My latest book is called New Thinking for the New Millennium and is just being published in the UK. If we look back at the millennium just ending, how would we rate the thinking that fuelled that millennium? Obviously there have been huge advances in science and technology. We can treat tuberculosis which was such a major cause of death (and is re-emerging). We can visit the moon. We can create nuclear power stations and nuclear bombs. We have computers and the Internet. We have skyscrapers and air conditioning. Haven't we done well?
At the same time we have problems in Kosovo, in Kashmir, in Northern Ireland, in Columbia, in Dagestan, etc. There is pollution. There are millions of people in poverty and millions short of water.
We have made huge progress in technical matters, but almost none in human affairs. For example, we still use crude and primitive argument in parliaments, in law courts and in business discussions. In an argument, one side seeks to prove that something belongs in one category, the other side argues that it does not belong there - or belongs somewhere else. In the end, one party or another seems to have won. Very occasionally there is a synthesis of the opposing views.
We now know that parallel thinking (the Six Hats method) is very much faster, very much more effective and more aligned with how the brain actually works. The method is now widely used in major corporations, in schools, etc. Meeting times can be reduced to a quarter or even one-tenth. Fuller use is made of the intelligence, experience and information of those present.
That is not what the book is about. I mention it here to illustrate how complacent we have been with very inefficient 'thinking software'. For 2,400 years we have been content to use argument because we could not think of anything better. We now know this parallel.
The thinking of the last millennium has been concerned with 'what is'. This means identifying standard situations and being ready to provide the standard response. That is what education is all about. That is how a doctor works in his or her surgery. The operating tools are judgment and analysis. Analysis seeks to break down complex situations into more easily recognisable parts. What is going on here? What are the elements? What factors are operating?
Judgment is concerned with comparison. Does this fit into this box or category - or does it not? Aristotle emphasised this very strongly. It fitted in the box or it did not. It could not half fit. It could not be anywhere other than in the box or not in the box.
The point about this system is that it does work very well. It works well for the doctor who knows what treatment to apply (and what course to expect) once the disease condition has been identified. It works well in science where behaviour remains constant according to physical and other laws. It works well in law where principles are used instead of 'boxes'.
The irony is that the Greek Gang of Three (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) were not especially interested in science (Aristotle was to some extent) and yet their thinking system has worked best in science. Yet science has only been able to proceed with the additional software of the 'hypothesis'. This allows us to continue judgment, but against an imaginary possibility.
The 'what is' system is excellent, but it leaves out a very important part of thinking. That is the 'what can be' part. This thinking is concerned with things that are not already there. This thinking is concerned with the design of value. This thinking is concerned with creativity and the development of new ideas, with constructing a way forward. The book explains in greater detail the difference between 'what is' thinking and 'what can be' thinking.
It is not a matter of attacking existing thinking as 'being wrong'. This would be both absurd and untrue. The front left wheel of a motor car is not 'wrong' in any sense. It is excellent in what it is supposed to do. But, by itself, a front left wheel is inadequate. A screwdriver is excellent for driving screws, but not very good for cutting wood.
The problem with our thinking is not that it is bad. It is not. It is excellent. But it was never designed for the creation of new value. It was intended to protect a society which believed it had reached the pinnacle of civilisation and was not interested in change. The whole of the Athenian civilisation did not produce one single invention. Archimedes' screw had been in use for 200 years before he described it.
Today, in addition to judgment we need 'design'. Design is involved with putting things together to deliver new values. That is very different from judgment and analysis. Value is to design as truth is to analysis.
In today's business world, three things are becoming commodities. Competence is becoming a commodity. All organisations are cost-cutting, downsizing and improving performance. Some may get there faster, but eventually most will be competent - or the shareholders will want to know why not. Incompetent organisations will be taken over by more competent organisations.
Technology is becoming a commodity. Value is not going to come from more and more technology, but from design of 'value concepts'. Technology is fully able to deliver such concepts - but they have to be designed first. Technology firms do not yet understand this.
Information is already a commodity. Those who believe that more and more information will do their thinking for them, solve their problems, design their products and form their strategies will find themselves falling behind. Design is needed to get value from raw data. The brain can only see what it is prepared to see.
As competence, technology and information become commodities, the emphasis shifts to 'design'. The emphasis shifts to value creation. I invented the word 'valufacture' in my book Surpetition.
We seek to solve problems by finding the cause and then seeking to remove it. That is why we have remained so very poor at solving 'people problems'. In such problems that cause cannot be removed even if identified. There may also be many causes. There may be causes going back into history. Finding and removing the cause simply does not work. There is a need to design a way forward. But all such problems get is more and more analysis.
Most corporations run on the basis of 'maintenance and problem-solving'. Just keep things going and solve the problems as they arise. To this basic policy we could add the occasional 'me-too' product and the game of mergers and acquisitions. Almost all organisations and most people within them are stuck in the 'what is' mode of thinking - because that has been the basic software of Western thinking. If we move to education, to the media, etc., the effect is even stronger. Because there is no reality test, the emphasis is all on judgment with none on design.
So the way forward in society is not easy. Progress is much slower than it should be. I believe that if we had had a more design-oriented thinking system we would have been 400 years ahead of where we are now.
These points are discussed in greater detail in the new book.
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