| Put On Your Thinking Cap |
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VANCOUVER BUSINESS JOURNAL March, 2000 Essential Management Concepts JONNIE MARTIN Thinking — focused cognitive analysis — is an underutilized skill in far too many businesses. It is so easy to get caught up in the whirl of activity, relying on automatic habits and routines. It is much more difficult to stop, clear our minds of programmed responses, and think clearly and critically about our business issues. A few years ago, Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler wrote a popular book entitled If It Ain’t Broke, Break It: And Other Unconventional Wisdom for a Changing Business World. It was written around the idea that the status quo is dangerous and to remain competitive we must constantly be challenging our basic business premises; that “thinking” is critical to our success. Since actions follow thought, wrong thinking can doom your company. Many businesses fail because their leaders are trapped in archaic processes and erroneous assumptions. For those of you old enough to remember, there was a time in our nation when the wealthiest people were railroad magnates and most of these men worked from the narrow mindset that they “were in the railroad business.” When the railroads faded from popularity, their power and wealth dissipated. Those who continued to succeed were able to think in new and creative ways; they broadened their perspectives (we are in the transportation business) and began to build vertically integrated empires or expand into related ventures. The truth is, most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about thinking. Whether to do it, when to do it, how to do it, how to do it effectively. We tend to relax into that automatic part of our cerebellum that Vancouver writer-psychologist Al Bernstein labeled as Dinosaur Brains in his book of the same name. This part of our mind is emotional, irrational, reactionary, and limited in its cognitive capability. What we need to do is to access the rational, logical, and analytical parts of our mind. While we may spend too little time thinking about this subject, writer Edward de Bono probably has spent far too much time. In fact he may be fixated on the subject, having written dozens of books, including his esoteric de Bonos’ Thinking Course. If you can slog through the verbiage, he does have some excellent exercises built around creative problem-solving, thought patterns, awareness, perception, lateral thinking, judgment, logic, operacy, and matrix analysis. One of the stated goals of your organizations needs to be the pursuit of effective thinking, which I define to mean “thinking (and related actions) that moves you toward goals.” This will help focus the process toward solutions that are workable and away from reactive emotionality. In seminars on this subject I often use a common example that people easily relate to. Suppose as an employee you give a sterling performance for the year but do not receive a raise. A usual (but ineffective) response is to get angry, shut down performance, and spread gossip. The anger might be understandable, appropriate and even righteous but it just isn’t effective in moving you forward to your goals (a raise, a promotion, stable employment, building your career). Effective thinking can be taught within an organization, but it necessarily starts with common and agreed goals. Then, when problems arise or new ideas are broached, it is relatively easy to hold these up as standards. “OK, folks, if our goals are to increase sales by 10% this year while maintaining the same level of customer service, are our thoughts and actions taking us toward those goals…or away from them?” It is helpful to develop a culture within your organization that encourages inquiry and analysis on the part of everyone. This process is enhanced if you are able to keep egos out of the way and fully encourage open discussions. Nothing is off limits. No sacred cows. Robert J. Kriegel also wrote another book with David Brandt entitled: Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers: Developing Change-Ready People and Organizations that makes a case for openness and candor. Companies make better decisions with truthful information and you will only hear the truth if you sincerely encourage an open society. It helps to have processes - venues - in place to cultivate organizational thinking. Retreats, seminars, brown-bag lunches, roundtable discussions—any kind of gathering that is designed for group sharing. It is important that the group is facilitated in such a manner that everyone can participate and you need to make it safe for people to speak their mind. Particularly during the brainstorming phase of the process, all ideas need to be welcomed and valued. Words of encouragement must be used and critical or negative responses avoided. You must take care that there are no reprisals for unpopular or challenging thoughts, or participants will shut down. You may find it useful to separate the brainstorming process from the critical-analytical process that must assuredly follow. It is helpful for people to know that no matter how ingenious their ideas, all ideas require thoughtful analysis against specific criteria. Again, the process must ask and answer the question: does this idea take us toward our stated goals. Participants need to know that the brainstorming process is valued and critical to the company’s success but does not supplant the need for sound business judgment. You will find that some people in your organization are better at idea generation and some people are better at the analysis process, and it is important that you help them learn to recognize and value the differences. A few years ago I had a personal experience with this duality. My partner was a creative, ethereal “possibility” thinker — and I was a manager grounded in “process.” She would come into my office bubbling with enthusiasm for a new idea, which I was quick to quash before it had barely left her lips. As the operations person, I was afraid that some of her crazy ideas would escape and get put into effect before I could properly weigh their merit and I was the person who would have to clean up the mess. Fortunately my partner and I soon realized that these dynamics were not serving us well. My negative attitude discouraged her creative thinking — the very lifeblood of our company. She came to understand my resistance and fear. With due regard for both our needs, we agreed that all ideas would go through an evaluation process before being launched — which freed me up to encourage her free-thought in the early creative stages. When an idea had matured to the point that we wanted to give it serious consideration, we took it through the standard steps for analysis which includes the following;
If you will utilize the suggestions above to increase the quality and quantity of thinking within your organization, you will be amazed at the results. Of course, you should not have an unreasonable expectation that everyone will immediately and automatically begin to think effectively and logically. It will take time and practice and education. Some people will be better at it than others. One of the best ways to introduce the idea to your organization is to plan a half-day retreat using de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. This is one of de Bono’s most accessible books and is written around the premise that there are six different types of thinking that are part of a group process— which he identifies with six different hat colors. He suggests that new groups in particular can benefit by doing one type of thinking at a time (wearing one color of hat). There is the white hat (for pure thought, the facts), the green hat (for spring growth, new ideas), the yellow hat (for sunny, positive ideas), the black hat (for dark, negative criticisms), the red hat (for hot, emotional thoughts) and the blue hat (the engineer’s cap — for controlling the group process). The book is an easy read and a great way to launch discussions on how to improve thinking within your organization. |