One-Minute Tips: Thinking Skills

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Thinking SkillsOne-Minute TipsManage Train Learn
ONE-MINUTE TIPS
Thinking Skills
Learn the Skills of Brainworking – In Less Than an Hour!

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One-Minute Tips from Manage Train Learn
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ARE YOU
READY?
OK,
LET’S
START!

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Thinking SkillsOne-Minute Tips
Few of us spend much time developing our thinking skills. We
believe that thinking is a natural function that can't be improved or
that the great thinkers among us are more gifted than we are.
Nothing could be further from the truth. All research shows that
we each possess a hugely powerful brain whose ability lies vastly
underused.
#1.UseYourBraintotheFull

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In industrialised countries,
thinking was until recently
regarded as a second-class
skill. People were employed
first for their manual skill.
All that has changed. With
the information age, brain
has overtaken brawn. The
modern and future worker
needs hand, eye, and brain.
#2.SeeYourBrainasaKeyResource

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Today's worker is less a manual
worker and more a knowledge
worker. For example, steel makers
don't so much make the steel as
manage the information that makes
the steel. David Potter of Psion says
that the vital competence for future
organisations is the ability to use
thinking skills to develop
information even further.
#3.BeaKnowledgeWorker

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Mike Pedler and Tom Boydell
discovered that half the key
skills a manager needs today
are thinking skills. They
include analytical, problem-
solving, decision-making and
judgment-forming skills;
command of basic facts;
creativity; professional
understanding; mental agility.
#4.UseYourBrainstoManage

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Thomas Stewart says that, in an age
of information, organisations have
more wealth in their employees'
brains than they do at the bank.
Thomas Watson of IBM liked to say
that he would rather his factories
burned to the ground than lose the
knowledge inside his workers'
heads. Stewart calls this knowledge
the intellectual capital of a
business.
#5.MeasureYourRealWealth

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Because thinking comes naturally
to all of us, few of us bother to train
our minds to think. The result is a
jumble of confused, disjointed and
reactive thoughts. They don't have
to be. Through training our
thoughts to be focused and
positive, we can change the quality
of our thinking and the quality of
the results.
#6.TrainYourThoughts

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If you were to take a soil sample of
someone's thoughts, it's likely that
they would consist of a jumble of
confused thoughts going nowhere.
Included in the mix will be
fantasising thoughts, negative
thoughts, worries, fears, and
wishful thinking. Like other
compulsive thoughts, these
thoughts take us nowhere except
round and round.
#7.WeedOutNegativeThinking

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The human brain connects to a
huge number of sensory nerves,
including 500,000 touch detectors,
200,000 temperature sensors and 4
million pain sensors. With this
amount of information pouring into
our brains, it's no wonder that our
minds wander, we lose the thread
and end up in places we hadn't
intended to go.
#8.ValueYourBrain’sPotential

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Some people have a tendency to
swing from positive moods to
negative moods in a short space of
time. It's what is known as "yo-yo
thinking": one minute up, the next
minute down. Yo-yo thinking is
caused by an over-reaction to what
is happening around us whereas in
truth things are rarely as good or as
bad as we think.
#9.AvoidYo-YoThinking

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The best way to counter fearful and
doubting thoughts is to anchor our
thinking in the present. We can do
this by asking what thoughts will
help us achieve what we want right
now. A similar technique is free-
flow thinking which lets go of all
past and future thoughts and opens
our minds to present moment
awareness.
#10.BeAwareinthePresent

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Negative thinking has been shown
to make brain cells shrivel and die
whereas positive thinking can make
them grow. Experiments into the
effect of humour on the brain show
that the more we laugh and feel
happy, the more creative we
become. The answer to "Can you
play football like Beckham?" is not
"No", but "Not yet".
#11.NegativeThinking

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For much of the 20th century,
people thought the brain was a
trial and error mechanism. If we
made a mistake, we needed to
instruct it to do better the next
time. We now know differently.
The brain is a success
mechanism. It actually seeks out
successful solutions to the
positive goals we set it.
#12.YourSuccessMechanism

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Some people look upon memory as
the Rosetta Stone of the brain: the
key that unlocks its workings. Every
civilization ponders the mystery of
memory. The Greeks saw it in terms
of a wax inscription. Medieval man
portrayed it as a system of
hydraulics. In the 17th century, it
became a clockwork mechanism.
And in our times, a computer. What
is certain is that the memory is
phenomenal. And despite what we
think, improveable.
#13.TheHistoryofMemory

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Our ability to recall something is
heightened by sense associations.
Frank Staub proved that wafting
chocolate aroma over a class of
students helped them improve
their recollection of facts when he
repeated it weeks later. This is why
people can remember the sights,
sounds, smells and tastes of
childhood vividly.
#14.SenseAssociations

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When you need to remember
something important, put down a
striking landmark. Some of the best
landmarks are those that are funny,
sexy, unexpected, frightening,
unusual, silly or embarrassing.
That's why we remember our first
day at school (frightening), our first
kiss (sexy), and our first day in a
new job (exciting).
#15.Landmarks

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A peg system is a great way to
remember a number sequence. The
peg is a rhyming hook on which we
hang the number. So to remember
the sequence 3621, we might
associate the number 3 with knee,
6 with sticks, 2 with glue and 1 with
gun. From this we can devise a silly
story that will stick in our mind eg
"After hurting my knee, I used
walking sticks joined by glue that
doubled as a gun."
#16.ThePegSystem

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Here are 3 ways to recall
information using sounds: Rhymes
as in the ditty: "In 14 hundred and
82, Columbus sailed the ocean
blue"; Mnemonics such as the
months of the year: "30 days have
September..."; Silly word
associations for remembering
people's names, so Lazenby could
"laze on the bay" and Pakenham
could "pack 'em in".
#17.Rhymes,Mnemonics,andSillySayings

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Every time we use a brain cell, the
coating of myelin around it gets
thicker. This helps us find the brain
cell more quickly next time. That's
why regular review of information
helps us retain it. Review
techniques include: re-telling the
event; re-visiting the location; and
re-playing it in our mind's eye.
#18.ReviewandYourBrainCells

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No two people ever see the
external world in exactly the same
way. What we think we see is
distorted by our expectations, our
habits, our assumptions and our
viewpoints. As Penelope Fitzgerald
says: "A thing is not what we think
it is, but a think".
#19.OurViewoftheWorld

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Try this experiment. Write down
the Scottish surnames Macdonald,
Macpherson, and Macdougall and
ask someone to pronounce them.
Now follow these with the word
Machinery and people are likely to
mis-pronounce it. This is because
we tend to think in habitual ways
and don't like what doesn't fit.
#20.HabitualThinking

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There is a poem called The Blind Man and the Elephant by
John Godfrey Saxe in which six blind men each touch an
elephant and have to say what it is.
#21.ADifferentPointofView
Naturally, because one
touches the ears, another
the trunk, and another
the tusks, they come to
completely different
answers. That's because
what we see depends on
where we see it from.

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As we grow up and refine our view
of the world, the connections in our
brain get fewer and fewer. As an
adult we have half the number of
connections we had when we were
two. It's like a sculptor who starts
off with a large block and gradually
chips away at it to create the shape
he needs.
#22.LimitingOurBrainConnections

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Many of the assumptions we make
about others are based on fixed
thinking patterns. In one university
experiment, a stranger was
introduced to two classes, one as a
student and the other as a
professor. Later the classes were
asked to guess his height. Those
told he was a student believed his
height to be 6" less than those told
he was a professor.
#23.HowAssumptionsConfuseOurBrains

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Everything we know, feel and do is
first modelled in our brains. Our
brains are the source of our
imaginations, our willpower and
the concept of who we are. The
human brain is the source of our
potential. If we want to maximise
all we are capable of being, we can
do no better than maximise the 3lb
universe inside our skulls.
#24.ThoughtsComeFirst

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Our knowledge of the brain's
potential is very recent. The Greeks
thought that thinking came from
the heart. Renaissance man
thought that the mind was
somewhere outside the brain. In
the 1930's the brain was just
believed to be a storage organ like a
computer. Only since we have
begun to study the workings of the
brain, do we realise how amazing it
really is.
#25.OurChangingKnowledgeoftheBrain

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The facts about the human brain
are astounding. The brain's energy
could light a 20-watt bulb
continuously. The number of nerve
cells in one brain is twice the
number of people on earth. There
are more cell connections in the
brain than stars in our galaxy. the
brain can process 30 billion bits of
information every second.
#26.ThePoweroftheBrain

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Paul McLean has demonstrated
that the human brain is really 3
separate evolutionary brains: the
reptilian brain which is over 250
million years old and responsible
for our instinctive actions. It is
located in the medulla-limbic area.;
the mammalian brain that is the
seat of our emotions; the thinking
brain in the cerebral cortex which is
just 40,000 years old.
#27.OurEvolutionaryBrains

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The left side of the brain is the seat
of logic, speech, and analysis. The
right side of the brain is the seat of
symbol, imagination and abstract
thought. We use the 2 hemispheres
together when we imagine a goal
and then take the steps to get
there. Like President Kennedy
declaring the dream of a moon
landing and then setting in train
how it was to happen.
#28.CranialHemispheres

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The human brain has 4 super
functions. Thinking: we are unique
in being able to think about
thinking. Storing: we can store
everything that has ever happened
to us. Behaviour: we can automate
much of what we do to happen
without our conscious thought.
Applications: we can use our brains
to be creative and change the way
we live.
#29.TheFourSuper-FunctionsoftheBrain

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Brain Nearly all of the power of the
human brain lies deep in the
subconscious. The conscious brain
can only retain about 7 items at any
one time. Write out a list of
shopping items and try to
remember it exactly when you get
to the shop. But when you access
the rich store in your subconscious,
anything is possible.
#30.TheLimitsoftheConscious

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There are 5 ways to access the
amazing power of your
subconscious brain: intuition or gut
feel: this is your subconscious
talking; meditation: which puts
your brain into a waking theta
state; self-awareness: observing
yourself from outside yourself; soft
focus: which turns off the conscious
thinking process; light-heartedness:
which frees us from habitual
patterns and seriousness.
#31.TuningIntotheSub-Conscious

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There are 3 amazing features of the
subconscious brain. First, the self-
image. Whatever image of yourself
you present to your brain is the
person you will become. Secondly,
the problem-solver. Give your brain
a problem, and it will try to resolve
it by itself. Thirdly, drive and energy.
The subconscious has a momentum
all of its own. It wants you to
achieve your goals and will take you
there if you will let it.
#32.FeaturesoftheSub-ConsciousBrain

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Brainstorming is a great technique
for creating a huge quantity of
ideas in the shortest possible time.
It does, however, rely on people
letting themselves run riot with
ideas and not feel that they and the
idea are being judged. In a
brainstorming group, pick the
fastest writer to record all the
ideas.
#33.Brainstorming

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Sparking is the basic technique of
brainstorming. It's a bit like an
electric spark that sets fire to
something else. So one idea sets
off another. And another. And
another. Until you have a flood.
That's why everyone in the group
should not prepare their thoughts
but listen to each other and come
up with ideas spontaneously.
#34.Sparking

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A brainstorming technique that can
spark off more ideas is Paradoxical
Intention. This means getting the
group to think of ideas to make a
problem worse, as in: what could
we do to lose more orders?
Although it sounds obtuse, some of
the answers can, paradoxically,
contain the germ of great solutions.
#35.ParadoxicalIntention

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Another technique that a
brainstorming group can use to re-
start the flow of ideas is Seeding.
You simply choose a word at
random and see what associations
it has with the problem your group
is looking at. A group looking at its
excessive amount of paperwork
chose "breakfast" and came up
with a once-a-week breakfast-time
meeting to clear their paperwork.
#36.Seeding

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One clever technique of
brainstorming is Wording. Simply
write down the problem you're
looking at, eg "How do we reduce
our paperwork?" and then
brainstorm ideas around each of
the words, starting with "How",
then "do", next "we" and ending
with "paperwork". This gets the
group going again on new lines of
creative thinking.
#37.Wording

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Most of our organisations are run
on rational lines. After all,
management is a logical function
that tries to predict and plan with
certainty. Yet, in today's
organisations, that's no longer
enough. When beset by
competition and change,
organisations have to come up with
ideas that are better than "this is
the way we've always done it".
They need creative thinking.
#38.CreativeThinking

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As adults we tend to think in a
conditioned way aimed at showing
how clever we are. Yet, as children,
we were simply spontaneous and
far more creative in our thinking. To
re-capture your childhood curiosity,
allow yourself to just wonder at
things, to be completely present in
the here and now, and to detach
yourself from what you thought
was real.
#39.BeingKidsAgain

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To be innovative doesn't require a
university degree; it simply requires
making a connection between old
ideas. For instance, did you know
that ice cream was invented in
2000 BC yet it took another 3900
years for someone to come up with
the idea of a cone? It's when you
take two seemingly unrelated items
and use the spark of creativity that
genius happens.
#40.FindingConnections

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It is a peculiarly Western trait to
want to tie things up in neat
bundles. We prefer solutions to
problems, and answers to
questions. To be creative, you need
to be comfortable with things that
don't fit. The Eastern tradition is
more in tune with incongruence. As
in this Zen koan, or problem: what
is the sound of one hand clapping?
#41.IncongruenceandCreativity

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Tom Peters says that the creativity
of a workplace can be measured by
a laughometer, ie how much it
laughs. Humour is one of the
greatest creative devices. It jolts us
out of our normal patterns and puts
ideas together that shouldn't go
together. It has been found that
when students listen to comedy
tapes, their ability to solve
problems rises by 60%.
#42.CreativityandHumour

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Many of the products we take for
granted today are the result of
people thinking outside their limits.
John Lynn recalls attending a
computer conference in the 1980's
at a hotel when someone joked
that the next thing they'd be
thinking of would be computerised
doors. When he went back to the
same hotel 20 years later, all the
doors used computer-programmed
key cards.
#43.ThinkingOutsidetheLimits

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To be creative doesn't require blue-
sky thinking. You can still be
creative by adapting what works
elsewhere. An American airline that
wanted quicker turnarounds on
their flights adopted the techniques
of Formula One pit crews. Another
source of ideas is nature. Georges
de Mestral adapted the way certain
seeds stick to clothing and invented
Velcro.
#44.AdaptingWhatWorks

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Dreaming and day-dreaming can
create a rich seam of ideas,
because that's when we relax and
let the subconscious mind work by
itself. The Roffey Park Management
Institute calls this "washing-up
creativity" because most flashes of
inspiration come when we are
walking the dog, sitting
Archimedes-like in the bath, or
doing the washing up.
#45.Dreaming

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Studies show that the average
person takes 612 decisions a day.
That's 223,380 a year. Strategic
thinking is about how each of those
decisions affect your tomorrows.
When your decisions are in
alignment with what's important to
you, then life becomes meaningful
and productive.
#46.StrategyandToday’sDecisions

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There are 5 don'ts in decision-
taking. Don't make a decision
unless you have 2 equally valid
options. Don’t make a decision if
it's someone else's responsibility.
Don't make a decision unless
there's disagreement. Don't make a
decision until you have to. Don't
make a decision unless you can act
on it at once.
#47.FiveDon’tsinDecisions

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The best decisions are hot-iron
decisions, taken when the iron is
hot and the time just right. Too
much thinking about the decision
may miss the moment for action.
Too much action may be at the
expense of thought. Aim to balance
thought and action: look before you
leap and leap before you look.
#48.Hot-IronDecisions

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In the thinking stage of decision-
taking, you need to collect, sift and
analyse the relevant data. This can
include not just the facts, but how
you feel about what to do. There
are a number of models that can
help you organise the data, such as:
the Rainbow Model, NOISICED
(decision backwards) and the Six
Thinking Hats of Edward de Bono.
#49.Decision-takingModels

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Most of us face a decision when we
have just two choices and can't
decide which to make. One way is
to list the pros and cons of each
option and see which is the best.
Another way is to toss a coin.
Einstein used this method but
would always see how the coin fell
and then ask himself how he felt
about the result. If he felt good, he
would go with it; if not, he would
ignore it.
#50.Either-Or

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Many of the biggest business
decisions ever taken were taken on
instinct. Not on a whim, but on a
sense of what feels right. Some
people can sense a right decision in
their gut, some in their heart. It just
feels right or not. That's why you
should take the big decisions with
your heart and the little ones with
your head.
#51.GutFeel

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Some decisions can be made on the
hoof, as we go, as long as we are
prepared to learn from wrong
decisions and go back. This is a
much better choice than making no
decision at all. Particularly in
business. As Tom Watson says:
"Doing nothing is a comfortable
alternative because it is without
risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way
to do business."
#52.DecisionsOntheHoof

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Most people respond to a problem
in one of 3 ways. They get afraid
and wish it would go away. They
feel they have to come up with an
immediate answer. They look for
someone to blame. In Chinese, the
symbol for a crisis is the same as
that for crossroads. The goal of
problem-solving is to make us
competent to handle that crisis.
#53.AProblemisanOpportunitynotaCrisis

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The classical approach to problem-
solving uses both left-brain and
right-brain thinking. We break the
problem down with the left and get
possible solutions with the right.
The steps are: define the problem;
define the solution; advance
possible solutions; test them; select
the best fit.
#54.TheClassicalApproach

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Tom Hicks of Connexus says that people are born problem-solvers
but don't realise it. It is our fear of conflict and our fear of failure
#55.TheBendintheRoad
that makes us
uncomfortable with
problems. Hicks says a
problem is like a bend in
the road where we can't
see ahead. Take the
bend fast and you'll
crash. Slow down and
you'll make it.

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Carl Jung said that we sometimes
go looking for problems where
none exist. When a new situation
arises that you think is a problem,
first ask yourself: is this a problem
or just an unexpected situation?; Is
this a problem or an opportunity to
learn?; Is this a problem or do I
need to change the way I do
something? Change your point of
view and you change the problem.
#56.IsItReallyaProblem?

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The value of using a group to
problem-solve is that a group can
come up with more ideas than one
person on their own. Douglas
McGregor has defined the features
of an effective problem-solving
group: an informal atmosphere;
active listening; frank criticism of
ideas; responsibility for action;
openness about feelings.
#57.UsingtheGroup

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A problem can sometimes seem
hard to crack because of the way
we word it. Change the words and
you change the problem. For
example, when asked for a "new
door design", engineers will change
the handle and hinges. But when
you ask them for a "new entrance
way", all manner of chutes, slides,
and openings become possible.
#58.ChangetheProblem

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When looking at quality defects,
the Japanese use a technique called
the 5 Whys? They ask 5 Why
questions in a row to get to the
heart of the problem. Reducing a
problem to its bare essentials like
this is known as Occam's razor after
a method used by William of
Occam in the 14th century.
#59.TheFiveWhys

63|
An innovation is the application of
an old idea in new ways. Innovation
is an absolute pre-requisite for
survival in today's workplaces. Not
just in terms of new products, but
in solving intractable problems and
finding new inventive ways to
market, organise and use all the
resources available.
#60.WhatIsInnovation?

64|
Goran Ekvall has defined three
conditions needed for a climate of
creativity. These are: trust,
dynamism, and humour. When
studying why the women's section
of a Swedish newspaper always
outperformed their colleagues,
Ekval found they had a creative
sense of humour which the others
didn't have.
#61.AClimateofCreativity

65|
According to the Roffey Park
Management Institute, most
flashes of inspiration come to
people when they are not actively
thinking, such as when shaving or
washing the dishes. It was the same
for Isaac Newton when an apple fell
on his head in the garden. And for
Archimedes it was in his bath.
#62.FlashesofInspiration

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As well as pure invention, we can
make innovations by putting two
things together in a new way. Akio
Morita, chairman of Sony, said that
he asked his team to create a tape
recorder he could go on walks with.
The team put together a transistor
radio and a tape recorder and came
up with the Walkman.
#63.NewConnections

67|
The method of adapting what our
situation is like and adapting it to
our needs is called "metaphorical
analysis". It's what watchmakers
Swatch did when they turned their
watches into fashion accessory
items. And what an American
airline did when it copied the
methods of Formula One pit-stop
crews to turn their aircraft round
quicker.
#64.MetaphoricalAnalysis

68|
Once a new idea has been adopted
and found to work, it stops being
new and becomes part of the way
we see things. The history of the
world is the history of innovation
and acceptance. Thomas Kuhn
called this a paradigm shift: a
complete break with the past, that
once shifts never goes back.
#65.ParadigmShifts

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ARE YOU
READY?
OK,
LET’S
START!
THAT’S IT!
WELL DONE!

70|
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One-Minute Tips: Thinking Skills

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One-Minute Tips: Thinking Skills