, they may fail to look at problems from emotional, intuitive, creative or negative viewpoints. This can mean that they underestimate resistance to change, don't make creative leaps, and fail to make essential contingency plans. Similarly, pessimists may be excessively defensive, and people used to a very logical approach to problem solving may fail to engage their creativity or listen to their intuition.
Tomorrow, I'll cover de Bono's "Six Thinking Hats," which is a way to look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. This helps make better decisions by pushing people to move outside their habitual ways of thinking. Thus by understanding the full complexity of a decision, they can spot issues and opportunities which they might not otherwise notice.
DeBono explains this by talking about digging holes:
Logic is the tool that's used to dig holes deeper and bigger, to make them altogether better holes. But if the hole is in the wrong place, then no amount of improvement is going to put it in the right place. No matter how obvious this may seem to every digger, it's still easier to go on digging in the same place than to start all over again in a new place. Vertical thinking is digging the same hole deeper; lateral thinking is trying again elsewhere.
de Bono acknowledges the advantages of digging in the same hole, agreeing that "a half-dug hole offers a direction in which to expend effort." He also points out that no one is paid to sit around being capable of achievement. Since there's no way to assess such capability, we have to pay and promote people according to their visible achievements. So it can work to your advantage to dig the wrong hole (even one that's recognized as being wrong) to an impressive depth than sitting around wondering where to start digging. However, breakthroughs usually come when someone abandons a partly-dug hole and starts afresh in a different place.
Many successful people think from a very rational, positive viewpoint, and this is part of the reason that they're successful. Often, though, they may fail to look at problems from emotional, intuitive, creative or negative viewpoints. This can mean that they underestimate resistance to change, don't make creative leaps, and fail to make essential contingency plans. Similarly, pessimists may be excessively defensive, and people used to a very logical approach to problem solving may fail to engage their creativity or listen to their intuition.
Tomorrow, I'll cover de Bono's "Six Thinking Hats," which is a way to look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. This helps make better decisions by pushing people to move outside their habitual ways of thinking. Thus by understanding the full complexity of a decision, they can spot issues and opportunities which they might not otherwise notice.
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