management thinking

The human race has never really learned to think. That may seem a bold statement when we look at the very considerable achievements of the human race.

Our thinking software comes from the Gang of Three who lived about 2,400 years ago. Plato, Socrates and Aristotle designed the thinking software that we use today. There are many thousands of people around the world writing software for computers. How much effort have we made to write software for the human brain?

We have done well with mathematics but what have we done with proactive thinking? We have done nothing for 2,400 years. We have done so very well in science and technology that we are proud and complacent about the excellence of our thinking. Why then have we made so little progress in human affairs?

Imagine a doctor in a clinic. A child is brought in with a rash. The doctor takes the history, examines the child and does some tests. In the doctor’s mind there is a list of possible illnesses that the child might have. It could be food allergy. It could be measles. It could be sunburn, etc, etc. The doctor then exercises his diagnostic judgment and makes a choice. If measles is diagnosed then the doctor knows the usual course of the illness, the possible complications and the standard treatment.

STANDARD

The thinking of that doctor in the clinic is the model for most of our thinking. Analyse a situation. Identify a standard element. Then, provide a standard answer. This sort of thinking serves us very well. The rear left wheel of a motor car is excellent. But if you believed that it was enough just to have a rear left wheel on a motor car, then you would be mistaken. In the same way our standard thinking is excellent - but it is not enough.

When Greek thinking came into Europe, at the time of the Renaissance (through the Arabs in Spain), the universities and schools were run by church people.

They did not need perceptual thinking because the starting points were not matters of human perception but were fixed as dogmas. They did not need creative thinking in religion. They did not need design thinking.

The thinking that was needed was to do with truth, logic and argument. This is what was needed to prove heretics wrong. So this type of thinking became the standard software for Western thinking.

If a scientist is dealing with the element ‘iron’, then the properties of iron are known, permanent and constant. Judgment provides all this. So you put iron together with something else and you get technology.

In human affairs there is a difference. If you call someone an ‘idiot’, then that person is changed and is no longer the person you called an idiot. In human affairs there are loops and feedback effects. Judgment is not enough.

You can analyse the past, but you need to design the future. Although there are individuals who do provide the ‘design’ element in society, design has never become as important or as central as analysis. Design is a matter of putting together known ingredients to deliver value.

Design is as important as analysis, but is treated as a specialised subject in graphic design, fashion design or architecture.

Some time ago I was discussing this matter with a very senior lawyer in Europe. I suggested that there was a need for a ‘Court of Design’. The purpose of such a court would be to help disputants design a way forward. This is much more than conflict resolution or compromise.

A good design should offer the parties involved more value than a mid-way state between their two positions. Design needs design effort and design skill – not compromise. He liked the idea, but I doubt if such a court would ever be set up.

DESIGN AND CREATIVITY

In one sense design always involves creativity. There is something new which provides value. That is the essence of creativity. At the same time the design maybe logical. For example, applying existing computer technology to home shopping may be a new design, but the assembly of the elements may be totally logical.

Architecture design is usually perfectly logical even though the overall idea is new. In a way design is the opposite of routine. Creativity may be involved in providing a new objective or overall concept. The way that an objective is reached may indeed be logical.

Alternatively, the overall concept or objective may be logical, but the way it is achieved may require some new thinking and some creativity.

Cars may park wherever they want – provided they leave their headlights on full. Is this logical or creative? It is creative in the sense that it differs from parking meters and other established parking concepts. It is logical in that it provides a ‘downward pressure’ on space occupancy.

There is little point in trying to separate logical and creative approaches. Logic and creativity are both parts of thinking and both need to be exercised. In addition, any valuable creative idea will always seem logical in hindsight. That is the nature of asymmetric patterning systems. That something is perfectly logical in hindsight does not mean, however, that the idea could have been reached by logic in the first place.

An ant on the trunk of a tree has a one in 8,000 chance of reaching a specified leaf. But the ant starting from the leaf has a one-in-one chance of reaching the trunk of the tree. That is the nature of asymmetric systems. There is no mystery about idea creativity. Any self organising information system with a time dimension forms patterns. Any pattern-making system is asymmetric. That is the simple basis of creativity.

Unfortunately, over the centuries philosophers and psychologists have always dealt in words and descriptions. It is impossible to understand creativity on that basis. If, however, we look at the organising nature of the human brain (see my book ‘The Mechanism of Mind’) then creativity becomes clear as the behaviours of a certain type of system.

From the basis of this understanding we can develop the formal tools of lateral thinking, which can be learned and practised. A skill is thus built up and can be applied deliberately to generate new ideas. Just one lateral thinking tool used by a group of workshops generated 21,000 ideas for a steel company in one afternoon. There are now over a thousand trainers around the world training these skills.

RISK

There appears to be no risk in judgment. There is some risk that your judgment may be incorrect. Once, however, you have identified a standard element, there is no risk in predicting the behaviour of that element – unless the behaviour of that particular element is variable.

With design there is always some risk. Because a design is new, you cannot be sure that it will work and will deliver the intended value. Because of the low risk of judgment and routine behaviour, this is the preferred method of thinking. That it should be preferred is not a problem so long as the importance of design is recognised. Even more important is the need to recognise those situations which demand design because the routine approaches have not worked.

FUNDAMENTAL

The fundamental difference between judgment and design needs to be recognised. The importance of design needs to the recognised. The skill of design (and of creativity) needs to be developed. In that way the human race can increase the scope and power of its thinking.

These points are laid out in my book, ‘Why So Stupid? How the human race has never really learned to think’ (www.blackhallpublishing.com)