Think! (13 page)

It is almost impossible for a leader to talk about the importance of thinking. It has to be assumed that his or her thinking is near perfect. Furthermore, to talk about thinking makes the leader very vulnerable, as any policy or action can be attacked on the grounds that it shows poor thinking. So leaders do not talk about thinking.

The Prophet Muhammad probably had more to say about thinking than any other religious leader. In the Hadith, his own words as distinct from the Koran, the Prophet Muhammad has the following things to say:

'One hour of thinking is worth more than seventy years of prayer.' [This is thinking about the works of the Creator.]

'The ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr.'

'One learned man gives more trouble to the Devil than one thousand worshippers.'

I was told by a person from the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia that there are 130 verses in the Koran about thinking.

When Jesus was in Jerusalem, he could not really talk about 'thinking', because this would have suggested the Pharisees (the academic, educated, lawyer class) – who were the bad guys – to his listeners. Muhammad in the desert could tell his warriors – who had no academic pretensions – that thinking was important.

If you speak French and you live in France, why should you consider that any other language is important?

If you have set up the game of logic and play it very well, why should you consider that any other type of thinking is important?

If, as an educator, a university head or a Minister of Education, you believe that the traditions of the past are perfect, why should you consider that we have not really done very much about thinking since the GG3?

If you yourself have done very well with the existing modes of thinking, why should you encourage others to learn further modes?

If you live in innocent ignorance of the other modes of thinking, how can you be anything but complacent about thinking?

Far from encouraging further developments in human thinking, the leadership in education is more often minded to block such developments. Even if practical evidence shows the powerful effect of teaching perceptual thinking and creative thinking, the comfort of complacency, helped by traditional advisers, is more appealing.

It is usually individual teachers or individual school principals (like Helen Hyde of the Watford Grammar School for Girls) who have taken the initiative in making things happen.

Is this likely to change? Probably not.

When I was working on my book
The Mechanism of Mind,
I invented a new type of mathematics to deal with patterns, paths, and so on. I called it 'hodics', from the Greek
odos,
'road'. Sometimes it is necessary to design new ways of tackling a subject.

Instead of our existing judgement-based thinking system of 'boxes' and categories, we may move towards a very different system. This would be a 'field effect' system, which would be much closer to the way the brain actually
works. I shall be working on this. At the same time computers might come to be programmed to operate in a 'field effect' manner rather than digitally.

We may come to develop a new language for thinking. We certainly need a new language for perception. This would be softer and less hard-edged than our existing language. It would be like the contours of a landscape rather than the solidity of a building.

Instead of having to see someone as a 'friend' or an 'enemy', we might see the person as a complex of different factors. It may be appropriate to treat that person as an 'enemy' for the moment, but that does not mean that the person 'is' an enemy.

In the end we have to make decisions and take practical action – but judgements do not have to be permanent and irreversible. In politics there may be two people who hate each other's guts, but they know that they need each other and so have to work together.

The codes that I have developed will allow us to perceive the world in new ways. We will be able to communicate complex situations instantly. The codes will affect our habits of thinking. They may even allow thinking functions that we cannot carry out with ordinary language.

There is much to do in the design of better human
thinking. The first steps have been taken, but there is still a long way to go.

This is a new aid to thinking that is being introduced in this book. This is the first time that I am writing about it. It is a way of considering a subject. Like many of the other methods of thinking, it is based directly on the way the brain works.

In the brain, a cluster of interconnected neurones will be active at a given moment. This cluster will eventually tire and the activity will move on to the next cluster that is ready to become active. This other cluster will have been sensitised, or made ready, by connections to the first cluster or by events in the outer world.

With the Septine we seek to make use of this behaviour. We activate different areas one after the other without in any way seeking to make connections. This means that there will be a number of sensitised areas in the brain. The effect of these may be to sensitise further areas. In this way new ideas or a clarification of ideas on a subject will come about.

In a Septine you simply note down seven different thoughts about the situation. There is no attempt at a logical sequence. These are scattered thoughts. They may be expressed as a single word, as a phrase or even as a
sentence. Each element in a Septine exists in its own right.

There is no attempt to carry out an analysis or survey of the situation. It is just seven 'points' that are seen.

Holidays

A Septine on the design of holidays:

• change
  
• low hassle
  
• relax
  
• interest
  
• different
  
• comfort
  
• travel
  

You read through these seven points quite slowly. You can read them over and over again.

Many ideas might arise. There is no perfect Septine – they are subjective. Here is one of them:

A holiday with no travel at all. You stay in the comfort of your own home. You can relax. An agency provides a cook and other staff to look after you. Most important of all, the agency provides an 'interesting' house guest. This house guest could be an instructor or someone who could tell you about some particular area or experience.

That is the holiday design. You pay the agency.

Thinking

We can try a Septine on the subject of 'thinking'.

• action
  
• perception
  
• design
  
• thinking skill
  
• education
  
• experience
  
• opportunity
  

As before, there may be many possible ideas. Here is one of them:

Education should provide opportunities for direct experience. This experience will demand the use of thinking skill with regard to both perception of the situation and also the design for action.

In addition, the design of such experiences requires good design skills.

Not analysis

It is important to note that a Septine is not an analysis. The situation is not analysed into its parts. There are just different points, factors, considerations, observations that may be made. Different people may put together different Septines. The same person may put together a different Septine on another occasion – or even the same occasion.

Scatter

The 'scatter' element is very important in Septines. The points should not be closely connected but randomly put down. Not all the points have to be included in the final idea. The function of the points is just to sensitise different parts of the brain.

There is a reason for writing this section, and I will explain the reason at the end of the section.

A group of academics in South Africa put together a list of the 250 people who had contributed most to humanity since the beginning of time. I am on this list.

Many years ago I was awarded the Capire prize in Spain. More recently, the International Association of Management Consulting Firms gave me their top award, The Carl Sloane Award.

Some years ago the European Creative Association polled their members to ask who had most influenced them. It seemed that I came top of the list. They then asked the International Astronomical Union to suggest some award. The Union decided to name a minor planet after me. I believe this planet was discovered in 1973.

The government of Malta several years ago gave me the Order of Merit.

I have been on the Accenture (a leading business
consulting firm) list of the 50 most influential business thinkers in the world for many years. I believe I am currently at number 20 – even though my area is thinking, not business.

I am sometimes asked why there has been little recognition of my work in the UK, where I am based much of the time. I do not know the answer. I have dual British and Maltese citizenship. There are thousands of schools and millions of students around the world using my material. I would claim to have done more about idea creativity than anyone else in human history. I have published 82 books, translated into 41 languages (including Urdu, Korean, Romanian, etc.), and so on.

It has to be said that the UK honours system has been much discredited lately by reports of people buying honours by making a donation to party funds. The system is also used to reward popular heroes in order to secure votes. This means honours for rugby players, football players, rock musicians and actors. While these may be wonderful performers, they have hardly made a lasting contribution to humanity. Then there is the use of honours to reward public servants as a matter of routine.

I believe that it was a long time before the founder of the Internet (Tim Berners Lee) received any honour for one of the greatest inventions of the last century.

I once suggested a new award, to be called XARC. This would be for an Exceptional And Real Contribution. The first award would go to Mr Berners Lee for the Internet.
I did not have the time or energy to follow up on this initiative but the idea stands.

When I wrote my first book (called
The Use of Lateral Thinking
in the UK and
New Think
in the USA), the section of society that showed the most
interest in thinking was the business community. This was the case even though that book had nothing directly to do with business.

This has been my experience ever since. Business has continued to be more interested in thinking, in general, than any other sector of society. The explanation for this is because there is a reality test. There is a bottom line. There are sales figures and profit figures. There are results. It is quite easy to tell how you are doing. If you are doing well you want to do better. If you are doing badly you need to do better. Business really needs to use creative thinking to succeed. Better and more creative thinking will result in more profits or market share.

I have many reports where some lateral thinking saved the corporations millions of dollars. David Tanner, who used to run the Center for Creativity at DuPont, tells a story of how a very short lateral thinking session saved $5 million. In another case the savings over a year were $87 million.

In Argentina, a man who ran a textile company started to teach my work to his employees. At that time he was half the size of his nearest competitor. Today, some years later, he is 10 times the size of that competitor.

In business there is an obvious need for new thinking. In most other sectors of society there is no bottom line. In all other sectors of society, such as politics, the media and the academic world, it is enough to argue and seek to prove verbally that you are right. There is no need at all for better thinking or creativity. In business you can argue until you are blue in the face that you are right – and still go bankrupt a month later.

I never set out to be an expert in business. I never pretend to be an expert in business. I am concerned with human thinking and with designing additional software for human thinking.

I do have to say, however, that in my experience the business sector is more interested in thinking than any other sector of society. You may not like that – but it is so. That is the reason for writing this section.

This is an area where the difference between traditional thinking and newer thinking becomes clear.

In a book I wrote on conflict resolution, I introduced the terms 'confliction' and 'de-confliction'. Confliction refers to the factors involved in the gradual build-up of a conflict before it becomes apparent as such. De-confliction is the removal of these factors.

There are two main types of conflict. These are 'bullying' and 'sillying'.

Bullying is when one party is oppressing another party for some gain to which it is not entitled. This is the sort of conflict that might elicit sanctions from the UN. The consequences of continued bullying need to be made uncomfortable. The design of better sanctions is a need here.

Sillying is when a conflict arises for no real reason. It may be a matter of national pride or something equally
trivial.
Conflict arises because the leaders on both sides have grown in importance by leading the conflict against the other side. These are usually leadership-grown conflicts even if there is sentiment supporting the leaders.

Our normal approach to conflicts is judgement, condemnation and attacking action.

The newer approach is to seek to design a way forward taking into account the needs, fears and future forecasting of both parties.

Even a thinking tool as simple as the OPV from the CoRT programme has a powerful effect in dissolving conflicts. Each party makes an effort to see the Other Person's View.

Among youngsters, fights simply dissolve when an OPV is carried out formally.

Having a clear view of the thinking of the other party makes all the difference. Emotions follow perception and action follows emotions.

Argument is a very poor way of settling a disagreement. 'A' has a point of view and 'B' disagrees. Argument simply hardens the existing positions and increases the sense of
righteousness. They become more interested in winning or losing the argument than in the subject. Instead of argument, there is a need to explore the subject.

A corporation in Canada was about to have a strike. The Six Hats method of exploration was introduced. The strike was averted. A strike was also averted on a second occasion. In the end, the union said that they would not negotiate with management unless the Six Hats method was used.

The honest and objective examination of the situation by both sides is what is needed. In the Six Hats method, any dishonest or incomplete thinking becomes apparent to everyone. Cleverness in argument is no longer enough to support a position. Both 'A' and 'B' can wear the Black Hat at the same time to find out the dangers. Both 'A' and 'B' can wear the Yellow Hat to explore the benefits. Both 'A' and 'B' can wear the Green Hat to open up possibilities, etc.

Under the Black Hat, the grievances are put forward, the consequences of suggested action are examined. Under the Yellow Hat, the benefits of any possibility are made clear. The Green Hat is for alternatives, possibilities and modifications of an idea.

It is all very different from adversarial argument, which is about conflict transferred to the verbal level.

One of the underlying themes in this book is the difference between judgement and design.

Judgement is a look at what is – with a reference to the past.

Design is an arrangement of what could be – with a reference to the future.

Judgement claims to be about 'truth'. Design tries to be about 'value'.

For reasons ascribed to the Church in the Middle Ages, thinking has been exclusively about truth – to be arrived at by judgement. The idea of designing forward to create value has never been a formal part of the thinking culture.

Judgement examines and condemns individuals. Judgement examines and condemns actions. Once these judgement categories are decided, appropriate action follows. After all, if someone breaks the law, there is judgement followed by punishment.

Conflict situations, however, are very different from law-breaking – except in the person ready to judge.

We seek to design a way forward, taking into account the needs, greeds and fears of both parties.

There may be a need for new concepts and new ideas. Here the formal tools of lateral thinking can be used.

We can use the tool of 'challenge' to challenge certain ideas and concepts that seem to be central to the
conflict. We can seek alternatives.

The tool of 'concept extraction' can be used to find different ways to deliver a concept about which there is agreement.

The tool of provocation can be used to generate very different ideas.

The random entry tool is particularly useful when matters seem to have got stuck in a rut and no amount of ordinary thinking can shift them. The random entry tool can sometimes offer a completely different approach.

The more people are skilled in using these tools, the more successful will be the application of the tools.

A conflict is not so much a problem as a situation that can develop one way or another.

Design and better thinking can help the situation develop in a positive way. Judgement simply freezes the situation.