Frameworks for thinking (page 2 of 2)

In small groups the executives 'did a C&S'. As a result those in favour of the idea dropped from eighty six percent to fifteen percent. Yet each one of those people would have claimed that as a senior executive she looked at consequences all the time.

Paradoxically, it is the artificiality of the C&S tool that gives it power.

In a platinum min in South Africa there had been two hundred and ten fights every month between seven tribes working there. Susan Mackie and colleagues taught thinking to these completely illiterate miners who had never been to school for even one day. As a result the fights dropped from two hundred and ten to just four.

The attention directing tool of 'OPV' (Other People Views) forced workers to make an effort to understand the thinking of the other party. Fights simply dissolved.

Attitudes and intentions are very weak. Specific operating tools - even if they seem artificial - and much stronger. A task is defined and then carried out. The thinker carries out the task and then reacts to the improved perception.

According to David Perking of Harvard, ninety percent of the errors of thinking are errors of perception. According to Goedel's theorem you can never logically prove the starting point of your logic. The starting point is arbitrary perception. That is ehy perception is so important. That is why 'attention directing tools' are so powerful (for full information see www.debono.org)

Argument

For two thousand and for hundred years we have been happy with argument as a way of exploring a subject. We use argument in government, in the

courts of law and in business discussions. It is a crude, primitive and inefficient way of exploring a subject.

Argument is about case making and not about exploring a subject. In argument you have to start with a position. In exploration you end with a position. Argument does not design a way forward. Argument is about winning and losing a rampant egos. That is why many year ago I designed the 'parallel thinking' of Six Thinking Hats.

The Six Hats method is now widely used. It can reduce meeting time from thirty two days to two. One company saved twenty million dollars in the first year of use. Juries in the USA are starting to use the system and reaching unanimous decisions very quickly.

Some months ago I was told by a Nobel prize winner in economics that the week before he was attending a top economics meeting in Washington and they were using the 'Hats.' Last week in New Zealand a woman told me that she had been teaching the hats in the highlands of Papua New Guinea (the most underdeveloped region). They told her the method had changed their lives.

There is a huge amount that can be done to improve human thinking. Intelligence, information and analysis are not enough.