Faults of Argument and Parallel Thinking!

One of my colleagues had a great argumentative mind. He would impeccably find 'fault' with every concept and idea. And yet, having found the 'fault' in reason/concept, he would fail miserably in building something new.

As I look back at many of the professional relationships I have had in Indian advertising, am amazed at how good many of us are at finding faults in other people's arguments and how little time(in relative terms) we devote to co-creating some idea/ concept!!

In case you are interested in this line of thinking, you could browse through Edward De Bono's book - Think! Before it's too late.

De Bono says...

1. With the traditional argument or adversarial thinking each side takes a different position and then seeks to attack the other side. Each side seeks to prove that the other side is wrong. This is the type of thinking that was established by the Greek Gang of Three (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) two thousand four hundred years ago.

2. Adversarial thinking completely lacks a constructive, creative or design element. It was intended only to discover the 'truth' not to build anything.

Value is never really created by only the adversarial mode of thinking! You get an ego boost. That's all about it...

3. But there is another, more constructive form of thinking called 'Parallel Thinking'. With 'parallel thinking' both sides (or all parties0 are thinking in parallel in the same direction. There is co-operative and co-ordinated thinking. The direction itself can be changed in order to give a full scan of the situation. But at every moment each thinker is thinking in parallel with all the other thinkers. There does not have to be agreement. Statements or thoughts which are indeed contradictory are not argued out but laid down in parallel.In the final stage the way forward is 'designed' from the parallel thought that have been laid out.

4. A simple and practical way of carrying out 'parallel thinking' is the Six Thinking Hats method which is now being used widely around the world both because it speeds up thinking and also because it is so much more constructive than traditional argument thinking.

5. As you may already know, the "Six Thinking Hats" is a powerful technique that helps you look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives.

While we all know these things, rarely do we put them into practice! The different hats and what they stand for are here...Am meeting a friend for some idea-generation for his new venture, so let me wear the yellow(positivity) and green(creative) hats and meet him...cheers

Bono-vita 2

It's been a busy week till now. Meetings, travel, more meetings...

Planner time is the most elastic resource in an agency. It can be consumed for almost anything!

On days like these, I always perk myself with a glass of milk, a spoon of Chywanprash and some Bono-vita(just kidding)

Edward De Bono-vita thoughts...
1. "The ability to send hundreds of e-mails does not ensure the ability to write something intelligent or amusing."

How about an e-mail free day every week? And then check employee productivity! Or our own. What about Thursdays? :-)

2. "Everything is fine but the ship is still heading in the wrong direction."

Have you had that feeling lately?

Bono-vita

"If we ask children below the age of 10(maybe lower) to draw a spacecraft, they will design their own design.

After the age of 10, they will draw a rocket with N.A.S.A written on the side!!

We think we like children to be children but create conditions( generally speaking) where they prefer to act like adults as soon as possible:-(" - from Edward de Bono's book 'New Thinking for the New Millennium'

The Salt Curve

I want to do a Edward de Bono week...I came in contact with this father of lateral thinking at the 'dilli gate' second hand book bazaar over a decade back(maybe more...)

Since then I have been regularly snacking on his ideas and concepts. It's a bit difficult and exhausting to read a Edward Bono cover to cover, but snacking Bono regularly has been both delicious and healthy!!

In his book, New Thinking for the New Millennium, Bono has argued that our judging system is flawed as we believe that 'if something is good, then surely more of that thing is better'!

No salt in the food makes it bad/ bland. When we add a little salt,it tastes good. But if we add more of the salt, it tastes bad again!

Technology is good. So more technology is better. However, it took more than two decades for worker productivity to actually rise after computers were first introduced in offices in the US.

Communication is good. So more communication is better. But I feel there was more information, more emotion and better communication in the monthly letter I wrote to my parents during my engineering days than the daily staccato communication on the mobile phone!

Blogging is good. So twitter is better!! Highly questionable I feel...

Humour in ads is good. So more humour in all ads is better??

Information is good. So more information is better. But 100 slide power-points often have less to tell than a 20 slide presentation!! More information might actually clog human decision making ability. And intuition tells me is the number one planner malaise:-)

de Bono's Salt Curve is therefore a great concept to keep in mind when devising communication solutions!