Archive for Thinking Tools
Negotiations & Relationships Through the Kaleidoscope
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When negotiating anything in good faith, the best outcome is win/win. It’s a result where everyone involved can not only live with the outcome even if not ideal, but they feel it was fair and no one has ‘lost face’ or tarnished their reputation in the process. In order for this to happen, a good amount of advance preparation must take place along with sharp facilitation through the Design Thinking process in real time.
There are a handful of essential Frames I would surely use in preparing for and maneuvering through a negotiation, whether I was on one side of the negotiating table or the facilitator of the process. In either case, I would use the Frames on BOTH side’s issues. This would put me in the strongest position. I would use the Kaleidoscope Frame along with Read More→
Kaleidoscope on ‘What to do With Saddam Hussein’
Posted by: | CommentsAs mentioned yesterday, the Kaleidoscope Frame is a thinking tool that requires you to identify any people or parties whose views are relevant to making plans and choices about your thinking focus issue. Once you know who they are, you attempt, as honestly as possible, to note their likely views on the issue. You either ask directly or role play their position, depending on the circumstance.
The reason this Frame is important is to be fully aware ahead of time multiple views that may impact your issue. You can then address and include those views in your overall consideration, or know to design out potential problems or obstacles ahead of time.
I had a unique experience in February 2004 when I was brought into Baghdad to work with one of the newly appointed Iraqi government Ministries on Leadership and Strategic Thinking. Most of the group had never met before, having been brought in from regional seats of government or having previously been in opposing factions. We had the obligatory Sunni, Shiite, Fundamentalists, Kurd, 3 exiles who had been living in different countries, ex-Saddam government employee, a woman, military General, media person, and a few others.
Over the course of the few days we had together, working through a translator, we worked through a range of issues, from how to get them to communicate with each other, to them taking on the role of Ministers at the national level, to forging their vision and action plan for Iraq in the future. Saddam had been captured several months prior to my visit, so it was a matter of international interest what was going to happen to him. The CPA, Coalition Provisional Authority, had made it clear that they would be leaving it to the new Iraqi government to handle this delicate matter when they took back control in June 2004.
I introduced some of the InSight Frames tools as we worked through the issues. The Kaleidoscope Frame came out in full force when I thought they were ready to be more objective and rational in assessing situations, as they would have to be in a Ministerial role dealing with National Security issues. Our Thinking focus issue was: How should we handle Saddam Hussein? With some prompting, they identified such key players whose views should be considered as : Iraqi citizens, Iraqi Government, former Baathists & other Saddamists (who could revolt), the CPA, the Americans, The Europeans, The Arab World, the Iranians, AlQuaeda, Osama bin Laden, the United Nations, and a few more. We then went through each group identified and role-played what their view would be. In each case we took into account views based on whether Saddam would be executed or left in prison. We worked our way through this very controversial and emotional terrain using the simple Kaleidoscope Thinking Frame to Read More→
Kaleidoscopic Views of Others
Posted by: | CommentsKaleidoscopes used to be just for kids, but have you noticed they now make them for adults in expensive artistic versions? Maybe we just never grew up, but I suspect there is something about changing patterns that captivates us. You have a finite number of items at the end of a shaft, that when twisted and turned in the face of light, fall into an infinite array of colorful patterns. Yes, we want the familiar stability of the finite, but we also like the spice of infinite variety. It keeps us balanced.
The Kaleidoscope Frame is a thinking tool that has you take account of other people or sectors whose views should be taken into account in relation to your thinking focus issue. This is the equivalent of asking key advisors for their thoughts before you make a bold move, but casts a wider net as the people you include are not just related to you, but to the overall issue. Taking stock BEFORE you make decisions or create a plan of action allows you to consider 360 degree implications, design in factors that serve or design out factors don’t serve the issue, and allows you to see Read More→
Chess Moves Under the Microscope
Posted by: | CommentsWhile living in England I had the great good fortune to befriend and play simultaneous chess a few times against the brilliant Chess Grand Master and Times Chess Correspondent Raymond Keene. In one event, there were 25 of us sitting at a large U-shaped table, each with a chess board in front of us. We players took our move and Raymond sped down the inside of the tables making his moves- whisk, boom, bah! On and on we played like this. I got knocked out at a respectable 7th player left. So I paid attention to the Dutch guy sitting to my left, who was the eventual winner.
When it was over, Raymond said to the guy, “Do you know where you went wrong?” He replied that he thought so. Raymond strode over and backed up from his last move through the 6 previous plays and showed they guy what he should have done. Now, wait a minute- Raymond just played 25 people. I wanted to know how he could Read More→
Insight into Thinking Patterns with Microscope Frame
Posted by: | CommentsInsight into thinking patterns allows us to take action rapidly. If you take a six year old child covered in red spots to the doctor, 9 times out of 10 the doctor will automatically treat that child for measles or chickenpox. Why? Because it’s a regular occurance at that age with those symptoms. Only if standard treatment didn’t work, would you go back and have a deeper look at what other condition might be present.
We rely on patterns, habits, regularities all the time, and don’t even recognize that we do until there is an irregularity. When your MacDonald’s fries are cooked like Burger King fries you are going to ask some questions!
In fact, our brains are pattern recognition systems. This is the true magnificene of the brain. If we had to recalculate everything we did or said or remembered everytime we woke up, we’d Read More→
Set Purpose & Goals with Telescope Frame
Posted by: | CommentsTelescopes are defined as:
- devices which collect light in a concentrated way to see objects at a near or far distance magnified
- collapsable devices used to detect or observe distant objects by their emission or reflection of radiant energy
- to crush or compress inward.
Wow! The Telescope InSight Frame is the one you whip out when you want to focus on clarity of PURPOSE and GOALS you want to achieve relative to a specified thinking focus issue. As we all recognize, when we have a clear purpose or intention and set of goals, then energy tends to align and consolidate to be available for fulfillment of those. We are referring to both Macro (overall) goals and Micro (sub or benchmark) goals.
This works for individual goals (business results in a specific time frame, losing x pounds in order to be fit and look great before a reunion in 3 months, etc.) and also for group goals where there may be a variety of agendas. The thing to remember about group/team goals is that because people may have a different perspective, perception or purpose, it can cause conflict unless identified and sorted out ahead of launching the project.
In developing a city downtown cultural district (this is the thinking focus), using the Telescope Frame you make visible and explicit an overall goal for the city, with sub-goals for each sector involved: Read More→
Adopt Perceptions that Serve Your Aims
Posted by: | Comments“The truly evolved thinker is in a never ending state of questioning whether his perceptions are moving him closer to or farther from his ultimate vision. It’s not about being right. It’s about programming your brain to serve you rather than limit you. It’s that simple. What perceptions do you need to adopt in order to help you get what you want?”
-Steve Siebold, CSP, Corporate Speaker and Author of 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class
How right he is! Steve and his wife Dawn Andrews are mentors of mine in the realm of corporate speaking. Even though I have been teaching in classrooms, training in boardrooms and speaking on stage for many years, each forum requires different protocols and tactics. Ultimately the overall strategy is the same: to engage with your audience while sharing relevant and valuable insights, tools and wisdom that will add value to their efforts in their work and life.
What I think is cool is that, Read More→
Color My World:Our Senses as Information Portals
Posted by: | CommentsThink about it. How does information get from ‘OUT THERE’ (from books, television, computer, big wide world, from one person to another, you name it…) to ‘IN HERE’ (in our brains)? Everything is funneled in through our senses- the five physical senses- sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching- and I’ll also include the so-called 6th sense of our feelings & intuition.
The more attuned we can be to all of our senses, and the more refined they are in picking up nuances, the more our brains have to work with. The more engaged we are when in-putting information, and the more senses involved, the better we will remember it.
When you want to impress a new friend or lover, don’t you pull out all the stops when Read More→
Perspective and Perception-How We See Things
Posted by: | CommentsAs one who always saw the world a bit differently from others- I thought it was my Piscean ability to see multiple sides of any story -I was always attracted to mental activities like learning and thinking and coming up with creative ideas. In 1988 on a tour bus in Barbados while on a teacher training course with Robert Fritz, I had the great good fortune to sit next to a leader in the creative thinking sphere, Dr. Edward DeBono. By the time I realized who he was we’d become fast friends and remain so to this day. I also became one of his first batch of accredited corporate trainers and a Master Trainer of his methods in education.( I ran the DeBono Teacher Training Accreditation in England for many years, until moving back to the USA.)
Dr. DeBono was a medical doctor who pioneered the ‘mechanics of mind’, transferring his knowledge of bodily organs to brain and mental functioning. You may have heard the term ‘Lateral Thinking’. He coined that term. He was also the first to teach Thinking as a skill. His key focus was on the power of perception, a view I share. Teaching his material for many years colored my experience, which I took to further levels by my own experience.
Yesterday I noted that any two people who are supposedly ‘looking at’ the same situation may be seeing things from a different level or scope of focus, which means not only may they SEE different things, but they may respond differently to the same stimulus. This scenario involves two key aspects of any thinking process: PERSPECTIVE & PERCEPTION.
Perspective involves Read More→
Spotlight on the Power of Focus
Posted by: | CommentsYou might have noticed that for each InSight Frame thinking tool I have mentioned so far, the first step in using the tool is to choose a thinking focus. Then you move through the steps to apply each specific tool to that issue you need thinking about.
There’s ‘gold in them thar hills’! As in anything when laser focus is applied, you get extra leverage and power for whatever reason you focus on something. Whether it’s a relationship, a new system you need to learn for work, a homework problem, logistics of a meeting or party, when you give full attention to it, you can much more quickly drill into the essence of the situation by seeing what is already there to work with. Other issues fall out of focus, making it easier to deal with the core intention of what you need to address.
So here we are, with two of the most powerful words I know, ATTENTION and INTENTION. (Well, OK, along with love and energy!)
What’s also cool about focus is that it can be pinpoint narrow, or quite broad on scope. You can focus on that one tiny pimple on your nose or pull back and focus on how you look overall, as if you took a laser beam and opened it out to become a spotlight.
Allow me to introduce you to another InSight Frame, Spotlight. This tool reminds you to start with a focus, either narrow or broad, depending on the purpose and your role in exploring that thinking issue.
Suppose you are an architect. Read More→
