Have the excellent developments in science and technology (computers, internet, space travel, medicine) helped the development of human kind or restricted it?
The obvious answer is that science and engineering have provided us with wonderful tools that enable us to do things we could never have done before. Instant access to huge amounts of information, via the internet, is obviously a high value.
There is a danger, however, that enabling us to do better what we are already doing inhibits us from doing things differently. If you are shouting and someone gives you a loudspeaker that amplifies your voice a thousandfold (or broadcasts it) you can certainly reach more people. But it does not mean that you are making more sense.
COMMUNICATION
Communication has been marvellously increased - but this does not mean that what we have to communicate makes any more sense than before. You only have to visit some chat rooms to realise that the content may actually be worse than before.
Does technology create value or support the value concepts that we have designed? Both can happen. But we tend only to believe in the former. We believe that more and more technology will be enough. Going faster and faster along the wrong road does not change the destination. Technology companies are rather poor in design value.
I believe that the next big step in evolution is going to be the development of 'thinking'. For the last five thousand years we have been immensely successful with a rather limited form of thinking. As I noted last month, this has been the thinking concerned with 'what is'. This involves identifying standard situations.
STANDARD
Once this identification has been made we know how to apply the standard response to a standard situation. We can also string standard situations together to achieve a result. Analysis, judgment, argument, classification are all part of this 'what is' thinking. The knowledge revolution is all about that.
There is, however, another sort of thinking that is concerned with 'what can be'. This is the thinking of design, creativity and construction. To be sure, this sort of thinking has always happened in a minor sort of way. There have been talented individuals who have been creative. People do design things. But it has always been something special and not mainstream. Education in both schools and universities has been almost exclusively concerned with 'what is' thinking. Up to now.
The time has come to give at least equal emphasis to 'what can be' thinking. We can solve problems not only by identifying and removing the cause but also by designing a way forward. You can analyse the past but you have to design the future. This is very much what I am writing about in my latest book, just published: New Thinking for the New Millennium (Viking, London).
SYMBOLS
The Millennium Dome in London has cost £758 million. I have no quarrel with that. I believe that symbols of this sort are important. But the Dome is not really going to change society very much. An equal amount spent on thinking could change society for ever.
Most people do not think much about thinking. Few people can even conceive that our thinking habits, however excellent, are limited and rather primitive. It is as if you were living in France and were not aware of any other country or language - how could you ever conceive that French was not perfect and not the only possible language? It is both astonishing and frightening to see how complacent education authorities are with our existing education content.
Business has always faced a dilemma: do you want your employees to think, or do you just want them to do as they are told? Almost every business would claim that employees are required to think. Like 'being creative' this is an easy enough claim when it requires no more than lip-service.
SUGGESTIONS
In my experience it is very rarely the case that employees are really asked to think. There may be token suggestion schemes, but they are rarely taken seriously. The ideas used are usually minor modifications which are valuable, but are in the area of 'tinkering'. It is not enough to say to employees: 'Please think, we are willing to listen to your ideas'.
Education does not teach people to think other than in sorting and rearranging remembered information. So the admonition to 'think' is no more valuable than it was as an IBM slogan.
NOT COMPLEX
The Rodin sculpture of the 'Thinker' reinforces the idea that thinking is ponderous and difficult. We are educated to believe that thinking is all about problem-solving, sorting out complex issues and puzzles, etc. This is by no means the most important part of thinking. Indeed, there is a very serious danger in believing that thinking is all about problem-solving.
Unfortunately, management consultants encourage businesses to think about 'problems'. Because a sick person only needs a doctor when he or she is sick, so consultants want their patients to feel 'sick'. Otherwise why would they need a consultant?
While problem-solving is important - and sometimes vital - it is only a small part of thinking. Most organisations are operating at way below their potential and asset value because they have been taught that thinking is for solving problems.
The idiom then becomes one of 'maintenance and problem-solving'. In other words, keep going and solve the problems that get in the way of your keeping going. Opportunities are wasted because they are never developed or never even thought about. It is for this reason that I am setting up a unit, with the Saatchi and Saatchi agency, precisely to do some 'opportunity' thinking.
DESIGN
Design thinking does have to make use of standard known elements, just as all music makes use of the standard notes. But it is the way you put things together to deliver value that gives good music and good design. Analysis is all about what is there. Design is all about what is not yet there. You cannot educate people in one mode and then expect them to be fluent in the other mode.
People often say to me: 'If creativity is not a natural skill then how is it that new ideas do emerge?' I answer: 'If creativity were a natural skill then I would expect far more ideas to emerge.' Some people have the motivation for creativity, which can be enough to produce some ideas (the willingness to challenge everything). Some people have developed some of the methods of creativity (such as provocation). But we can do very much better if we set our minds to it.
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