People and organisations are seeking improvement and quality across many areas except that which is the most important – the quality of the way we think.

If we improve the quality of our thinking the quality of the actions that follow correspondingly improve.

The Six Thinking Hats are designed to dramatically improve the way we think. The methods are used to look at issues from multiple perspectives and help us to move beyond our habitual thinking styles to achieve a more rounded and thorough view of a given situation.

In this full day session participants will develop:

• a sound understanding of multiple thinking styles,
• the ability to design and facilitate effective, outcome oriented meetings,
• the ability to generate new ideas using lateral thinking methods,
• the ability to design and lay out a thinking process, and
• become a more thorough and objective thinker.

The session will be held at Melbourne’s premier training venue and all participants will be provided with an optional work-based assessment with which to immediately start to apply the methods back in the workplace. Successful completion of this assessment provides the “Blue Hat Facilitator” Pin.  Email & telephone coaching will be provided to assist with this at no additional cost.

Date & Time : 8:30am – 4:30pm, Friday March 18, 2011

Where: The Airlie Leadership Development Centre, 260 Domain Rd South Yarra

Value: $490/person with an early rate of $440/person up until Feb 25

Other: Participants from all sectors are welcome. Coffee/Tea will be provided upon arrival by qualified Baristas and the highest quality morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea will be provided. (If you’ve been to Airlie before you’ll know what this means!)

Many thanks for your response to this. The session is now fully subscribed and we look forward to a big day on the 18th!

We will be scheduling another session within the week so please watch this space!

Flyer: Six Thinking Hats training ALDC Mar 18

Any enquires may be directed to Frank at think.quick@me.com / 0400 109727 or Laurel on 0417 321296

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Lateral thinking is a way of breaking existing and predictable patterns of thought so that new perspectives, new concepts and new ideas can emerge.

The complexity of the problems we face today demand that we approach them in an altogether different manner. We are not well served by the logical and linear methods we have become so comfortable with over time, and need new means of addressing those issues that seem to have gotten-away from us over time.  These could be environmental issues, public order issues, a failing health system or any of a litany that are never long out of the news.

When thinking laterally we seeks solutions to an intractable problems through unorthodox methods that would normally be ignored by logical thinking. New ways of thinking can provide new options and open doors we didn’t know existed. This is why we have an absolute need for Lateral Thinking. Through this type of thinking we disrupt linear thinking sequences and arrive at potential solution from other angles.

Developing breakthrough ideas does not have to be the result of luck. Lateral thinking provides a deliberate, systematic process that results in more innovative thinking. You do not need to be a creative genius to use these methods, they follow very specific processes and I’d back someone who can follow process using the tools to produce more ideas than any creative genius without the tools, any day!

The video attached is an impromptu capture of a lateral thinking process that trainees undertook to complete their two day training in the methods earlier this month. The and simply outlines the key stages of an end to end approach to developing new insights and ideas to address a complex issue.

Logical and linear thinking are fine in context, but they are not nearly enough. It’s time to seriously consider new ways of dealing with those issues that will just not go away.

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The most common mistakes we make in our thinking are in the way we perceive the world around us. By and large our logic is quite sound but two people can look at the same thing and perceive it very differently. Our “perception” therefore involves not just what what comes through our collective eyes, but what goes on in our individual minds.

How then, do we get a sufficiently comprehensive view of an issue so that multiple perspectives can be incorporated and the best possible decisions made?

Last month Think Quick conducted a series of training pilots in a major Victorian Govt Dept to provide staff with a range of thinking tools to broadening their scanning ranges and perceptions across particular issues and thereby add value to the business of Govt. As a part of this training all participants were asked to complete a work-based assessment designed to help embed the learning into ongoing practice.

The training conducted, The Power of Perception™ provides 10 strategic thinking tools for sharpening perception and focusing thinking in a comprehensive, effective and efficient way.

As the assessments are being completed we are now seeing value added through the practical use of the tools. The application of four of the tools in sequence (diagram above) produced the simplification of a process involving the allocation of $30 million dollars per annum (fig 1.) Not only will this process aid in the simplification of the resource allocation but also carry the associated benefits of saving time, lowering meeting costs and reducing the red tape in decision making.

At the same time we are seeing the application of the tools in the personal lives of trainees with one family recently applying the methods to aid their year 12 level son to consider future options and their consequences, assess those options and make an informed decision on what he will do in 2011.

We are all good thinkers when we put our minds to it, but the application of some process and structure to our deliberations with simple, yet rigorous thinking tools, can make the tasks at hand a hell of a lot easier!

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One of the questions I take some pleasure in asking when training is “Who has wasted their time in a meeting that had no focus and few, if any, outcomes in recent times?” Invariably 90% of all participants raise their hands. In fact the response is so predictable the question is almost rhetorical.

The Facilitation training we are offering on Dec 9 is designed to address this all too standard response. All participants will receive full manuals and instruction from an experienced trainer and facilitator, whilst experiencing a  highly interactive and practice oriented session.  Ongoing coaching will also be available to enable them to complete an optional work-based assessment to attain their “Blue Hat Facilitator” certification and Pin.

It is expected that all participants will not only become lead facilitators capable of running an array of meeting types but also key drivers of positive cultural change once back in the workplace.

When: Thursday Dec 9, 8:30am – 4:30pm

Where: Airlie Leadership Development Centre, 260 Domain Rd Sth Yarra

Value: $490/person with an early bird value of $450/person up until Nov 19 or for bookings of 4 or more.

For more details please see the flyer attached: Six Thinking Hats Facilitator Training Dec 9

Register here!

This is a public workshop and participants from all sectors are invited and welcome.

Any enquiries may be directed to think.quick@me.com or directed to Frank on 0400 109727.

“I undertook my Six Hats Facilitation training with Frank in 2009 and right from my first application the result have been astonishing in a number of ways. Firstly, the ideas came so thick and fast that the scribe couldn’t keep up. Excellent decisions were made and actions assigned — all in about 40 minutes. The second surprise was the amount of energy in the room throughout the meeting. It wasn’t just another meeting taking people away from their “real” work, everyone actually enjoyed it. A third surprise was the avowed cynics willingly agreeing that the methodology actually worked, that it could elicit more enthusiasm from them, and produce excellent results in a short time. The final surprise was how exhausting it was to  slow people down, and then stop them from elaborating on their many ideas.”   (Ricky Tuck. Education & Training – Victorian Public Records Office.)

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Wikipedia defines a buzzword as “a word that has begun to be used in the wider society outside of its original context by nonspecialists who use the term vaguely or imprecisely. Labelling a term a “buzzword” often pejoratively implies that it is now used pretentiously and inappropriately by individuals with little understanding of its actual meaning who are most interested in impressing others by making their discourse sound more esoteric, obscure, and technical than it otherwise would be.”

The latest and greatest buzzword is Innovation, (henceforth to be known only as the “i” word in this forum.) It seems that everyone is now talking-up the “i” word which is not a bad thing I guess, however it all stops at the talking. A while back, the phrase the “bureaucratisation of Innovation” (darn, I said it) popped into my head. Now I don’t know where it came from, whether I unconsciously plagiarised it or I dreamed it up myself it matters not, it’s appearance was timely.

It comes at a time when the use of the “i” word in business and government is at its peak. I’ve known few words during my previous life in the public sector that have invoked such consternation, misunderstanding and outright fear. When we speak of the “i” word, we speak in glowing terms of the potential it offers but we forget the other side of the implementation equation involving the change it engenders, and as a result we go no further than talking about it.

We’ve all heard bureaucrats in government spruik the “i” word and tell us that we need to think differently and that we need to be challenged, however when the challenges come, very little changes in the modus operandi of dealing with them. We default to the linear and structured approaches of the past. New and creative approaches are shunned and when this occurs, the “i” word is little more than a buzzword.

The use of the “i” word in many cases amounts to little more than a form of ‘bureaucratic chicanery’ in which words and talking about action, substitute for action itself. The Federal Govt’s not so recent 2020 summit proved a nice example of the bureaucratisation of the “i” word. I just don’t know that many of the thousands of ideas generated there have been appropriately harvested or moved to impactful action, but wow, was the event talked up!

When you can look under desks in organisations and see rolls of butcher paper containing post-it-notes of ideas gathering dust, you know that the “i” word is a buzzword.

If we can put the “i word” into enough speeches, documents, ppt presentations, glossy brochures and action plans though, we must then be doing the “i” word. Right?

In environments where everything is first viewed through a lens of risk it is extremely difficult to gain the permission required to undertake the thinking, experimenting, probing and prototyping needed for the “i” word to happen. In large organisations too, those more likely to challenge the status quo and attempt to do things differently are the ones most likely to be sidelined and disempowered, and again where this happens the “i” word is just a buzzword.

So, while Rome continues to burn and our intractable problems remain intractable, our bureaucrats continue to talk innovation.

(Darn, I said it again.)

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It has always been frustrating how these two words have been ill-defined and interchanged in the workplace. The confusion over their definitions has added to the cynicism with which they are greeted and acts as an impediment to their beneficial application.

While differing contexts and needs determine variations in definition, complicated definitions are ultimately unhelpful and only serve to confuse people. Simple definitions with clarity and are most likely to elicit action.

Accordingly, I’d like to distill multiple definitions into simple, broad terms and add a few simple rules of thumb.

“Creativity is somehow bringing something new into being.”

“Innovation is applying that creative something to add value.”

It is only through application and value adding can creative output become an innovation.

Not all creative output will add value, so creativity is not a guarantee of innovation. Organisations needs “idea-creativity” because the development of new ideas and concepts that are developed for “a purpose” have objective value.

Depending on our industry it is important to differentiate between “artistic” creativity and the harder-edged “idea” creativity. I can do some wonderful finger-painting and sit around a team-building campfire singing kumbaya, but is it going to add any form of business value? Artistic creativity may have a subjective place in organisations but when seeking to add value to service delivery and the bottom-line, a far greater focus and objectivity is required.

To spend time arguing about definitions beyond this is often little more than a mental form of punishing that proverbial primate. Argument about strict definitions is counterproductive for two reasons:

1) It wastes time and stops people from moving to action in the form of the experimenting, proto-typing and probing required to uncover new value, and 2) the very nature of creation indicates whatever is produced is new, so how therefore can it be appropriately categorised with any foresight?

Many people argue endlessly about the definitions of creativity and innovation and when this happens more mental energy goes into this, than into the generation of value adding ideas. Debate on the exact definition is unhelpful and acts as a fallback position that simply provides an excuse for a lack of action.

Organisations should take the hint, “Create” and “Innovate” are both verbs and if you’re still talking about them, you’re not doing them.

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