Solving Life Problems
www.lukehoughton.com 1
Solving Life Problems: 5 Essential Skills
you need to make it
© 2007 Luke Houghton and www.lukehoughton.com
www.lukehoughton.com 2
This work is protected by a creative commons license available for perusal at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/. You are prohibited to use this work for any
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permission from the copyright holder. By the way, if you do read this you are a very serious person
and I bet you think you're smart.
www.lukehoughton.com 3
Preface
Welcome to the most exciting book you have never read! Solving Life Problems is a work designed
to be for the everyday person who simply wants to understand how to manage life a little easier.
The simple focus of this ebook is to impart to you a very basic set of skills for the management of
life. For this reason, it's not an academic text nor is it purely a handbook. It's a combination of a
basic set of ideas of what I have come to learn through my research as being essential to making it
in the rough and tumble world. I make no apologies for the lack of references academic language
or mathematical models. This is a book for you and if you will take to heart the principles here you
will manage life better and have good success.
Remember you have to make the most of this life God has given us so please read on and enjoy
Solving Life Problems. This book is essentially a collection of most popular blog posts put into a
form that can be downloaded. I have made this a short readable book so that you can begin to
identify these core skills in your own life and get started straight away. This is not a definitive
book, it is merely a very brief overview of some of the core skills I think are necessary for making it
in life.
Luke Houghton, Brisbane, Australia.
Visit: www.lukehoughton.com
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Life Skills: The Essential Skills you need to make it
Skill 1: Learning............................................................................................................................14
Skill 2 - Problem Solving ..............................................................................................................28
Skill 3 - Perspective Shifting and Strategic Thinking....................................................................42
The Logic Box ...............................................................................................................................44
Perspectives: Windows of the soul.................................................................................................47
Skill 4 - Creative Thinking.............................................................................................................60
Skill 5 Intuition: Knowing you and your inner person ..................................................................69
Authors note..................................................................................................................................80
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Life Skills Overview
"You grab a challenge, act on it, then honestly reflect on why your actions worked or didn't. You
learn from it and then move on. That continuous process of lifelong learning helps enormously in a
rapidly changing economic environment." John Kotter (American Academic at Harvard Business
School in Fortune, 22 August, 1994).
"You grab a challenge, act on it, then honestly reflect on why your actions worked or didn't. You
learn from it and then move on. That continuous process of lifelong learning helps enormously in a
rapidly changing economic environment." John Kotter (American Academic at Harvard Business
School in Fortune, 22 August, 1994).
Imagine for a moment you are a pilot in charge of a cargo plane flying out of war stricken Baghdad.
You are about to take off when you feel the typical pre-flight nerves and all you can think about is
the war going on in your surroundings. For just a brief moment, you look at your flight engineer
and your first officer to notice the same tension in their faces. A question forms itself in your mind,
why am I doing this? The danger is all around you, your ears can hear the gunfire going off and you
can see the smoke from the flames. The atmosphere here is tense to say the least. You radio in for
take off and prepare yourself with fear filling your heart to take off from the relative safety of the air
strip to the certain insecurity of the skies. As the plane roars down the tarmac these doubts permeate
your mind drilling their way into your conscious thoughts when suddenly you hear and feel an
almighty bang. For a moment your mind slips into a dream as escape the reality of the situation only
to hear a distant voice yelling at you from the side. It's your Belgian co-pilot screaming at you that
the controls no longer work and the airplane it's essentially a ticking time bomb. You test the
controls, he's not lying this man is telling you the truth the controls have gone!
As you think through the scenarios and the actions you can take fear grows large in your heart. I am
going to die. That's it. I knew I shouldn't have taken the dam assignment in this country, why on
earth would I want to fly a plane in a country as unstable as this? Now I am paying the price for my
stupidity! As you are plagued with self-doubts, fear and insecurity the reality of your situation hits
as the co-pilot again screams at you for action. You take glance at your flight engineer who is an
older man with you with countless years of experience and he gives you a worried glance back. The
younger brash first officer, ambitious and more grounded than you in this situation looks worried.
His eyes betray his youthful zest because of the terror you can see staring back at you. Immediately
you think back to a similar problem and what the crew did. They applied thrust in relative amounts
to get through the crisis but what was the result of that interchange? Oh that's right they died. So
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what do I do?
As you attempt to take control of the giant plane you realize one thing, it doesn't seem to work as
well as it used to, no hydraulics! You curse; turn to look at your flight engineer and the first officer
who still seems to think there is a way out. Within yourself you want to believe him but thinking of
that previous crash when one of your colleagues died in a similar situation, you are not so sure.
With sweat pouring from every conceivable area of your body, nerves chattering away and fear
consuming your thoughts you know it's time to act. If this was you how would you deal with it?
This story is actually true and it occurred over the airways of Baghdad during the beginning of the
current Iraq war. The plane was shot at from the ground by a heat-seeking surface to air missile
which clipped the wing of the plane and damaged the hydraulic control system on the airplane. In
turn this affected the controls rendering them useless. All this trio had to negotiate a landing with
was the actual engine of the airplane. By applying a combination of various speeds they learned
they could successfully control the airplane. The three of them sat there discussing it until them
came up with a plan they could execute that might put them on the ground at some stage. This was
there only hope. Did they make it, yes there plan worked where at least two others had failed with
fatal consequences. The funny thing about this story is that all three men were placed in a situation
where they had to draw not only on what they knew but the core life skills.
The first thing they had to do was learn an appropriate way to manage the situation by trying
different ideas. There was no room for going to the book to find out what to do in this situation it
was life and death. No room for error. The concepts acquired quickly by the pilots formed
themselves into actions as they put their ideas into practice. No time for mistakes as they did what
no other team in history had achieved previously. I know some people who faced with similar
smaller scale problems face them by not knowing how to learn there way out of a problem. Through
fear and a genuine lack of self-confidence they fail to appropriate the most basic of skills which is
to learn. Learning is not a skill particular to 'gifted' individuals; it's an ability most people can use
on a regular basis.
After the pilots have assessed the situation by learning about it they begin to construct a way out of
the problem. While they are learning they are drawing on another 'life skill'. Change had been
thrust upon these pilots in the most horrible manner and they quickly have to learn how to fly
without the typical controls they are used to. So what do they do? Our DHL pilots experiment by
learning how to manage the change thrust upon them by employing different ideas. As the situation
grows worse new ideas and problems arise yet the pilots keep testing ideas and come up with
solutions to manage the difficulties they face. Essentially by learning what to do, appropriating
changes and reflecting on these actions they have built a bridge that led them out of the problem.
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Finally the other thing these pilots did so well was managing the complexity the problem kept
throwing them. The DHL team: learned, managed the changes as they came and built appropriate
responses, began solving the problem by trying different ideas, worked through a solid team based
relationship and managed the complexity the situation effectively. So how did they make it?
Through learning, adapting, changing, look at the related elements in it's complexity, these
essentially solved the problem. In the end the pilots landed and skidded to a halt at the end of the
runway back at the same airport they took off from. As they exited the plane they would have
thought, "That's it this horrible ordeal is over." Not quite, as they stepped off the plane on the
ground a fire truck approached them with a man waving his hand frantically trying to get the DHL
team's attention. The ground they stood on was part of the taking of Baghdad and contained
landmines. Carefully, as the truck reversed through a cleared path they walked, following the tracks
left by the fire truck. Ironically, they walked behind each other step by step until they were safely
away from the landmines. The final actions mimicked what had already taken place in the air - step
by step - they managed a life problem through the effective use these elements.
What are life problems?
A life problem is a generic term that I use to describe issues that confront us on a daily basis. The
problem of how to pay the bills, the problems of marriage and career and so on. Life problems are
those that arise in our day to day lives that demand attention and simply will not go away until hey
are solved. These are the issues of life, the pressing matters, the things we find to be a problem in
our lives. Such problems are not given to easy answers and we might well think of them as a mess.
Not every problem we have is a mess. Most of the time the problems we find in our day to day lives
require little thought to fix but the matters of life (life problems) do require a lot more work. These
kinds of things have many possible answers, no real clear solution and are often a matter of
perspective more so than some uncontrollable circumstance.
Have you ever noticed how some things you do never seem to change no matter what it is you seem
to do? What about the way in which you deal with people at work or how you talk to your children?
These problems are the ones that matter yet when we look at them the world is full of conventional
wisdom or "common sense" but most of that is of little value. People use sayings like, 'Well that's
just the way it is.' A risk averse person will often look at any given situation and say something like,
'better than devil you know than you don't.' As conventional wisdom this is very sound but in life
that's of no use. Life involves risk. The greatest of the greatest always took risks.
Another one of my personal favourites is this one: 'Ignore it and it will go away.' It some cases this
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may be true. However, I have found in most cases if I ignore an issue it will become a bigger
problem later on. There is a balance to be struck between proactively seeking an answer and
laziness and that will be discussed later. One key point to note here is that problems do not exist as
real things, like the sun, moon and stars. They exist in the conceptualisation of our hearts and
minds. To understand this you will need to read on. For now, be content with this definition of a life
problem: A situation in a person's life that they think is troubling, worrisome and panic worthy.
Problems like this can be best thought of as a roll of movie film stock. Each picture on that strip of
film is just another frame and so shows a different part of the
bigger picture for us to understand. This big picture shows us the way in which things interrelate
and how the harmony or disharmony of it present itself to us. Life
problems are those that surround us and confront us with their complexity and interrelationships
and quite often they befuddle us with more answers than questions.
Solving Life Problems?
Take as example the life problem of depression. Depression is caused by a variety of things, some
known and some unknown that operate in the minds and hearts of human
beings. To say that all problems of depression can be reduced down to simple explanations is less
than helpful. For example, not having enough money to pay the rent
makes me depressed because I feel as if I cannot provide for my family. I have been faced with this
in recent times and a virtual carnival of emotions and random thoughts
go off in you that make you feel inadequate. Really though what makes me depressed is the idea
that I am inadequate because I have linked the idea of my personal worth
to getting money to pay the rent. People around me reinforce it through the words of their mouth
and the intentions they have toward me. I believe what they say... instead
of forming a better picture of myself which in essence stops the reason for the problem to occur.
Here is another example from my life. Recently my daughter became sick. So sick in fact that she
stopped eating for three days. During this time I went through a roller coaster of emotions all the
way from panic to full blown fear. I was making the situation worse because my fear and lack of
restrain was obvious. After a time I settled down my emotions by thinking different thoughts about
the situation. I used my faith and said to my daughter,'you are getting better all the time...'. I
quoted scriptures to her and got her involved and guess that. She didn't improve overnight but not
more than a day later it was all over. The point is: my panic and fear created the problem. By
changing my perspective slowly and surely I was able to see things differently.
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Recognising things that won't change
A friend of mine recently spoke to me about not being able to get a job in the academic profession
he was in. Constantly he would complain, "I can never get a
permanent job - these just won't let me in." My response to him at first was one of sympathy - it
must have been the system working against him. It was a conspiracy. Then one day a job came up
that we could both apply for. We both applied. He didn't even get an interview and I got that job.
Yet he had more papers, more experience and was clearly more senior than me in that field. What
was the difference? I studied an old job advertisement and I noticed it came with a warning "Must
be enrolled in a PhD." An opportunity came up for me to apply for a PhD so I took it and got in.
Then I started looking for work and as this opportunity came up I applied as did my colleague. The
key difference? He wasn't enrolled in a PhD. The ad declared this clearly but he thought that they
would make an exception for him (as I did for years).
Talking to those in the organization in question and speaking with other professionals I learned that
they won't employ someone who isn't enrolled in a PhD. As a matter of fact if all the people that
applied weren't enrolled the job remains unfilled despite the fact that the need for the position
continues. This changed my opinion on doing a PhD. They would rather leave a position unfilled? I
had better do all I can to apply for that position so I better enrol in a PhD. He didn't get that
interview because he kept waiting for them to come to him. A job is nothing more than your
employer hiring you to fix a problem they have. They need someone to do something, you get paid
to do it and if you are good enough (according to their criteria) you should get promoted (if that's
what you want). What I recognised (not being able to control the academic standards) got me in a
position where I could give a good interview and be hired - his understanding of the exact same
thing worked in the opposite way. I have no doubt that if my friend had developed life skills (in this
case learning and managing relationships) he would have pounded on that door until they let him in.
As I understand it almost three years later - he is still floating from contract to contract - unable to
land full time work. Now I am not a better person than he is, I have just taken my time to
develop my life skills to the extent where I can use them to help me instead of hindering me.
Now my colleague managed not to learn a simple fact. If the criteria says PhD enrolment required -
then it's likely they aren't going to hire someone who isn't - no matter how good you think you are.
On the other hand - go and speak to people - build relationships with key individuals and learn
what it takes to get that kind of job. This kind of skill is essential to managing life better, it's not
optional, and if you want to be successful you must submit yourself to a process of learning which
at times is very stressful. In my situation I kept thinking do I really want to get a PhD? Do I really
want to be an academic? Who cares if people call me doctor or not? On the other hand, what about
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the long term security of family?
Academic institutions in this age require a PhD before they are really serious about paying you so I
had better get one. Did it cost me? Yes it did, my sanity mainly! My supervisor told me that doing a
PhD is like banging your head up against a wall for three years until the wall disappears. A lot of
this 'head banging' you will read on this website but more than this I hope you see yourself in it and
learn from it.
Recognising things you can change
I once applied for a job and went to the interview deathly afraid that I wasn't going to get the job. It
showed when I got in there! So much so that they didn't even
give me a call back after the job had been filled in. That was a terrible feeling! Since then, I use
positive confessions and set my mind on the scriptures to help me.
Now does that always work? No. But what it does is allow me to focus my thoughts on something
else so that I am not so nervous. Being positive during times like that
helps me to remained balanced and focused as I sweat it out in the job interview.
There are other things that we can change. We can question our own limiting beliefs. Think about
the amount of times you have said, 'it can't be done' when you knew in your eart that there was a
chance it could be done. Remember all God needs is our faith and everything is possible from there.
I have this saying which I think sums up what I am saying here: 'People don't have problems...
people are the problem.' More to come on that topic later. How can a problem exist if there are
people around to make it real? We can change these things. We can change our attitude over a
period of time by learning to refocus our thoughts on positive things. We can change our life by
attaching positive or negative emotions to experiences we have had. With God's help we can
become whole, active and successful people as we learn to listen to his voice and follow his desires
for us. These things are completely within our grasp to do. By reading the word of God we can get
faith and by keeping healthy positive people around us... we can become like them.
So it's not all one way street with life problems. There are things we can do and things that are
God's business. Some people I meet are struck with a paralysis: I can't do anything because I might
get in God's way or even worse hey reason themselves out of tackling the problem. 'Oh it's too big,'
or 'I can't do it' ... remember whatever you believe... good or bad is what you will think is possible
or isn't possible. That which we can control we do with God's help and that which we can't control
is 100% God's problem. We need to carefully recognise which is which in our lives and take
appropriate action!
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Life problem 'solving'
We need to move away from this idea that problems are solved. Somethings they are re-solved...
agreed upon and we reach the stage were we decide to live with it. Other times they are (dis)solved
if we think of it in the same manner as the problem solving experts (like Russell Ackoff) do.
However in life things can only really dissolve when the problem ceases to be there. How can this
be? How can life problems dissolve? Well a lot of the times they dissolve as we allow our
conception of them to change. Will you start doing this today? How about your wife or husband?
Instead of grumbling about them under your breath why not start enjoying their qualities and
ignoring their faults. Why should you overlook someone's faults? Because you have so many of
your own. We expect God to overlook our faults to love us... why not overlook someone else's and
learn to love them? I am not talking about every situation because remember there are things we
cannot control. Certainly, we cannot control other people and yes they may leave you or worse. Still
we can control what we do to a certain extent. With God's help we can control how we feel and
over time learn to master ourselves to react to such people in a positive way.
Recently I watched a person very close to me whose marriage fell completely apart. They are now
divorced and in my opinion it was the best thing for that situation. That does not mean it's the best
for yours. Are you in an abusive relationship? Then 'solving' your problem begins with you seeing a
qualified counselor and getting out. There are no excuses for violence. None. There are so many life
problems that are simply expectations that were never met. Why not change what you expected?
Maybe you are unreasonable to expect anything from anyone because you are not perfect? The most
simple definition of a problem I ever heard was when our expectations do not match what is really
happening to us. I think there is merit in that simple definition. If you changed what you expected
do you think that your circumstances would change? No. Jesus told us to expect the things we ask
from God to come to pass before we see them. Why did he do that? I think it was because we expect
things to happen based on deep down ideas and pictures about ourselves. All Jesus was really
saying was ... why not expect God to do something great for you and begin to talk about it before it
even happens?
Life problems are people made and people sustained. We have a part we play. There are things we
cannot control and what we need to do is focus on what our part is and leave the rest in God's
capable hands. The only real way to handle life problems is to learn how to shift perspectives but
that is another article for another day. In the mean time start looking at how you make this problem
real. Start asking yourself what can I control and what I can't. Do your part and I am sure the rest
will follow.
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Life Skills
Life skills are the core competencies an individual possesses, that enable them to cope with the
difficulties in life. More specifically, they are those that are built on top of literacy and numeracy
skills that enable an individual to be able to learn, solve problems, manage complexity, and be open
to change. The Tasmanian Government's 2020 project came up with this definition:
"There is currently no known definition of life skills. However, life skills, in addition to essential
literacy and numeracy skills, could encompass the ability to build sound, harmonious relationships
with self, others and the environment; the ability to act responsibly and safely; the ability to survive
under a variety of conditions; and the ability to solve problems" .
Notice the key parts of the definition above: sound and harmonious relationships with others, acting
responsibility and being able to survive under a variety of conditions and the ability to solve
problems. In this short ebook I am covering the following:
• Learning: Understanding the way in which you learn and how you can develop ways of
seeing and ways of understanding through your own learning style.
• Understanding Complexity and Perspectives: Using what I call a complexity perspective or
systems view (God's eye view if you like) of the world in order to understand how things
relate. This is how do things connect together and how does that affect me. You see there is
you and the world around you... not just YOU!
• Problem Solving: This skill is about learning how to move forward in difficult problem
areas. How do you know what will work. What are the consequences involved in your
thinking? Will they relate to each other and how so? This does not refer to mathematical
ability. It refers to the ability to be able to solve problems and work through them by
understanding the connections between the part that make the problem what it is.
• Creative Thinking/Intuition: The ability to think outside the square. How do you think?
Creative thinking is not defined by anything other than how you with your unique
personality can learn to think in creative ways.
• Perspective Shifting/Strategic Thinking: Systems thinking is not looking at the cause of
something on a bigger scale. It's understanding how conflicting points of view integrate to
form a perceived version of reality. Strategic thinking is the art of seeing the perspectives
and being able to freely move between them to get a complete view of the problem.
• Reflection: As the quote says from John Kotter says: being able to learn is incredibly
important because it leads to being able to understand what we did, why it worked and why
it didn't. You will have some idea of what you did, why it worked or why it didn't. Even if
you didn't then surely you have some concept as to what happened. It's through the lens of
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reflection that you can see what not to do next time and learn from the most important thing
in the world: your mistakes.
These skills are the building blocks of a successful life. If you separate them and become good at
one you will neglect the other and life will walk all over you. On the other hand, learning, adapting,
changing, understanding connections and complexity will help you gain the perspective you need.
Remember it's up to you to learn these and practice them. You don't become a professor at life
overnight. It takes time, patience and plenty of understanding.
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Skill 1: Learning
For the first six months we were apart I enjoyed all the things I'd missed. I went to see only movies
I wanted to see-not one war picture. I went to the gym when it was most convenient for me. I had a
manicure when I wanted a manicure I did what I wanted when I wanted to. I saw all the children
constantly. Eventually, I even dated a little. I realized I could get along just fine on my own, the
question was, did I want to? Other men left me cold. They all had their routines down pat-every
guy had his own personal schtick. At least Jerry had his hair.' Judge Judy Scheindlin1
The popular TV Judge provides an interesting example of what I call 'real world' learning. After
twelve years of marriage the Judge and her husband divorced and she began to see other men. After
six months she had realized that she didn't really want that kind of life, even though we can see
above she enjoyed it initially. Over time her learning pointed towards the fact that there was
something intangible about her ex-husband that she was attracted to (her words) which drew her
back to him. By going through the experience the Judge was able to learn what she really wanted
and at the end she knew what it was. Granted there are better ways to learn such lessons but it's
still a key example of how learning in the real world sense is coupled with experience.
Learning is a key skill in solving life problems that forms the cornerstone for all the others. It's not
only the foundation but without it nothing can grow. By definition learning is the ability to acquire
new knowledge, through a process or experience. The key point here is that to gain new
knowledge, when we are learning, there needs to be the experience of learning. This is the key skill
required to build a successful life skill set in individuals. As an education professional I have
noticed this skill is something that a majority of business schools tend to shy away from. Indeed
academia at large seems more concerned now with standardization that with imparting the
principles of learning. Yet we are sending these students out into a workforce that calls for, above
everything else, the ability to be able to learn. Why do we continue to do this? So what is learning?
What is learning?
Typically most lifelong learning books refer to learning as the gaining of new qualifications,
experience and changing one's personal education as required. While this kind of definition suits
an academic approach to life, it is not entirely consistent with the capability of learning required to
make hard and fast changes in the troublesome real world. We do not all have access to the higher
1 From: Beauty Fades, Dumb is Forever: The Making of a Happy Woman. HarperCollins USA.
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levels of education required but all of us can learn. So how do we learn new things? What are the
principles that are developed in us as children that shape the way we learn and help us to understand
things? In order to understanding how to learn over the length of a life, a basic understanding in
learning is required.
In the world of our actions and reactions we learn by applying our knowledge both conscious and
subconscious to the situations of concern in our lives. An example of this might be the question:
How do I get promoted? There are several answers to this question. First, I might be a political
person and make strategic alliances with certain people and perform certain duties for them in order
to gain their favour. This is a path of learning I have now set for myself to achieve; I need to know
the boss to get promoted. However, what if my boss doesn't take to me and ignores my actions?
What if my politicizing results in me getting fired? I initiated a track of learning, it did not work for
me, I now take what I have learned and tell everyone about it. I tell my colleagues "Don't go being
friendly to the boss that will get you nowhere." The truth is that it didn't in that case, but if I used
the right kind of political muscle it might have worked. Here is the first barrier to learning
(discussed in the next learning chapter), logic traps. Whenever I tell myself I cannot learn my mind
will think exactly that. Even though my brain helps me to learn it also stops me from doing so.
Learning takes place when I gain new information, knowledge or experience about something I had
previously learned about. To learn, I read, I experience and most importantly I gain insights from
the world around me. As a learner I want to add to what I know so I can more effectively use it in
the world I face around me. This means I have to be actively looking for ways to gain new insights
into my surrounds by trying to understand it. So how do I do that? What do I go through to get to
that place where I can add new things to what I know? Where does learning begin? What types are
there?
Learning Types
Learning is a core skill that forms the foundation of all kinds of personal and non-personal growth.
Broadly speaking there are three main types of learning we need to be aware of (I am aware of
many more but I shall concentrate on three core ones for use in this book). The first is Learning by
Rote or put simply learning through study and gaining knowledge through the repetitious
memorizations of 'facts' found in text books. I personally call this kind of learning 'surface-level'.
For example, when I was school they made us memorize our timetables by heart. Two times two is
four, four times four is eight and so on. That is, learning this way is so easy it really only scratches
the surface of what learning should be all about. It fails to engage with the deep issues of topic and
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scraps the surface superficially. My pet Chihuahua can learn things by rote like 'sit' by treating
them with a reward. The Chihuahua is less than likely to turn to me and ask 'Why do you tell me to
sit?' certainly not when I have a piece of meat in my hand. It will do it because it will be rewarded
for pulling up surface level learning from its brain: "When I sit I get meat".
Aristotle for example, developed systems of logic that we all know and use in our mathematical
induction and reasoning. This kind of knowledge generation or learning is based around the idea
that all of our learning capacity as human beings takes place in a logical fashion or by rote. In this
case, if one is to trace the history of philosophy (something done better in many different texts on
this subject2) there is a clear pattern of embedding logical learning patterns into rote forms. To put
it simply, this kind of learning requires you to find the pattern, follow the rules and everything will
be alright. If we are learning to screw in a light bulb - technically there is only one way this is
going to get done. Screw it in by following the pattern. Such a technical issue requires no
textbook exploration or real world conjecture to make it work. Put it in. If the light bulb was fine
and you screwed it in ok and it still doesn't work then there is something electrically wrong with the
light bulb. A deeper level of learning is now required.
I now need to find someone who knows something about electricity. There is a complex electrical
wiring system in the roof that took some planning and understanding to install. If you go into the
roof without any knowledge or experience on how that works then you are going to be in trouble.
Moving on from this I need some conditional learning that I can use to fix this problem. Now this
kind of learning requires me to be able to learn what I am taught and apply to my problem.
Returning to our electrician example, I can apply my knowledge to fixing your electrical systems
because I have been conditioned that way through teaching.
When I learned what I needed I asked my instructor questions, I tried knew things and eventually
learned how electrical systems work. Each wire, I placed in the ceiling I did so according to what I
have learned from my training and the experience (rich or poor) that I have at this stage. When
your light bulb won't switch on, there goes your rote learning experience, your problem now has
presented with you with a bit more complexity than before. I, as an electrician for example, might
climb into your roof and examine the cause of the problem. I am now applying both what I was
conditioned to learn (at electrician school) and what I have learned from being an electrician. In
short I can fix the problem because I submitted myself to training that allowed me to become an
electrician. The same thing is taking place inside universities. You want to be an accountant you
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have to submit yourself to the conditions that make that possible in order to become that accountant.
Conditional learning gives me theories to test out and apply so I can become something predefined.
In essence at university you don't learn something mystical or new, you get fed what they think you
need to know. This is predefined by academics who think they know what you need.
I am not being conspiratorial by saying this but you are being conditioned to doctrine. Why? You
have exams to pass, a degree to obtain and more than likely a job to get. You had better condition
yourself to the theory or else you may never become a professional! Such learning requires an
understanding of concepts rather than just memorization. You need to explore ideas a bit here and
move within certain boundaries of thought. To put it simply you are gaining theoretical knowledge
which is predetermined by the teacher for you to learn. Learn that, and you will do well. Move
outside the acceptable boundaries for your conditional learning and you will be in trouble.
An example of conditional learning in Business Schools is the idea that all students must learn
statistics in their first year. It's taken as given that most students need to know statistics because
they are going into a world of cold hard facts. This may be true by why make it mandatory? Why
condition students to make excellent regression equations when in reality unless they are really,
really interested they are more than likely never going to use it. That's conditional learning. I had
the misfortune of teaching statistics for a while at a college and invariably the poor students (those
that were there would remember my ineptitude suffered greatly) asked me why are we doing this?
After a while I ran out of lies to tell them my standard response was, 'well you have to'. Why? It's
deemed important by those who run the business school being the "objective" world of business and
all. Conditional learning asks no questions tells no lies. Conditional forms of learning, given to us
traditionally through our educational systems are largely based on a simplified version of life. Such
learning is good when gaining understanding in the basic skills of life but is unfortunately lacking
in broader context of the real world where the rules change constantly and very little actually stays
the same.
A third type of learning that can help us, is learning by experience. Typically this kind of
experiential learning relies on the ability to gain new insights into situations through the
application of knowledge based on experience. Graham Hancock3 writes about a harsh experiential
lesson in relationship to poverty:
In was in such a fashion, through guilt, that Europeans at a particular moment in history, came to
2 For example Bertrand Russell's History of Philosophy.
3 Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige and Corruption of International Aid Business
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see foreign aid as a vehicle of restitution, of righting past wrongs, of buying pardon.
At some point they had realized, what they did was inhumane - so as the author theorizes - they
tried to fix a past wrong. Surface level rote learning never questions why things are the way they
are, neither does conditional learning. You don't see electricians reinventing electrical systems
everyday. They don't have to reinvent systems like that to make it work properly; they just have to
apply their learning. Granted conditional learning requires a lot more thinking and is much more
subjective (open to opinion and different forms that rote learning) but it's still limited. Experiential
learning on the other hand is simultaneously the most dangerous form of learning and the most
interesting.
To learn by experience, requires three key things to work properly. The first is a person with an
open mind. Learning only ever takes place when the person learning is willing to open their mind
to understanding the thing they are studying. We can learn what they call 'general knowledge' by
reading and rote learning. If the learner closes their mind when they are trying to gain insights into
something they are interested in learning about they will not learn a thing. On the contrary, they
will learn what they have preconditioned themselves to learn. A closed mind sees the end from the
beginning and does not rest in the process of learning. The point of learning is to gain new insights
into something of interest so how can new insights be gained you already know what you are going
to find? Learning by experience shapes the understanding of a situation as a potter shapes the clay
because the learner is the one gaining not losing in this situation. With an open mind, the learner
can explore the answers and form ideas of what works on the way to finding the knowledge they
seek.
Having an open mind allows the learner to see the possibilities and they will try things the close
minded won't. How many people are told you 'can't' or 'don't' by close minded individuals.
Having an open mind automatically gives the learner the opportunity to learn even before anything
has started and it gives the learning process a head start. This is because when you want to know
how something works, you have to understand it by not only having the theories about it in your
mind but also you need to understand the way in which it can be used. A failure to use knowledge
in this way produces acceptance of concepts with no 'proof'. The open minded learner is going to
see what works or what doesn't not blindly but by building on an established set of ideas. What
closes our mind is our ideas about certain things and our worldview. This is because it makes us
think certain things and contains hidden assumptions that can poison our learning experience.
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My ideas and My Worldview
My ideas about things are not the same as yours. As a matter of fact, what you have learned in your
life up to this point may be entirely different to what I have learned. For the sake of simplicity,
whatever you know about anything (your knowledge) is called you set of ideas. The set of ideas
you have about things is very different to the set of ideas I have about things. If you are like me,
you came from a background that is 'working class' which means the ideas I have about the world
are largely shaped by those kinds of values. On the other hand you may be from a background
where you had access to resources that were less than mine and you view things very differently to
the way I do. The output of your ideas is your actions - that is what you think is what you do.
Your thoughts are intrinsically linked to your actions. When you create new thoughts about
something, in your mind you have already worked out how you are going to approach it. This is
automatic.
For a moment stop and think of a problem you currently have. Write in the space below in
one sentence what the problem is.
Now that you have done that, study the sentence above. What happens when you consider
this problem? Did you automatically think of certain kinds of solutions? This is because you have
been educated to think this way. Here is an example:
"The problem is my wife hates my guts."
Some may say, "What have you done wrong? Do you need counselling? Are you getting
divorced?" This is because when we are faced with a problem we automatically come up with
solutions or an educated guess as to what the answer is likely to be. We have learned nothing! A
guess is just that... a guess. Now this is not all bad news, this skill comes in very handy as well
shall see later in this book.
As each new thought comes into your mind it gets filters through you're your set of ideas about the
world. Your view of the world will determine how you take action in the world. For example, if
you have low self-esteem burrowing it's way deep into your mind your actions, thoughts and
reactions to the world outside will filter itself that perception of low self esteem. When your
teacher at school said to you, "you will never amount to anything," you took that idea and buried it
in your mind. I am not a psychologist but I can tell you this - the bible tells us that as a
man/woman thinks in their heart so are they. Say for example you are a young go getter looking for
a way to improve your standing at work and go for a promotion. If you have confidence and faith
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in your abilities you are likely to create actions and take initiatives that will give you those kinds of
opportunities. If on the other hand you lack confidence despite your abilities you will actively build
that kind of reality around you. The people you associate with will support your low self esteem
most likely, the job you take will agree with it, the way you interact with others will agree with it
and so on. Your mindset of low self-esteem will build a reality around you that is entirely
consistent with your thoughts. Another example of how our view of the world affects us is found in
the words of our mouth.
Here is an exercise you can do to assess your view of the world, what comes out of your mouth. It
is positive? When trouble comes, as to all of us it does, how do you respond verbally? Do you say:
"that's just my luck," or something like, "Why does it always rain on me". Why did you say that?
You have not learned anything else. The way we see the world through our perceptions of it (deeply
built into our subconscious) will negatively or positively affect the image we create. That picture
we build of the world are deeply held assumptions about how it operates, what people are like and
so on. Here are some examples:
"She'll be right, mate."
"What goes around comes around"
"What goes up must come down"
"You will never amount to anything"
"You're just like your father"
"Everything happens for a reason"
Each one of these points of view holds behind a deeply held assumption about what the person who
said it thinks. I would like to call these things 'imaginations'4. These phrases are things people
have built into their mind and are being expressed from their mind as words. An imagination is
what I would call a micro view of the world that is held or bound to a certain way of thinking. For
example the term, "you are just like your father," automatically has a negative imagining attached to
it. Why is it that being like your father is a bad thing? Maybe your father is a good person and
that's a compliment. This however, is very unlikely given the nature of people to use words to
bring people 'down' to a certain perception of how they should think or act. The media are
especially adept at this because they feed us imaginations all the time to engage with. What news
we get, is given to us so we can form an imagination about it and turn it around in our mind. How
4 This term comes from traditional versions of the New Testament which calls views contrary to the Gospel (see 2
Corinthians 10).
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often do we see a dodgy business on TV and instantly feelings of hatred and judgements
immediately made. That imagination has now been built in you and you in turn build it into others
by becoming an evangelist for your TV show. You spread the word by going to work and saying:
"Did you see that business on TV - what a dodgy operation."
That particular viewpoint expressed on television now creates a way of thinking about that place.
There have been several classic examples of them getting it wrong and almost ruining businesses
only to offer a brief apology as a way of operating in damage control. Too bad if it already has cost
that business thousands. Why do they do it? They are trying to get you to build an imagination so
you can engage with them and agree "what a terrible thing this is." Every now and then they offer
us imaginations to build our thinking on because most of us unfortunately have undeveloped
viewpoints about things. That is, we have not learned anything except how to be spoon fed regular
doses of whatever we are told. Our view of things is directly related to how we learn because what
we do is build what we think on our imaginations of things. Next time you watch the news ask
yourself this question: "What is the news trying to get me imagine?" These things you begin to
imagine will become part of the way you begin to view the world. If you grew up with racist
parents, the chances are your parents built racism into your view of the world. You may think you
aren't racist but go and walk amongst those of another culture and see what comes out of your
mind. You may not walk up to them uttering racist sentiment but in your mind there are ideas
floating around that may convince you otherwise. Not that is real learning, breaking the conditions
we have been led to believe and getting the experience to challenge our underlying assumptions.
We evaluate things through our view of the world and this gives us the toolkit for building learning
skills into our life. How we view things will tell us how things can be learned. If you grew up
loving science, you will take a scientific approach to life and usually rely on all things scientific to
give you answers. You may use phrases like, "there is a system to everything". This is an
expression of how you think things work. We will call these kind of people "scientific people". If
you are given to this style of learning you will struggle with life because sometimes the answers are
not as cut and dry. For example, Henry Ford was a great pioneer but time has shown that his
management style is nothing short of abhorrent. Why? Because he saw people as "resources" and
not as living beings with a mind, will and emotions. He approached management as a science,
when it is more like an unstructured art. Modern works have even urged us to think of our spirit in
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the workplace5 which would make poor Henry do flips in his grave. People are not numbers, they
are living beings with real families and real personalities. On one hand people are the greatest thing
about a business but on the other the biggest enemy.
If your view of the world is less scientific and more open to other views you might be what I call
"unscientific" and given to large bouts of intuition. If you are a 'free' thinker then you will evaluate
everything that comes your way and form your opinions based on what you think is right and
perhaps a feeling you have about it. You might be someone who questions everything, especially
science and never stop learning. The unscientific approach to management would use techniques
found in Semler's Seven-Day Weekend6:
Organizations rarely believe they're to blame when an employee underperforms. But if the organization
doesn't provide the opportunity for success, then people falter. At Semco we accept that every individual
wants and needs a worthwhile pursuit in life. It's up to us to provide the environment and opportunity for their
gratification.
This kind of approach to building a workplace is different as the human resources are allowed to be
more human. It's a well-documented success story but it started by breaking the mould and
breaking established business rules. The rule breakers are always learning and never accepting
common ill-conceived points of view.
We will never land on the moon. What really? Never? People that make these kinds of statements
about learning are scientific and evaluate everything objectively in their worldview. That
worldview will only take knowledge from those that know and they will eventually have a head full
of other people's ideas. Every pattern, every notion and every single last idea will fall into what
somebody else came up with unscientifically. Learning is unscientific because it takes that which
is unknown and tries to make it known. Scientists who were pioneers where the most unscientific
of them all. They used faith in every endeavour and relied on personal intuition and vision as well
as there academic abilities.
When we learn we are applying the single most unique and profound ability we have - the ability to
gain new insights and gain fresh information. If our view of the world tells us we can learn then we
can. If we are willing to question the way things are and build for ourselves new mindsets about
things (despite the cost) then we can learn. Everyone can learn. As a lecturer in a business school I
5 William Bickham's Liberating the spirit in the workplace is an example.
6 Page 75-76.
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have found quite often that my students do not want to learn, they want to collect facts, but they
don't want to learn. So often I get smart questions like, "What's on the exam?" My response to this
usually is to tell them precisely what's on the exam - lots of questions about the things I wanted you
to learn. Invariably almost nobody gets what I mean by that.
What knowledge do you need to build upon to get through life? That depends on what you plan to
do with it. The primary skill you need to make it is learning. A friend of mine once told me this
story about learning:
My boss told me to do a job and I told him I couldn't do it and he said to me, "Oh well I guess your going to
have tell the customer that we can't complete the job and they won't get what they have paid for. I said to him
that I would go back and try. When I did try I found a way to make it work."
The problem is we are no longer willing to try and learn what we need to make it in life. Our view
of the world tells us we can't but in fact we can. Students often ask me for answers, I only give
them more questions. After a while they stop coming to see me, because they don't realize or
cannot understand that the things I am teaching to them can only be learned by them. If the courses
I teach are going to be valuable to them at all then they need to learn the stuff for themselves. I
could offer them a standard response and tell them the answer but what have they gained. Where
was the struggle for new concepts, the trial and error process? What happened to that? When the
objective of learning is to gain an answer, that person has lost the reason they set out to gain
insights in the first place. Learning is the gaining of new information about something that you
didn't know before. However, learning comes from and goes to somewhere it's not purely selfperpetuating.
Your learning accumulates.
The second requirement for learning: your knowledge repository
Learning was earlier defined as the ability to gain new insights to add to existing to knowledge in
chapter 1. To extend that definition let's think carefully about the meaning of what it means to add
to knowledge. In life, we could argue that a person adds to their knowledge when they learn
something through the application of knowledge. Put simply, in the game of life we learn what
works and what doesn't through the trial and error process. Successful entrepreneur Richard
Branson stressed the importance of this in his autobiography by stating that it was easy to build a
successful business once you had one under your belt7. This may seem counter intuitive and
7 Losing My Virginity, Richard Branson, Three Rivers Press USA.
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perhaps a few expensive lessons may be learned along the way (failures of previous business
ventures etc) but this is a necessary requirement. That is, you must accumulate your knowledge
and gather the lessons from the past. Inside your mind is a huge repository of what you know.
Granted, you may forget it at times but it's still there.
When you open your mind to learn you are testing the validity of that knowledge and you are
exposing it to see if it's useful or not. Generally people get nervous around experiential learners
because they are testing the validity and usefulness of knowledge. These are the kind of learners
that are always testing the boundaries of what's possible and what's not. Constantly they are
working to gain new insights to add to their knowledge repository so they can have a better
understanding of what is going on. They know what works and what doesn't. This is one of many
key reasons why organizations should not get rid of those who have been around for a long time;
they know things other people don't. How quickly do new businesses look at the business model
over common sense all because they want more profits for shareholders. What about organizational
effectiveness? What about keeping a good corporate knowledge repository that all in the
organization can draw from? What boggles the mind is that people hide behind business process
reengineering and their concepts of what they would like business to be about when getting rid of
corporate knowledge. Each person is useful and what they know could add more value ... if you
would let them.
When learning you need to build on what you know, be prepared to destroy it and when required
change it. Don't confuse the goal of learning when your personal pride and desires. You must be
open minded and be building on what you know honestly not simply sticking to a track you know
isn't going to work because you are too proud to let it go. The attitudes required for learning are
going to be discussed in the next chapter. Therefore as you learn you have to have one final thing in
place and that is the ability to reflect.
Reflection
When you look into a mirror you see an image of yourself looking back. This reflection of yourself
represents your physical self and it's you there you are looking at. When learning should always
have a mirror to look into to 'reflect'. Ever heard theses two sayings: You can't see the forest for
the trees? Everyone is a genius in hindsight? Sometimes we get so caught up in what we are
learning that we haven't taken the time out to reflect to see if what we are learning is relevant or can
be used. When we reflect we think back retrospectively to check through what we have learned to
see if we can contextualize it by thinking through it. When you reflect on a past experience, the
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thought produces both emotions and your mind reasons through it. For example, if you were
involved in a car accident you will reflect through it and look at it to see if you could have done
something different. The truth is you did what you did - what can you learn from that experience -
take the lesson and move on. Don't spend you days getting stuck staring at the trees, see the 'bigger
picture' extract what you gained from the experience and move on.
Reflection is a powerful force; it allows us to go back in time to have a look at situations in all kinds
of ways. It allows us to think through the past, collect lessons and gain experiential insights into
what has happened and most importantly move forward. Imagine if our government gained insights
into things like poverty and passed them on to next government. What would the condition of our
world be like? If the mistakes of the past we keep making were learned about and improved
through reflection, the chances are the world would be a much better place to live in. Reflection is
really about taking the lessons from each learning experience, adding to the knowledge you have
and then moving on the next learning experience.
Lost Children International is an organization set up to aid parents who have had their children into
stolen from them and placed in foreign countries. One of the key figures in the organization is
Miriam Ali, co-founder and counsellor of the organization, had this to say when she found out the
unthinkable had happened to her children8:
"The electric shock jolted my body into rigidity. I couldn't form a single syllable. I just looked at this man,
disbelieving my own ears, because all I could hear was the sound of my own heart thumping, thumping,
thumping. Fred had not moved, neither his stance for his expression. Cool, penetrating, superior. He just
looked at me as I became further entrapped in my own shell of a body."
The language here is in a reflective tone and the author is trying extremely hard to emphasise the
nature of the feelings she was feeling as she learned that her children had been stolen from her.
Notice the use of the descriptive language with things like thumping and electric shock jolted my
body. The author is reflecting on how she felt during this time trying to use accurate metaphors
describing the way she felt when hearing this horrible news. In a way she is trying to make sense of
her feelings she felt through reflecting on how she was at that time and she is trying to
communicate to us what it was like. Unfortunately we can sympathise with her but unless we have
had that happen to us we will never be able to empathise. The author is making sense of an
experience by reflecting on it and telling us what it was like. In ourselves when we learn, we do
exactly the same thing. We learn, reflect then go back to learning again. Those of us who don't
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learn, never reflect and get stuck in the same cycle of learning, over and over and over again!
Our learning is not separate to us because it's a part of the whole being that makes us up.
Therefore, what we choose to learn about and gain insights into is completely controlled by our
perspectives and the deeply held assumptions we have about the world. You cannot divorce
yourself from the world and the world cannot divorce itself from you. Whatever it is you believe
the world to be, whatever well of ideas you are drawing from are merely perspectives and
assumptions. The deeply ingrained ideas we have quite often are based on good solid evidence but
a lot of the time they are not. There is a funny saying in the academic world, 'Doing a PhD is like
banging your head up against a wall until the wall disappears!' In the same way, learning through
poor interpretations that don't work is the same as trying to change what you cannot control. If you
can't control it learn a way around it. Think and act in a reflective way by cycling through different
ways of thinking and acting.
If you have stopped learning, reflecting, acting and so forth then you have willingly made a choice
not to participate in living life anymore and you need to move forward. Reflecting allows us the
liberty to make sense of things and move into a new place because it opens up the pathway for
change. When we reflect, we consciously think about what has happened and make (hopefully)
meaningful change at least possible. As we reflect about what we have learned from our experience
we have new insights and as humans we can learn even when it's not good to do so. Every person
in history that ever invented anything good or bad was a reflective thinker. In Miriam Ali's case her
reflection and action lead her to learning which in turn led to establishment of an organisation to
help parents with abducted children. Reflection is what keeps you learning and moving forward. It
can be humbling and it can make you look stupid at times but ultimately you gain something more
value than gold through this ... wisdom. When you know what works and what doesn't then you
can help others and share what you experientially know. The following chapter takes these ideas
and discusses applying them in real world situations.
Chapter Summary
In this chapter the topic of 'learning' was discussed. Three types of learning were introduced: rote
or surface level learning, conditional learning and experiential learning. To learn it was argued
that you need to maintain three key things. Firstly, you need to have an open mind which allows
you see possibilities. When you have a closed mind you know the answer before you have
answered the question and this stops real world learning from occurring because it closes all
8 From Without Mercy, Miriam Ali and Jana Wain, Warner Books, UK.
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avenues to learning down to your close mindedness. Secondly, you have to be working from a
knowledge repository or have a set of ideas to build upon and perhaps totally eradicate if required.
This allows you to build and change what you know about something as time progresses. Finally,
the idea of needing reflection was discussed as being very important to the learning process because
it creates a way to think through lessons and assimilate them into future experience.
Questions for you to think about:
1. What is something you are really good at? Take a piece of paper and write down what is it
you are particularly good at. Done it, good!
2. Now with that same piece of paper - write down how you became good at it - what is the
key thing that made you good at it.
3. On the same piece of paper write down the answer to this question: if you had to teach
someone to be as good as you what would you emphasise?
4. If could do it again what would you change?
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Skill 2 - Problem Solving
Problems as Perspectives
In the haziness of everyday affairs we often are blinded by perceptions, beliefs and hidden
assumptions. I have been thinking lately about how much of my life is a problem and how much of
it I make a problem. What do I mean? Well consider for a moment that a lot of things we think are
real problems are actually not 'real' as such. They exist in our heads informing of us that which
'troubles' us. As British academic Professor Peter Checkland puts it: an area of concern is
something we find to be problematic. Sounds real obvious hey? Think about it for a minute.
The problem of causality
What I have noticed is that people often fail to recognise the difference between how we can cause
something to bother us and how others can interfere. Think for a moment about this scenario. You
are driving home on the freeway and suddenly a man swerves in front of you nearly taking you out.
You react by slamming on your brakes and quickly lose control of your vehicle smashing into a
nearby concrete wall. That is a real problem. You have been effected by somebody else's poor
driving. Same scenariobut somebody looks like they are going to cut you off and you react because
of what might happen but never actually does. Your thinking caused you to respond not really the
other drivers actions... although they were the trigger. In this latter example you can see that often
in problem solving situations the real problem is your perception of what might happen. A problem
is therefore a perspective that is the difference between what we expect (our point of view) and
what actually happens.
The problem of perceptions
Perceptions are as real as reality itself. One might go so far to say that perceptions are reality. Hold
on, I hear you say, what I perceive is actually real? No. That's not what I mean. I mean this: what
you perceive to be real becomes real by virtue of the fact that you have perceived it. When you
understand or recognise a problem to you it's real. The effects of it will be as real as if the wind
blew the roof right off your house!
So what's the real problem?
The real problem often is in your head. That's right. You think something might happen and on the
basis of that 'reality' you begin making decisions. I do this myself all the time. Ever thought of
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avoiding a social event because you might run into so and so and it would be a disaster only to go
and find out it wasn't. This kind of thing can get so intense that you begin seeing the pictures in
your mind... day in and day out. You begin to imagine what might happen and sure enough before
you know it you are making new plans to navigate around something that is deeply rooted in your
mind.
Problems as perspectives
Problems are essentially ways of thinking (perspectives) that reside in our sub-conscious mental
structure informing us of reality. You can begin to recognise them by asking yourself questions that
expose them (I will talk about how to remove them in a later post). Things like: 'Do I want to avoid
the social event because it will be a disaster or because I am expecting it to be a disaster?'. See, we
often build a reality to believe in just so we can make a place for the things we think are a problem.
I am going to end this post with a personal story. Before I started my present job I was warned
about a member of staff by people I was hanging around with at the time. The people I was with
told me that this person (called 'Bob' to protect the innocent) was not to be trusted and would rip
me off. So believing what I was told I avoided them like the plague. However, I was assigned to
work with Bob and found Bob to be helpful, courteous and nice. When I eventually told Bob what I
was warned about... Bob told me she was worried about me because of the people I was hanging
around! Essentially none of this was 'real' but it made for a 'reality' that become so real that two
people were made to feel very uncomfortable and acted out of these beliefs. The real problem was
the perspectives we had.
In closing today I want to encourage you to begin to look into your own life for limited
perspectives. Once you see them... make a note of them and slowly begin to change the way you
see things. I will write more on this so why not subscribe to my feed to see what I have in store.
Thanks for reading!
Sometimes a logical approach just won't do: My problem with traditional ways
One the greatest literary caricatures of the last 100 years is Sherlock Holmes. The image of the pipe
bearing detective with an eye for the most indiscriminate detail is burned firmly into the minds and
hearts of thousands of people. What I am interested in today is to talk about the reasons why
Sherlock Holmes and the majority of western thinking about problem solving is indeed wrong.
Not-so-elementary my dear Watson
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Sherlock Holmes often cautioned Watson not to come to a conclusion about a crime until he had the
'facts'. Watson was framed as the bumbling detective who never really put the pieces of the puzzle
together. Holmes, the figure of the rational/logical detective espoused ad nausem in today's crime
shows, always reasoned through available facts, evidence and such things. Watson was always
leaping to conclusions that were off the cuff, spontaneous and available. Putting the pieces together
in a logical fashion as Holmes did actually is not all to dissimilar to Watson's approach. Consider
for a moment that we all making meaningful gestures at what we think problems are all the time. As
we come to understand the situation we are faced with we immediately think of solutions. Chances
are that we come to the conclusion that problems we faced have many 'not-so-elementary' elements
that are not obvious. Conjecturing is one way we can actually tease out the not so obvious and begin
to build better solutions.
Reasoning Versus Conjecturing?
These two practices are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact they are deeply connected. For a
moment think of a problem you have. Tell me what's the problem? I guess you have either spoken
out loud and said 'the problem is...'. Have you ever watched the news and a story caught your
attention enough for you to whine about it? Say it was about the rental crisis. What's the problem...
well I guess you could say the problem is a lack of housing at a cheap enough price. Immediately
you have just conjectured what the problem is and now we have available to us certain types of
conclusions. Whenever you say... the problem is... you are conjecturing (either based on no or
limited 'evidence'). Getting more information may be important so we can reason but the ideas that
underpin our reasoning processes are even more important.
Facts come after we beginning looking for evidence
People often say to me, 'well this has been my experience.' I then sit back and wonder why can't
people see that their experience (or the evidence in this case) happened and the facts they have
collected are coming from a way of thinking about that experience. Facts are always available.
When we conjecture as to what we think the problem is, we begin to look for support for our ideas.
NOT the other way round. Human beings are wired up to believe things first then either confirm or
deny later. To say that we come to conclusions through reasoning is true to a point BUT the vast
majority of our decision making takes place on the back of ideas that have little or no confirmatory
evidence. Sherlock Holmes was ridiculing Watson for doing precisely the same thing he was!
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Reasoning comes from somewhere
Reasoning comes from a set of underlying ideas. If you think that there is a problem the chances are
you may be the only one thinking that it's so. Contrary to the majority of western thought... the
ideas that form the problem take place in the human mind and may not even have support from
other people. If you think people are saying nasty things about you... that's a problem you have
conjectured. You will then act on these assumptions, build a new way of defending yourself and
even begin treating everyone as a possible threat. Holmes allow the 'facts' to speak him as he often
said but these facts led to a reasoning process which in turn leads to Holmes conjecturing (taking an
educated guess) as to what his problem is. Holmes 'faith' was created through the facts which led to
certain conclusions as a result. We all do it! It's not like we are immune to it. It's just this false
consciousness we create whereby we think that we are being 'scientific' but we are not. Things like
faith and belief establish the conjecture or set of ideas and we follow through to a conclusion from
there.
In concluding this post I would like to add that Sherlock Holmes was right to trust the evidence he
found but if you read what he did he used an awful lot of guesswork, theorising, brainstorming and
creative thinking. All of which require no so-called 'evidence' to lead to conclusions. They are
merely ideas that suggest certain kinds of possibilities, concepts that suggest ways of thinking and
educated guesses that stimulate the problem solving process. Take a look at your own life and begin
to see the conjectures you have floating around in your head. What are you worried about? What
makes you fearful? These are nothing more than ideas you have attached your emotions to which in
turn creates a new reality for you to believe. Remember, it' s not the 'facts' but where the facts
come from that are important.
So how can I know I have a problem
In the world filled with problems there is a great divide between stuff that's a problem and stuff we
think might be a problem. What do I mean? Well consider this: the problem of traffic in this fair
city of Brisbane is a problem for me because I have to drive into it every morning when I go to
work. To say it was a crisis would be a bit dramatic and probably amplify the thing way out of
context. Yet in my experience, people do this all the time. So what I am going to do next is outline
some ways you can know you really have a problem.
1. Is this problem an immediate concern
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If the situation at hand is not solved immediately is there a chance that it can be solved later? If it
can be solved later why are you so concerned about solving it right now. Why do you want to fix it
and why on earth do you want to waste time and energy when other problems could be better solved
now. Most people make something that's an immediate concern where there is no need to do that.
The reasons we do this could be because of: personal preference, political reasons, you think it has
to be solved 'right now' and stuff like that. If the problem is not immediately a concern there is
good chance that you are worried about something that may never occur.
2. Are you making something a problem because you want to see it solved
Consider your own life and the problems you have at the moment... are you creating new problems
to solve because you want to. The reasons why you are doing that might be avoidable. In high times
of stress humans fall back into crisis mode and make sense of situations differently than they do
under normal circumstances. The consequences of what we are doing when we are looking to solve
a problem often forms the area of concern itself. We create the concern so we can solve it. Over a
period of time we build up an issue in our minds and then plan out ways to solve it as we create it.
Why do we do this... it's part of being human.
3. What is the evidence that has led you to think there is a problem
Evidence can be real (facts) or it can be the stuff in our brain that tells us something is real.
Whenever you have come to a conclusion that there is a problem it's because you have evidence
that has lead you to this conclusion. What evidence do you have? Mental evidence... your
thoughts? In your thinking process you have created a chain of evidence that links certain types of
information together to form a logical conclusion. The conclusions you have reached are well
thought out and logical based on rational (or in some cases irrational) thinking. To test this ask
yourself what makes you think what you are thinking. The conclusion (problem) was reached
through evidence (thoughts) what thoughts make you think there is a problem. Once you have
isolated these... write them down and study them. Is it really that serious?
4. If there is a problem is there also a solution
Believing is intrinsic to human affairs. We find a problem it's usually connected to certain kinds of
solutions. When we look at a problem, in our mind is a subtle idea for a solution, that we have been
mothering to the point where we are now finding a problem to birth our solutions. In the seventies
they called this the garbage can of decision making. A problem can often be identified by
overzealous people looking to test a 'solution' that is a personal pet project. Don't be one of these
people. As I will discuss in a later post problems and solutions are inexplicably related.
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One final question to ask yourself as you look for problems is the question of meaning. What
meaning does the problem have? If it's a problem with a certain degree of importance (i.e.
marriage) then you will be blinded by the all too familiar problem of being human. That however, is
another post for another day. For now, think... do I really have a problem?
Breaking out of old mindset and the logic box
A cardboard box is great for storing things isn't it? Does it help you think? NO. It's a square storage
box for you to put stuff in. In the same manner that the box is used for storage so do we store things
in mental boxes. When it comes to ideas you can create the form they take by building logical
structures that you think represent reality. Take for example your concept of work? What is it?
Do you think you work to get money or you get money because you work? That is a logic box. The
truth is you are being paid because you have something of value to offer someone else. If you
conceptualise work in a box you will say: 'Well I have to do it.' No you don't! You must begin to
break out of the logic box you have built and make new ideas work for you. Starting thinking of
yourself as adding value because that's why you were hired. I think of the logic box as a set of ideas
that you use to define something in a rigid, non-flexible logical way. Consider the following
examples:
Well that is just the way it is...
Why do we accept things the way things are... well that's just the way it is? No that's a box. Things
are the way they are because we made them that way and continue to agree that's an acceptable way
of doing things. Take poverty for example. A problem that is worldwide. Is there enough wealth in
the world to fix this problem? I would argue there is more than enough yet the problem is still there.
Why is it still there? Corruption? Bad politics? Greed? There is no one answer that makes complete
sense.
It's been this way for years... it's better the devil you know than the devil you
don't...
This is a logic box that is really saying... I don't have the courage to make the changes and I would
prefer to live with the devil I have rather than the devil I don't. I would prefer for the devil to be
gone. Why live with the devil? It takes just the same amount of fear to fail as it does to succeed.
Why not take a step out there into the big beyond and try it? Things could get better as they could
get worse. If they do get better then you will have gained something and if you make a terrible
mistake you will also have gained something. See my previous post on learning from your past
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mistakes. Don't settle for what the population in general settle for mediocrity... do what you know
to do. Break that sucker!
Things are never going to change...
Really never? They will change if you begin to make steps towards making them change. You don't
build a great building overnight. It starts with a vision and you then build it step by step until the
thing is complete. We have this terrible idea that things we have are simply never going to change.
If you think it will never change... it will never change. If you begin to think change is possible...
then it will become possible. This not some mysterious notion. Consider this, when you are looking
for a new house to live in what do you notice in the television shows you see... things you like in a
house. In like manner if you set your mind on something you will begin to explore possibilities,
seek new avenues of thinking and eventually make small steps towards change.
That's just what I believe...
People somehow have gotten this idea that what we believe is static. It's almost as though changing
our perspective is so hard that we would rather live with a worse explanation of what we believe
that using a better one. Why do we do this? There are many reasons why but I think a major factor
is that we simply grow comfortable in the ways in which we create things in our mind. We get so
comfortable that we would rather hurt ourselves by believing something that's just there rather than
changing perspectives to a better healthier belief.
This is just the way I am...
The picture you carry around of yourself is what you will think, speak and act to whoever is
listening at any given time. This inbuilt image will be with you for the rest of your life and if you
don't do something to fix it... you will find it dominating you until you die. If for example, you
belief you are destined to fail, then the chances are you will make decisions that will make this a
reality. If on the other hand you believe you will do well, you will make decisions in accordance
with this belief. This doesn't mean you will do well because you believe BUT that belief will reside
in you and when opportunities come along you will know how to recognise them.
These are all versions of the logic box... ways of thinking that are put into little boxes for us to
interpret. Another common one I have come across is found in the media. I call this a false
dichotomy. Say you are debating a divisive issue like euthanasia. Immediately you think of the two
moral high grounds for the issue... pro or con. In reality this is a false dichotomy because there may
be other solutions rather than yes or no. By taking an extreme stance you automatically exclude the
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possibility of new and innovative solutions. There is nothing wrong with taking a stand for things
you believe in... but there is something VERY wrong in creating ideas to believe in and then not
changing them when the situation demands it. The tendency towards logical solutions in our
thinking hinders our creativity because it forces us to make boxes. When we do this we naturally
exclude alternatives which in any field is a dangerous practice.
There are a few ways I have found that break the logic box and I will discuss these in another post
later in the week. In the meantime consider this: what things in your life have you boxed in?
Family? Friends? Work? In any case you will not be able to see the problem until you begin
questioning it, turning it over in your mind and looking at it from different angles. Start today!
In a previous post I talked about the concept of the logic box. You might remember them as limiting
belief systems that we form to make sense of things. They become a box when our thinking is
stalled because we can't move past the logic we have placed in our minds. Today I want to show
you four techniques for breaking out of stale thinking patterns and how to break the logic box.
1. Conjecturing
In a previous section I talked about why Sherlock Holmes is wrong when it comes to real world
problems solving. In this article I introduced the art of conjecture. A conjecture is an educated 'best'
guess that allows me to put on another way of thinking than I might be used to. If you are stuck on a
hard problem and you cannot see your way out of it... try guessing something that you haven't
thought of previously. The way to do this is to offer an idea that is a guess that will help you to see
things differently. When we conjecture, we immediately think of new solutions we haven't thought
of previously. Our logic box problem might be a lack of finance. Automatically you are locked in to
a way of thinking that is very limiting because you will say, "well I need more money". Hence you
are now locked in a box you can't get out of. To get out conjecture your way. So you don't have
enough money... start guessing at other things that might be causing the lack of money. Why don't
you have enough money? Conjecture a different problem. Take a guess: I am not happy because I
don't have enough money therefore I need to find happiness in lack. This would lead you think
about happiness apart from materialism which in essence gets rid of you having to need money to
be happy. Try another way of thinking: I recognise that I don't have enough money therefore I must
find ways to add more value to myself through different activities. Yet another example: My way of
getting money is inadequate... I need to invent different ways to source finance. And so. This
conjecturing process moves you from focusing purely on a unsolvable paradox into thinking about
new ways to solve the issue. Conjecturing allows me to put on a new way of thinking so I can shift
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perspectives and assess the problem from a new light. A new assessment suggests new solutions
and leads to new strategies for taking action.
2. Assumption/Perspective Shifting
Think for a moment about the things you believe. You hold some things very deeply in your heart
and build assumptions based on these things. For example I believe in God. Now, I have built
beliefs on top of these assumptions that I am extremely happy with. I believe in the so-called
tenants of the Christian faith. These are my assumptions which are built on the back of what I
believe. I am aware of these assumptions and I realise how to navigate them. Whenever I am faced
with something external to me (like an opposite opinion) I have to recognise that as somebody
else's assumptions. When faced with a paradox (logic box) I need to change my assumptions in
order to move forward to solutions. My hidden assumptions are telling me there's a problem. I need
to learn how to shift these assumptions. One way I have found to do this is become the devil. What
do I mean? Look at the situation and ask yourself this question: What if the opposite of what I
assume is true? Just the other day two people I work with were in loggerheads over an issue. After
an uncomfortable week I thought: 'I am going to resign'. Just yesterday I learned I was assuming
there was a problem when really there wasn't. The 'loggerheads' was an assumption about what
somebody else thought I should be doing. When I told them the truth the assumptions changed and
the perspective they had shifted. For me at least this makes it more bearable to work. At least for
now! Remember, conjecturing is 'believing first' and then seeing what solutions arise as a natural
flow on. Built into that process is a view of what we think our problem is likely to be and solutions
flow out of problem identification. Recognise our 'perspective' in the problem is important because
it shapes what we think issues are. Quite often you will find that you thinking something in your
head that is simply not a problem ... you just assume it is.
3. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a 'free flow' of ideas. You can also think of this as the creative process in action.
When we look at a problem and begin to come up with new ideas new solutions will emerge. From
this process you can shift to lateral ideas that will help you tremendously. Brainstorming really
involves the rapid interchange of ideas from different angles in a group or individual setting. I like
this process because done properly it can surface hidden assumptions, challenge stale thinking and
suggest (quickly) new and innovative things that can be done. It breaks out of defensive reasoning
and helps us to learn. Read this to find out more.
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4. Thinking about what generates the paradox
Traditionally we might have called this 'systems thinking'. This is where we look towards things
that 'generate' what we see by looking at the higher order process. Remember, you may be the
victim of somebody else's assumption making so carefully think about your situation and begin to
recognise what's happening. Where I work there are things put in place by management that make
my job difficult. Paperwork by the mound for example. There is really nothing I can do about this
yet it will cause me problems. Yet I have inherited this problem by nature of what I do. This is still
something 'systemic' that is being generated around me. In such a case I need to recognise these
things and learn to adapt to them rather than flow against them. To be honest, there are some things
you just cannot change. So how does this relate specifically to the logic box? There are bigger
picture things that form these things in us a lot of times and sometimes breaking them takes 'bigger
picture' actions. What we do about these things takes place more on a group level than an
organisational one. This is where you need the support of others working with you. That however,
takes time, planning effort and an agreement of strategic values which I have discussed before.
Breaking out of harmful thinking patterns is a much bigger topic than this post. I would like to
point out that if you are serious about this kind of thing then I would recommend you read a lot
more and if needed seek the advice of a professional. I do not wish to oversimplify the issues I
have spoken about here by saying that these are 'generally' applicable because that's not true. I can
tell you however, that doing these things, especially the fourth point, is extremely important. They
have helped me and I hope they help you.
10+ ways to solve a problem
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A lot of people don't realise that there are many different ways to solve a problem. The picture
above is what we have come to recognise as the traditional linear problem solving process. I
discussed this is my first two podcasts. This traditional method works under the assumption that we
have limited amounts of information and life is fairly linear. Think about it. We look at the
problem, we study it's causes and find solutions to implement. Very simple. Life isn't so simple.
What about problems where the immediate causes are not known. What if the wrong problems have
been identified? What if they are a subset of a bigger more messy problem? You get the picture.
Is there more than one way to solve any problem?
Of course! We can think about this from several different points of view. Everybody knows we can
think differently and that has results right. So it stands to reason that thinking differently about a
problem will also reveal layers of the problem from different vantage points like this diagram below
shows us:
This basic overview shows the basic argument I am putting forward here. Problems are tied to
perspectives. Okay let's complicate this a little further and add in even more viewpoints from the
main ones I have isolated here. See below:
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You can see by just expanding this diagram a little bit I have increased the amount of incoming
perceptions of the problem. There are many ways to think about a problem and (at the very very
least 10) that I know off. So here are 10 ways to solve a problem:
Resolve it
Most common approach this is where you reach a given conclusion with known information. It's
based on the Newell and Simon model shown above. Generally when we speak of working things
out we are talking of accommodation and comprise. This is common in universities when power
players bash heads. This is what I think of a lose-lose situation because in general you have to give
something up in order to move forward with the problem.
Absolve it
This means you do nothing. Just wait and see what happens. Personally this is only one step better
than turning a blind eye. Yes, I think this is a cop-out.
Dissolve it
This is following the art of problem solving by Russell Ackoff and changing the conditions (or the
higher order concepts) to make the situation different so the problem can't occur. I discussed this a
while ago.
Solve Another Problem
Sometimes when we solve problems we forget that there are perceptions that tie these things
together. We can actually think, 'what else is this related to in our mind,' and trace back to that
issue and solve it. It's shorthand form of problem dissolving
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Shift the boundary
This has to do with problem identification. Change the boundary you have set around the problem
and new perspectives will open up that show you faults in your thinking.
Change your mind
When you solve problems by changing your mind, you are doing various combinations of the things
I have already spoken of above. In this way of solving the problem you decide to identify a different
problem. Most helpful in political situations because it can help you see things that you would have
missed otherwise.
Mediation
Mediation is where you involve a third party to help resolve a conflict. Using someone else to help
is a great way of expanding available perspectives, concepts and ideas. Try it, it works great. In
situations where negotiation is required or a mediator may be called for. In Australia if you want to
bail out of a marriage it is now compulsory that you do it through a mediator.
Use mathematics
Polya was a great example of this. He had a formula for every possibility modern day statistics (i.e.
regression) and operations research (i.e optimisation analysis) are examples of this approach
Use a decision support tool
A decision support tool is an electronic decision making aid that cycles through various scenarios to
help you reach a conclusion. The link above has a comprehensive list of tools you can use.
Flip a coin
The easiest way to solve a problem, provided you are after a yes/no answer. Flip a coin heads you
do X tails you do Y. Simple.
Use the 'decision maker'
Early on in my marriage my wife had a problem making decisions (who am I kidding she still does)
so someone bought her a decision maker. It was a piece of wood with a yes on one side and a no on
the other. Absolutely brilliant.
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Phone a friend
Every watched who wants to be a millionaire? They have this segment where you can phone a
friend for advice. Gaining some perspective from others is an excellent way to understand how to
shift through problems to a conclusion. As you do this you open up new channels of thought that
make your way clearer. Gaining a perspective on these things is important because your thinking
may be what's wrong with the problem.
Remember that a problem is a mismatched expectation. You can change your expectation and your
problem won't exist but doing so is a lot harder than it seems. We have a saying in problem
solving/strategic thinking research... 'change your perspective change your problem'. Yes but how?
Ahh, it would be nice to live in such a world wouldn't it?
Summary
In this chapter I have covered the basics of problem solving including several ways to solve
problems. Now it's your turn.
1. What's a problem you are currently contending with?
2. What's the answer you think you are looking for?
3. Take the problem and take it to five people: What did they say about it?
4. Write down five things you could do about it that aren't related.
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Skill 3 - Perspective Shifting and Strategic Thinking
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one". Albert Einstein
The perspectives we form over the duration of our lives are the building blocks for the way in
which we deal with life problems. The cornerstone of anything we believe is based on a perspective
or in simpler terms an illusion we have created. Simply stated: life problems do not exist without a
person there to give it meaning. It's true that we may inherit or have characteristics given to us that
we are not responsible for, genetically speaking of course. However, I argue strongly that most
people create their own problems by the things they believe.
A very learned colleague of mine once said to me that if I had the problem of trying to change a tyre
on the highway and I couldn't get it changed, then I would have a real problem. On the other hand,
if I change the tyre and get hit by a car while I am changing that tyre does the problem still exist?
No, now that I am dead the problem no longer exists. I am on my way to glory now, no need to
worry about the tyre something new has come into my perspective. Therefore, a perspective is the
view of something you think is a problem.
Wait a minute, I hear you say, that sounds a lot like the way in which I see things determines how I
will shape my world. Yes, if you put the book down now that would be a key lesson. However,
that's not really what a perspective is. A perspective can be likened in the natural world to looking
through a window out at something in the real world. The world exists, sure enough, at least as far
as we know it does. There is little evidence to suggest otherwise. In like manner the way in which
you build things in the essence of your mind is directly related to what you think is likely to be
problematic and what you will think is an issue to you.
For example, we are told constantly that a positive attitude is good, have a positive attitude. My
response to this is not why but how? How can I be positive and what perspectives do I currently
harbour that are related to why I now have a negative attitude? Most people do not go beyond
surface learning past the conditions they have in their minds to the substance of what they believe.
This substance is the perspective you have. The substance of what you hold dear to you is the core
part of your perspective and this shapes and builds the world which you now inhabit. There are
probably some very good reasons why I have a negative attitude. They are not related to my
outside world though because at heart I know these are those things that I believe. What I believe in
the inner part of my being are the deep substantial things that I use as the building blocks of the
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world around me.
A perspective is not an actual thing but it does result in actual things. A racist is someone who
holds deep down perspectives that are racist. The way they act towards those on the outside of their
own culture, is not determined by anything other than there perspective. That is not real in the
sense that a chair is real. It is however, real in the sense that it has real observable effects on that
person's behaviour towards people of opposing cultures and ideals than their own. That racism
exists in their mind as a way of seeing things that distorts unfairly the view of those of opposite skin
colour or race. This is one of the most hideous monsters of humankind that we can do this to each
other but these differences are deep rooted perspectives that are ingrained in us.
In Alfred E. Cliffe's book Let Go and Let God, he tells the story of people who lived in a time when
it was thought that tomatoes were poisonous. Those that ate those tomatoes died. In the same book
he also tells the story of people, who under hypnosis, were told that they had horrible burns on their
hands only to have blisters emerged on their hands as a result. A perspective is substance, not
necessarily the actual substance of things like humans are made from, or the substance of the air but
those things that form our perceptions are indeed substance. They are real and they affect the way
in which we deal with our life problems. The famous Stanford Experiment shows that perspectives
are formed when certain conditions exist. For those who were called 'guards' they took on the
perspective of guards and those that were prisoners take on the perspective of prisoners.
It's therefore important to recognise that we have perspectives about things that we think are useful
to us. A perspectives shapes our understanding of things and tells us how to interpret it. These
things are not 'out there' as such, although they are, they are built into us. The way we dress, who
we marry the lives we end up living are the result of our perspectives. Some people have caught
onto to this and have created things like The Secret for example that puts forward the idea that a
change of perspective (to a more positive mindset) will give amazing results. All these people are
drawing on is the idea that humans recreate the things they believe in on a continual basis. In other
words, if you are looking for something positive chances are it's already there, you can't see it
because you have been drawing from a well of negativity. Sometimes the opposite is true - when
you look at something from a purely positive point of view you will see positives and negative
things can come along and you may not even be aware of them, hence cults form.
It's important to note your own perspectives and the things you deeply believe because these frame
the world you live in and give it meaning. Others hold different opinions about the world they live
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in and have a different perspective. What is it you believe about work? Remember you are what
you think you are and what you think shapes the way you relate to the outside world. What happens
when we apply our way of thinking to the world around us?
The Logic Box
Whether we know it or don't I believe most of us are creating logical patterns in our minds all day
long about why things are the way they are and without really considering it. The most common
occurrence I come across in my job is this: "The problem is..." then automatic experts are formed.
Nobody I have ever met does NOT do this. We all have boxes that we place what we believe reality
is about in our brains. The problem is precisely what you think it is, because it's your own issue
and you have the keys to perceiving it and unlocking it. In other words, a problem is what you
think it to be because you are the one interpreting it. You build the frame that houses the problem.
Consider for a moment the things you believe that you heard on television. The news reporter
would have said one day, 'there is a rental crisis' and if you were renting your immediate reaction is
panic. Then, like a good little ant go to work and build the idea of a 'rental crisis' into the
mainstream by telling someone. They tell someone and they tell someone until before you know it,
there is a rental crisis. Trends often start this way and continue because people perpetuate them,
there is no other satisfactory answer. How can a trend sustain itself if people aren't hopping along
for the ride for it only exists in the minds of people?
People made the world what it is today not 'reality' not the 'system' we made this world. It was us
our beliefs and our perspectives. The Logic Box is when you take the world to be something that
you think it is. You box the world into your logic and your way of thinking without considering
alternatives.
I often hear people make remarks about the conditions of work (being in a Western university) and
wonder is there really a problem? That's a terribly conservative thing to say but I wonder: if the
conditions magically changed and all of a sudden BLAM we had the best working conditions in the
world would we logically order there world any differently? Whenever you box the world to fix
your way of thinking you automatically exclude all other perspectives. Moreover, when I favour
one fundamental position over another I create this monstrous idea that I and only I possess the
ultimate truth. Am I God?9 Do I see all and know all? How can I say then that I know it all? All I
have access to is my own way of seeing things which could be wrong.
9 The C. West Churchman author of the Systems Approach (1969), Basic Books, USA, called this 'God's eye view'.
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The way in which you construct a situation in your mind, may not be the way it happened at all.
These perspectives act like blinkers that make us see the world in a certain way. Stop for a minute
and think about this question: Do you believe there is a God? Often, when I ask people this
question they tell me they are an 'athiest' or an 'agnostic' and believe in that way of thinking. If
you are a believer what makes you that way? What are the reasons for your belief? For me
personally, I do believe there is a God. Is it because of my upbringing that I choose to think about
the world this way or is it for other reasons? I justify my belief in God by saying this: my personal
experience tells me there is a God. You may argue, my personal experience tells me there is no God
and it's a silly concept. Both views are ways of ordering events and happenings in life and ways of
understanding life problems.
In theological circles there is an on-going debate between those that hold to free will (God leaves it
all up to us to make choices to accept or reject) and those that hold to pre-destination (the view that
God predestines all things). For centuries people have vigorously defended positions that they
believed were right on the basis of the teachings in the bible. Both create solid defenses for their
position.
Each has battle lines drawn about the nature of God and what he is like but each are coming from a
distinct perspective and create a way of thinking about God that is essentially man made.
Whenever you find a position you desperately want to believe in and someone demands evidence
you can always find it if you look hard enough. My response to such a debate is this: is there a
third position where both can co-exist or not exist at all (yet another perspective)? Why can't God
predestine and give us all choices to make at the same time, why does He have to be limited to our
logical boxes?
Another area where I frequently come across this kind of logically boxing is in a great variety of
general conversations. People will often frame something in a certain way in order to give you a
way to interpret it. For example, at the time of me typing this there is a sign that says, 'Casual
Academic Work: Rite of Passage or Road to Nowhere,'. Why does it have to be either? Why can't
it be both? Why can't it be neither? We are being forced to make a choice where previously a
choice was not necessary. That's called framing10. The media in this country participate in this
kind of thing all the time. The news is framed to be read in a certain manner. One time was up
early watching breakfast television when the presenter decided to attack the then minister for
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education on university funding. One of the statements he made was related to the rising of HECS
(Higher Education Contribution Scheme) fees by twenty-five percent. The presenter said
something along the lines of: 'what about all of that money academics get from consulting.' I
immediately thought - what money?
Sure there are some professors I know do make some money from consulting but on the whole most
don't. This was a frame and in the education environment I am in I don't really have any reward for
consulting. If I do it the university takes the money and puts it into research funds which they
control. It's not like I can then go and spend that money on my 'lavish' academic lifestyle. This
was a frame. Another example I hear all too often today is about 'getting into the house market'. I
have purposely asked people how to do this for a long time, wanting to be a home owner. So the
question goes, 'how do I get into the house market?' It's a frame because there are only a certain
amount of plausible answers: 'get a mortgage, like I did.' Well, 'how do I do that? I don't meet the
criteria?' No answer. Framed questions have logically straight forward answers which result in only
one or two known interpretations. If you create the idea that something is so - you have built a nice
little box for it to live in. How do you know for sure that it is that way?
When I got my first job at KFC the people there taught me how to work the machines to make fried
chicken. I didn't need to know anything else. I wasn't taught to argue for fair conditions, to build a
union or how to make machines to cook chicken, all they wanted of me was to make it. I was
framed or put into a logic box. If grew into something else in that job I might have had a shot at
management but that's not what was expected of me in that frame. I was told to make chicken, so I
made chicken! When I came to work with people and study messy problems I realized that I had
often created boxes for people to fit in. Destroy the box!
A box tells you what to do and how to think. Anyone who says this is the way it is, often just have
learned to accept something that they think can't be changed. It's a logic box. They are just
perspectives. Perspectives are those things that we believe the world 'to be'. They are
mechanisms that generate belief systems in the clockwork of our mind and cause us to interpret
things and form our way of seeing. If we are into boxing things into what we think should be, you
may find that it simply doesn't fit. A cautionary note here would be to suggest that you do not
create the world through your own eyes and make it want you want it to be because that would
make you God. The world and people in the world make us believe that things are the way they are
by what they say and how they act. For example, in business schools we never teach on the use of
10 See Erving Goffman's (1974) Frame Analysis: an essay on the organisation of experience
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emotions and how that affects decision making.
We have researched it and we acknowledge it but our Greek systems of logic and tendency towards
the over simplistic definitions of cause and effect make us interpret problems as if they were
logically defined. Life, for the best part, does not make a whole lot of sense. To train people to
think in a way that does not serve them is the same as sending soldier out to battle with a baguette.
On the hand to see the logically links between things is good in science and thank God for it but in
the world of people it cannot suffice. A logic box causes us to see links between things that may
be more complex than a simple 'this causes that' mentality. When we structure the things that we
experience through a logic box that will make us express the problems we have in a certain way and
therefore give them meaning to us. This will be discussed at greater length in the chapter on
Problem Expressions.
Perspectives: Windows of the soul
A core idea of the Logic Box is the perspective. Whatever your perspective is, even if you are not
aware of it, will create the world you exist in for you. That is not to say that you can make up an
idea and believe then it will be so. If that were the case then I would be flying or traveling
backwards through time to tell myself not to make certain stupid decisions I have made over the
years. A perspective is something you have inside of you that makes you see things outside as if
they were the way you think they should be. The late Rev. David Chilton once said that people
often create doctrines of the bible by reading it through their own point of view rather than reading
what it actually says. The same is true for what we think reality is. Logically, you may believe that
the world runs and actually works in a specific way but you do not have access to all the available
perspectives and you certainly are not able to create a platform for analysis based on your own point
of view. These are assumptions grafted onto the world that map the way you see and they shape
the way you act.
Assumptions
Every perspective that is offered to us is derived from an assumption. An assumption, is something
we think is the case. When the invasion of Iraq took place it was a commonly held perspective that
it was for WMD (weapons of mass destruction). This was based on the perspective that they were
actually there. Later on we found out that they weren't actually there. There was an assumption
that created a perspective which led to actions that have in essence cost lives. In Australia, England
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and the USA the leaders of the nations have suffered tremendously and at the time of this writing at
least one of them has been forced to step down.
So then... what is reality?
Philosopher Roy Bhaskar uses a concept of reality I find particularly interesting. It's based on the
idea that we can think of reality as being thought to exist. I am not talking about a subjective reality
which has become the popular rhetoric of the day. I am speaking of a reality that could very well
exist... a concept which we can call putative (speculated) existence. Some people who subscribe to
this view call this a model of causal efficacy or in plain English... reality is thought to exist.
Personally I think that reality is a concept that is meaningful to explore and philosophers, bloggers
and everyone else has a definitive opinion on what reality is said to be. What I felt I should talk
about today is the speculated version of reality which I think is a much better way of understanding
life.
Objective versus Subjective
Overall I have found that two versions dominate (broadly speaking) the area of discussions on
reality. The first is the idea that the world is solid and everything can be explained down to a known
set of rules or principles. We can call this objective reality because it means that reality is fixed and
immovable because it's sustained by laws, principles, guidelines and so forth. Reality in this view is
all about understanding how things work so we can explain them through a simplistic version of
things. This is by far and away the most dominate thinking pattern of this age. Just ask anyone a
question about something and you will see simplistic cause and effect come out. I think that people
are in search of answers and in looking for truth stumble at a simple form of what is really
happening to them or worse what they have been educated to believe. In the natural world we can
see patterns emerge from nature, study them and form objective theories about the nature of things.
In the social world doing so has proven to be quite difficult.
Subjective versus Objective
The subjective view of reality is really about understanding it through a particular conceptual frame
or way of seeing. The subjective view of reality deems concepts to exist that are found useful to
help in understanding things or ideas that are meaningful to help structure the ultimately complex
and mysterious social world we find ourselves in. It's really not about saying that nature is
subjective... most discussions I have read are speaking about how we use concepts to map causality
onto the world. Overall, I would say that someone who subscribes to this view would look at reality
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and say, "there is no set of laws and principles that govern things only better or worse ways of
seeing and explaining things." This is a view that a lot of my academic colleague subscribe to and
has become the foundation of a lot of popular thinking around the way things operate (i.e. the
secret). The subjective view encompasses the idea that all we have to see things is a lens or
conceptual structure that helps in explaining how things work.
Problems with the subjective view
While I think the subjective view of social reality is interesting and more than likely the best
explanation of things so far as I can tell, there is a troubling aspect of the subjective view of reality
that I think is often overlooked. Everything that we can see and understand started from somewhere.
I do not wish to enter into a first cause argument here so put down your rocks, what I mean is:
everything which we know and have come to understand had it's beginning in something. In a
social sense, that which we have come to accept is built on the foundation of something else. Our
western education processes have been built on the backbone of logical thinking that is severely
limiting. The logical way of seeing things is but one of many "thinking hats" that we can use to
understand things. This logical way of thinking that has given birth to the most harsh form of
rationalism subverts any other kind of thinking that disagrees with it. Often it does not acknowledge
that there are different points of view that people have which leads to different conceptualisations of
the truth. The subjective view forces us to accept a version of reality that is open to interpretation
which is good but on the other hand excludes other possibilities as well.
By saying I accept the subjective view of reality, you're actually saying that this is what I think
things to be. When you take the objective view of reality (i.e. based on a scientific view) you are
actually saying this is what I think reality is. In your mind, objective thinking is nothing more than a
thought process and subjective thinking is exactly the same. Either way you are saying that reality
exists be it as a set of laws (objective) or as something to be interpreted differently by individuals
(subjective). On the extreme we have scientists who will not except something they cannot explain
apart from causal laws and on the other hand we have people who will admit reality is totally
constructed through language and thinking. The problem I have with the subjective view is that I
have to ignore the objective elements of the world. I have to commit to a concept driven view of
reality in which 'frames', language processes and thinking patterns are the only way of
understanding the way things are. By accepting it, I exclude that there might be something 'actual'
that is underpinning things. For many reasons I simply cannot accept this point of view, though for
reasons I explain later I am highly sympathetic to it.
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A problem with both views
So what makes us believe? If there is nothing 'real' as such why do we find it useful to make sense
of things? Our minds are wired up in away that we look for causal structures in what we do and
map them onto to what we see around us. Yet the causality we find is not in the concepts, it comes
from us. That is, we think there is a reality whether we subscribe to a subjective one or an objective
one. If I were to say that reality does not exist or that it's merely a simulation I still have to account
for what it's simulation of. There is still something intangible that makes me think there is a need to
explain what I think reality is. Returning again to Bhaskar, his idea of reality is that it's thought to
exist. That is reality is said or conjectured to exist but it's subjective in it's perception (we all see it
differently) but objective in it's effects. Here is an example in my life.
I really want to buy a house. As an academic I earn peanuts compared to the hotshots in business so
I don't really have a hope. So I have this model of reality in my mind that says, 'forget buying a
house it's impossible.' Yet, I still desire to own a house. Here we see the subjective dream for me:
'I want to buy a house,' mixed with the objective reality of unfortunate financial circumstances that
make it impossible. Now I believe (subjective) that I will get a house but I am forbidden by the
current financial status of my household (objective). When I first starting playing with these
concepts I drew this concept map:
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Therefore, reality is thought to exist. I think it's there. It may be that my interpretation of it is faulty
but there are certain things that bear down on me that I cannot perceive out of existence. As well,
there are causal forces of the economy that no amount of perception can change. That said, I can
change my attitude and believe things will improve and undoubtedly they will. But I cannot change
the operation of the economy to suit my needs, neither can I control the effects it has on me.
Causal Efficacy (usefulness)
The way I see things is that it's useful for me to think that certain things exist. Whereas, it's also
useful for me to see some things as being subjective. What somebody thinks about the economy is
often subjective because they do not have complete (and who really knows how it all works)
understanding. My understanding of most things is primarily related to how I conceive them and
build causal maps to make sense of things. There would be no reality for me if I didn't do this.
When I feel hopelessness as the state of economy I am recoginising something about in it that
troubles me and causes me to have bad feelings. Yet I can do nothing about the economy (socalled)
because it's there. I can't wish it away... the broader objectively effecting subjectively
created economy is going to REALLY impact me. If I stop working then real effects will be
noticed. I can't not work unless I have some kind of economical nest egg that will support me in
this endeavour. It's simply not the case that it's all subjective.
Subjectivity as Passive Reality
I submit to you two forms of reality that I think explains the case I am making here. Subjectivity
can be thought of as a form of reality that is passive yet can translate into the active form
(objective). Bhaskar has a helpful schema in which he explains the objective reality as being
generated by something (perceptions for example) which is turn reflects the deep underlying ideas
that society is pinned on (subjective). Once these ideas are generated into the observable, the effects
they have on people are multidimensional yet objective or put another way objective through many
ways. Another example: when I am going for promotion I won't get it unless I meet certain criteria
yet these criteria are a subjectively derived standard. To say that the promotion scheme is merely
my interpretation of things is partially the case because I am viewing through my own cognitive
biases. That said, these laws are imposed on me as a member of Griffith University and there is
little I can do to fix it. If I believe that it has no impact on me then I would be stupid because it does
though they are just a model made by people, subjectively speaking.
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Active Reality
It we think of this version of reality as being the one which we observe to be the case, then I think
that makes more sense. What is active and imposing causality on me is the rules and regulations of
society in general. These are laws. I run a policy course in one of the classes the students were
discussing the laws that youtube uses to impose conditions on people in terms of their intellectual
property. Ultimately, that intellectual property is something you made... yet they own it. You can
do what you like but they own it. That's real. Try changing your beliefs around that. It's actively the
case. It's real enough that it can impact you so much that it may even derive you of your income.
Facebook had a similar arrangement where you signed over everything you owned as intellectual
property to them... just as evil! These active things that impact on us are supported by law and will
impact you. We need to recognise them and find ways to navigate past them.
Potential Reality
Here is where it gets interesting. There is a transcending concept of 'potential reality' which I have
the holographic paradigm people to thank for. Reality that we see generated before us stemmed
from some place. It's supported by people and they are the ones that make it work or not. Each
major paradigm shift and revolution is preceded by the dreamers. The potential reality of what
might happen one day. Our imagination is incredibly powerful and I think it's understated terribly
in most modern circles. In theological circles Catholics have advocated prayer through imagination,
Dr. Mark Virkler talks about it and of course the new age movement have used it in various ways.
The imagination allows me to see a potential reality that I may wish to enjoy and I can from this
personal vision go about changing my life. Reality is not in the imagination, imagination is in
reality.
Look at the majority of concepts and inventions that pervade our modern atmosphere. I am thinking
of lights. The light bulb first existed in the imagination of the heart before it was a concept that was
in active reality. The inventors of it (Edison and Swan) had something of a concept in their mind.
Yet it wasn't their mind that made it so... it was work, money and so on. The potential reality made
it possible for the active to follow. I like the term potential because in physics circles it talks about a
energy that has yet to be realised in tangible form. Did you get that? A form of energy that is not yet
in a tangible form. Yet it's a form of energy isn't it? It's something real.
The other day I was reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. As a Christian I may not agree
with everything he has to say but towards the end of the book I found something very interesting.
He spoke about how he used his imagination to build a mastermind group that he could converse
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backwards and forwards with. Interestingly enough he created something so special that he began to
generate spontaneous ideas from it and it really helped him in his life and work. Others I have
mentioned already have received insight by allowing their imagination to take centre place in their
life. I would urge you strongly not to ignore this because it's the building blocks of making change
happen in your life. I know of at least person who rebuilt his entire life through using his
imagination. It's so powerful that I am going to write (when I get the time) a post on that topic
alone. I won't mince words here: without understanding the role the imaginative thinking and
visualing plays in our lives... you will never be able to understand the concepts of potential reality.
So what do I think about reality? I think reality is a useful concept for understanding things and it
should not be used to box things down to a certain way of seeing. There is a passive reality: the
realm of subjectivity where ideas are mapped onto the world. There is a putative objective reality
said to have causes on me that I have no control over. Then there is potential reality. The reality of
energy, spiritual energy (negative and positive), being transformed from me into the world around
me. On the one hand if reality was 100% subjective then we could all do whatever we wanted with
no impact on each other. If it was 100% objective then we could simply follow the laws and it
would work for us. I believe in objectivity, I believe in subjectivity and I believe potentiality.
These perspectives that we subjectively hold become part of what we think is real. They are so
powerful that they govern the way we think and act. So what can we really expect to do with them?
We can learn to shift our perspectives gradually and over time watch as we come to form new
expectations.
Learning to Solve Problems by perspective shifting
A problem can be defined as a mismatch between what we expect and what actually happens in our
lives. As we come to identify problems we find that our problems are often linked to an expectation
we have imposed on our surroundings. To take this definition further a problem is better thought of
as being an expectation that we have that does not match what we presently experience. This means
our present experience is defined by our expectations. Reality, is often not what we would like it to
be.
Expectations: What are they?
An often easy out for us to say something like: just don't have any expectations. Unfortunately this
is not possible. An expectation is a desire for something you want to come to pass in your own life.
That desire, is as much you, as you are you. Most of the time you don't even realise that expectation
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is there until the heat of the day (circumstances) reveals it. Expectations are deep down desires that
I think need to be cultivated, not ignored. In some circumstances, your expectations need to shift or
be changed because some of them are poisonous. Ultimately, the problem you perceive is tied to
some kind of expectation you have in your life. Now, we can take our definition of what a problem
is even further. A problem is an expectation or desire that has does not match what we expect reality
to be. The problem does not lie in reality as such, it lies in causal structures we have mapped over
reality. Here's an example.
The man and the flat tyre parable
There was as man who was driving home from work on a rainy afternoon when suddenly his tyre
blew out. Angry at the situation the man slowly edges over to the curb and gets out to assess his
problem. He studies his problem and doesn't see the 18 wheeler approaching from behind. He is hit
and killed. Now his problem no longer exists. Why? Because he is dead. Problems are perspectives
on events that are tied to deep rooted expectations of what we take things to be. Here is another one.
The stock market problem
The CEO of SuperCompany Inc. (sorry burned out at the moment couldn't think of a snazzier
name), walks into his office one morning to a frantic Chief Financial Officer. He says to the lady,
'My God Chloe, wants the matter, you look like crap?' The CFO hands the CEO a piece of paper
with a media report that the company is going bankrupt due to bad investments in Australian wheat.
The CEO takes one look at the piece of paper and throws it in the bin. The CFO is amazed. 'Why
did you do that,' she asks. He looks back at her and says, 'That's not my problem,' he says, 'my
problem is that we are going bankrupt and you had to tell me via a media report!'
In this example we can see that neither the CEO or CFO were aware of the problem until it was
created for them to believe. These are boundary judgments. Those ideas which we create that form
rules and expectations of what we think is the case. In this case the company didn't think it was
going bankrupt. How much of what you hear is 'actually' the case? There is a reality and you can be
sure it will impact on you but it's a reality of intersecting ideas and thoughts some of which cause
great problems (like the internet bubble burst) and some of which cause smaller ones.
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Three ways of exploring a problem by changing your mind
There are three ways I know of problem solving by changing your mind:
Doing nothing
When we absolve a problem we actually do nothing. There are times when a 'wait and see'
approach is called for. Say you are building an adwords campaign to boost traffic to your website.
You select a bunch of keywords and wait. They come back with a little bit more traffic everyday
than the amount you had before. A bit more, a bit more and a bit more. Imagine if you grew
impatient? You then start to muck about with keywords and ruin the campaign. In this case you
should do nothing, observe and then take action if required.
Invoke dialectical processes
When you begin to examine life from many angles you begin to see just how limiting your point of
view is. If you are facing a problem you can't solve. Begin to play the devil's advocate. Take the
heart of the contradiction and expose it for what it really is. I recommend using at least four
contradictory ideas to analyse the situation. Let's go back to our stockbroker example above. What
if he said the CFO, 'I don't believe the report because I trust your judgement... are we going
bankrupt?' He could have also taken the dreamers approach, 'Now that I have read this report, I
believe it will turn out for our good.' In turn he could have taken a mathematical approach, 'Show
the numbers is this true?' Then again he could have taken the view of a seasoned old veteran,
'Listen to me, there is no crisis, people invent nonsense like this all the time. Put out a statement
saying we are not going bankrupt and quote some numbers. People will believe that over some halfcocked
media report.' In short, take what you think the problem is and look at it's enemy. By
teasing out the enemy you will be able to see the faults in your own thinking.
Creative problem solving
Creative problem solving is the hardest and least likely to succeed in a problem solving
intervention. This is when you take a brand new idea that hasn't been tried which removes the old
one completely. In this version you solve the problem by changing the expectation on which it's
framed. What? I mean you take the initial expectation of the problem, the idea that the problem is a
problem and you begin to move into a new way of thinking that gets rid of the problem. In essence
you change the rules of the expectation by shifting the ideas it's built upon to a new solution that
removes the need for the old one to exist. For example, our friend with the tyre problem had a death
problem which is a nasty creative solution to his tyre problem. The tyre is the least of his worries.
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When people create a problem it's built on expectations and perceptions. Problems often revolve
around what we think is the case. I know managers who will not make decisions because of fear.
Fear stops creativity because it blocks the flow of anything opposed to it. You need to begin to
create rather than do what you think you should. A creative solution is a new idea that moves the
old out of the way. If a market problem emerges it's because of perceptions. If there is a climate
crisis, we have found that through our man-made data, analysis and conversations. If we find there
isn't... it's exactly the same process.
When we change our mind about something new solutions begin to emerge. As we learn to shift
the perspectives that hold us back we will change our mind and new more creative solutions will
spring up.
Taking the strategic view
Much is made of modern management training in academic circles to which I respond with ha! A
lot of the stuff you come across is life cycles this, supply chain that blah blah blah. What troubles
me to my guts is that there is not a real lot of quality teaching around thinking strategically. Now,
when we hear that term almost always makes you think... oh no not another chess metaphor. Chess
is the worst possible metaphor for strategic thinking that I can think of. You know why... because it
sucks. Chess is a game with predictable outcomes where if you know all the moves possible you
can win. This takes me back to Herbert Simon's stupid idea that all we need is more information.
What? Now, he's dead we have all the information we could possibly get our hands on and the
world is no better off! In fact, the more information we get the worse things become.
So how can we move to strategic thinking? Here are five ways to think strategically:
1. Look at something from more than one point of view
When you confronted with a problem you can't solve find another point of view and use it. Go and
ask someone who thinks the exact opposite way to the way you do and ask them what they think.
This opposite point of view will tease out what's wrong with your ideas and will help you to think
strategically. Alternatively, deliberately think the opposite way to the way you do right now and
notice what happens. When I do this it breaks bad thinking habits and usually good answers come.
2. Look for generative mechanisms.
According to Roy Bhaskar's view on reality there are things in our social world that generate the
events we see. What is generating what you see? Now before you start think about this: what
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generates the social world is people and their thoughts. Thinking and acting on those thoughts
creates the world around us. What thinking generates your thinking? What underlies things? To
help you get along here I would suggest thinking about it like this: what are the conditions that
created this?
3. How are things related?
Remember a rule of systems thinking is to understand the whole in favour of the parts. So look at
the situation and ask your self how are the different smaller level wholes related to make the bigger
level whole. This means not breaking things down to the level of cause and effect... instead it
means looking for the big picture and how the various parts of the picture relate to form it.
Consider this picture:
Looks like a bunch of columns eh? Have a closer look... do you see people hiding in the shadows.
The whole was obscured by the parts. So it is when you try to think systemically. Don't study the
parts ... study the wholes. Look at this picture above and ask yourself what connects together to
make it look like that.
4. How are things not related?
One of the misnomers of strategic thinking is that the world is linear. The problem is that you can
never predict the way in which the world we respond to things. Consider the outpouring of aid for
the Tsunami or the levels of anxiety after September 11. Warranted though they were the depth to
which people reacted was overwhelming. Looking for wholes sometimes can make you create
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relationships where none really exist. Always seek to explore how things are also unrelated. Lateral
thinking is a good example of this. Looking towards something that is unrelated or lateral shifting in
systems terms means looking for a new sideways ideas to how things are related.
5 .Think over dimensions
If you consider each part of something as dimensional or as containing the element of another
element which contains that element then you may understand what I am talking about here.
Interdisciplinary in academic terms is a fantastic example of this. In this case I am working with
people from various points of view who are experts in something that I know little or nothing about.
Each domain of knowledge is a new dimension that helps me to view a situation through a much
bigger multidimensional view. This is the plural version of number one (listed above) and a major
requirement for strategic thinking. Knowing the dimensions of what you are dealing with is
impossible from just one view because systemically things are related differently on different
strategic levels. You can't know how a car works by driving it ... yet if we assembled a team. A
driver, the engineer, the factory people, the marketing team, the distributors and so on we could see
the dimensions we were dealing with. Learning over dimensions is much more of a challenge
because it creates knowledge that's more complex, more general and heaps more useful than boring
old analytical knowledge.
This is only five ways to think strategically there are lots more things you can do. I think it's best
summed up this way. What are the conditions (dimensions) that cause this to exist? It's real so it
exists...putatively! Take a strategic view of your job as an example. What is your job? What does
your boss think about your job? Is your job related to other people? What is your job not related to?
How many dimensions of your organisation does your job effect? Now you are thinking
strategically! So what does this have to do with perspective shifting?
Perspective Shifting and Strategic Thinking
As we learn to see the multitude of perspectives from a strategic vantage point we understand the
interrelatedness of things. In particular, we can see how other viewpoints engage with ours to
create the problems we perceive. As we appreciate the perspectives of others we understand their
concerns and we can therefore begin to build meaningful ways of communicating with others. I
think this is an essential skill you need to make it. One of the reasons I hold this belief is because
many years ago I began teaching people from other countries that held very different views than my
own. I long held the belief that I was culturally superior but did so as a hidden assumption. As I
got to know other cultures I realized that we are all human beings. I wasn't able to do this until I
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changed my perspective from my old point of view to strategic values that I could build a platform
from. In your life you need to be able to see the forest and the trees if you are to make good
progress as you move along. You can't do this unless you are aware of your own strategic values
and the values of others. Now you have a go.
1. What are five ways to understand the problem of self-esteem? Find them and write them
down.
2. Now that you have 5 ways what made you think they would be good choices?
3. Of the choices which makes you feel the most emotional?
4. If you could understand poverty from the point of view of a rich person what would be one
sentence you would use to define it.
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Skill 4 - Creative Thinking
Do you like to create? Creative thinking is one of those things that requires no long boring lectures
to work out. To be genuinely creative is to be totally spontaneous. Imagine for a moment that you
have been put in charge of your city or town and your first job is to create a solution to the traffic
crisis. What kind of solution would be creative?
1. Build more roads
2. Charge more for using the roads
3. Build more car parks
4. Any combination of the above
Actually none of those solutions are creative. Why? Well, because they are drawing on the same
ideas that we have always used to fix the problem. It's the first hand solution for goodness sake. A
creative idea is something that makes the problem disappear. Why? If it's not creative then it's not
creating and if that's not happening then you are recycling through old answers. Notice all of the
solutions about are the answers that are immediately obvious. A creative solution is one that makes
the old ones obsolete. Here are some tips on how to create:
1. Imagine the answer you could have if you could have any answer
2. If you were able to start from scratch what would you do?
3. Come up with four answers before you understand the problem and write down at least two
opposite points of view
4. Conjecture limitless possibilities!
Try this on a situation you are facing today and you will find it will kick start your creativity.
Ways to think creatively
Have you ever been stuck to come up with cool ideas? Today I thought that it would be nice to
share some of the things that have worked well for me over the past few years. So here goes: 4 ways
to come up with cool ideas.
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1. Write (journal) your ideas down
There is a lot to be said for the art of writing. One of the most helpful things I have found in coming
up with cool ideas is to write about the topic and see what flows out of my pen. Now this is really
the free flow of intuition coming out of your pen. I don't really know why but writing is a really
easy way to find new ideas. Try this: take a blank piece of paper (or open up an office document...
open or MS variety for you lovers of Bill Gates) and simply start writing about the topic. Those of
you who have experimented with journaling before will understand what I am talking about. This is
a wonderful way to find new ideas. When you switch off your reasoning process and move to the
right side of your brain you will begin to think in a creative manner. Writing stuff down is a great
way to do this.
2. Build a mind map
Mind mapping for me is a fruitful activity. It's helps to see your assumptions about an idea right
there on the page. I have used many modelling techniques over the years but this one is the simplest
and quite possibly one of the best (maybe with the except of rich picture building) techniques
available. If you aren't familiar with it I would recommend reading the wikipedia article.
Remember though, you can make more than one and then compare your results. This is also very
important!
3. Synthesise
This is the art of putting two old ideas together where it was previously thought impossible (roughly
speaking). To synthesise means you take one idea and add others to it to see what results. The
process of brainstorming is a good example of this. Of course synthesis is flawed because it relies
on the premise that you can put two things together and there will be a good result. Clearly this is
not so (consider the Pug?). However, sometimes the right amount of synthesis can be a good thing.
Adding one idea to another can spark a revolution of creativity which leads to new perspectives not
previously available. Try it!
4. Talking to yourself (meditation)
In the bible we find the term 'meditation' which I think really means talking to yourself or thinking
out loud on one concept for an extended period of time and doing so from different angles. I am not
sure why this is so but I have to admit when I talk to myself about a topic my creative processes (I
would argue intuitive processes) take over. Once I was stuck on a topic for a model I was building
for one of my lectures on the Mobile Workforce. I began to think it through and talk about the
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concept from every possible angle when suddenly the idea spontaneously formed within me. The
students in two classes responded so positively to it I believe most intuitive things are like this. We
are often one good meditation session away from the answer!
Remember that when you are creating you are building things up from the inner you. Our minds
prohibit this in general because of our capacity as humans to build overly large mental structures
which form rules for us to live by. I think that when we engage in creativity we are putting the
logical process aside so we can create new things to build. That is, when we build things from the
inside we are creating things for the outside. I honestly believe our educational processes set aside
creativity and intuition as a second order concept. In a later article on faith I will develop this idea
further. I hope you have enjoyed this post and I look forward to hearing from you if you would like
to add some techniques to the very short list I have here.
How to know you not being creative
How do you know if you are being creative? Today I want to talk about five ways you can check
your creative pulse.
1. Staleness
Staleness is the problem of being used to creating things that are not working. Ultimately I think we
become stale when our lives fall out of balance or something distracts us from what we are
supposed to be doing. Staleness is when what we create is not fresh. This can happen for a variety
of reasons all of which you need to seek out. Staleness often opens up the door for people to
question your ability when really you are just having a bad week. Find out what is causing your
staleness. I can almost guarantee it will be pressure of some sort. Find it and get rid of it.
2. Repetition
The oft used quote about repetition goes something like this: 'the definition of madness is doing
something over and over again to get a different result'. When repetition emerges out of you it's
because you are finding the same answers to the same problem over and over again. That is, you
have not given up your favourite solution yet because you are still applying it to different problems.
This sounds counterintuitive but think about it. We often have solutions in mind (i.e. the garbage
can model of decision making) looking for problems or decision making opportunities to air those
solutions. Repetition often occurs because we think our solutions are sound. If this is you write
down the solution you automatically think of in each context. I think you will find over time that
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you are indeed apply the same old ideas unconsciously. To change this you need to perhaps talk to
other people or read this or this to help you out.
3. Innovation is not innovative
Innovation is a word thrown around a lot. When we innovate we are really changing something
slightly or tremendously NOT representing it as something different. In places I have worked (no
names) there have been strategic initiatives introduced that looked like something new. Over time
you realise that it was just a smokescreen to maintain the status quo. It's not innovative to keep
things the same. If you are being innovative then change must come through on the building blocks
of the effort made by yourself and others. Re-presentation as such is not making things new... it's
simply re-presenting the old as if it were new. This is sleight of hand trickery not innovation. To be
innovative you must present something that was previously working as improved, better or totally
transformed.
4. Ideas don't make anything better
Have you ever noticed how your ideas don't make anything better? That's a problem! I have had
entire periods of my life in recent times when my ideas simply did not improve anything. This is
troubling. Here is where you need what Napoleon Hill calls a mastermind group. You need to find a
handful of people you can trust to be honest who will tell you like it is. For me my wife and a
fellow by the name of John Beard are the people I turn to. Whenever I talk to them I can know that
they will tell me if I am stuck in a rut. If your productivity wains find people you know and trust to
help guide you out.
5. Trapped in the logic box
Sometimes you are simply stuck for ideas because of wrong thinking patterns. No amount of
counsel or otherwise will help you there. I have spoken about how we become trapped in our own
ideas here and here. Again, the problem in such cases is our limited perspectives. When we commit
to something that we know isn't helping we trap ourselves in our own logic. In such cases we need
a perspective shift to get us out.
In all of these things remember that true innovation occurs when we are internally committed to
improving things. If we are finding ourselves stuck creatively it can be for reasons as varied as:
stress, tiredness, false beliefs and so on. Life becomes very hard to manage when you are stale. It
can be terrible when you know you have to do something and you aren't doing it. The problem is,
you will never really have the answers laid out until you try something. When we rely on these
predictable patterns of thought and action, all we are really doing is deceiving ourselves instead of
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admitting fault and moving on. It's good to make mistakes! Remember this as my final point...
there are more reasons that I can think of that true creativity is inhibited. Search yourself carefully
for the answers and when you need to, talk to people who can help.
The modern plague of non-creativity
As the great former leader singer of House of Pain once uttered, 'I am fed up.' The latest in mind
numbing lack of creativity from the publishing monolith is yet another technological solution to a
social problem. Presenting Kindle. I am using this to demonstrate with I think is a discernable lack
in creativity of an industry that is increasing going up its own pipes. So why is this so uncreative?
This is not the problem it's part of the problem
A few years ago the great Stephen King attempted to sell his Plant novella (still unfinished I might
add) online through what many thought was a clever system at the time. The problem? The honour
system. Apparently it wasn't worthwhile to write something for online audiences. In plain English,
you can't take what people expect to be free and sell it to them. The problem: the publishing and
writing world is notoriously unfair. It's dog eat dog eat publisher eat author eat audience. We
needed a different way of doing things.
Authors are no different
I recently read about the Sobol prize being cancelled for a lack of interest. Even more evidence of a
lack of creativity. Sure, there are probably other reasons for the prize being canned. But for a lack
of interest? Where are the next generation of writers? Blogging, reading their 'e-novel' on their
'Kindles'... I doubt it. Whatever happened to writing a few good short stories and having them
accepted and moving on from their. Hardly none of the publishing industry have done anything
about the way it operates (including the authors who are a part of the system) for over 100 years. I
haven't seen one single non-technical innovation from the publishing industry. So now we have
Kindle... great we can read the latest novels on an e-reader that feels like a book. Wow. How's that
going to sustain a failing industry? How's it going to feed forward to the next generation of creative
writers? It's not.
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What we can do about it?
I have no idea. I am guessing that the majority of the 1/10 of 1% of authors that write books make
money and don't want things to change. The creative thinker says: 'what can we do differently that
we haven't done before that would attract new talent to take the torch forward.' How can we
address the imbalance so that people who are considered to be unpublishable, at least have a shot at
making it. The same goes for the film, art and other creative industries as well.
The non-creative plague
Think of the countless movies, television shows, books and the like that are the same old same old.
Whatever happened to making new things that were interesting or being innovative. See, this is
what happens when you put the dollar ahead of the art. You wind up with an imbalance that gives
precedence to formula and spits on creative endeavour.
What to do about it?
I am not sure anything can be done. Have we gone too far in the wrong direction? I can shoulder the
blame at the university level and say... yes we should be teaching the next generation of creative
people instead of feeding them into the meat grinder. I am still amazed at the amount of movies that
are released last year that you can predict point by point. I think I am well and truly alone on this.
Never mind... that's why I took up blogging!
Start being creative today. Burn your CUBE! Get out there and create. If your boss stops you...
do it anyway. You must do something. The world is in a very non-creative state of affairs. For the
love of God... do it!
My personal commitment to creativity
Rather than suffering for my art (which I think is an appalling concept) I have decided to post a
creative project each week to my blog. I would say day but I just don't have that much creative
energy. Those of us who have creative ability yet no means to support it that other than side
business and work have this on-going internal conflict where we know we should do something but
usually sit on our bums (or asses) and do nothing. I think we could easily overthrow the publishing
industry for example, if we really wanted to do but we think the world should come to us.
Well I can't wait any longer. I have ideas and almost nobody to share them with so I have to let it
out. I am therefore proud to announce my 'commitment to creativity' project. In order to fester that
inner creativity I have I am going to post something I do each week that is deliberately creative. I
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am also working on making a website for daily submissions for people who are creative minded as
well. The problem is getting the funding and finding the time. What a bugger! There is also the
other problem of offering the project to people and having them commit their intellectual property
with no foreseeable way of financial return. I am working on it as I have said so hang on to your
hats for that one. It will be a cracker.
For now I am trialling my own stuff to see what I can achieve. There is no bigger fool than a
hypocrite I heard somewhere. That and we must practice what we preach if we are to be considered
credible. If I am telling anybody who reads this to be creative then I must first lead by example. If I
don't then all I am doing is making it up and that is a crock! So in order to be a real person I have
decided to unleash my own creativity on my small readership one week, day or minute at a time. I
have put the time limit of 'one week on it' but it will be sooner but NO LATER than that. Why?
Well I keep saying I will do this or I will do that and never got around it. So I have just decided to
do it.
In order to begin the festivities I have included in my fiction tab The Woman in the River. This is
short story I wrote for a woman's magazine that the bastards didn't publish! So, my commitment to
being creative begins. I am now without excuse. I am not being paid so it's not for money it's for
the pure exercise of being me and being creative. Enjoy. If you like it give it as many people you
can so we can get a community going around this thing. We could start a revolution of creativity
and destroy the world! Okay, so maybe that's a bit excessive. I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Creative Projects so Far
Whilst I have not managed to reach my goal of posting something creative each week I have done a
few projects that I am quite proud of:
http://lukehoughton.com/fiction/ialsoremember/ A short story about the war based on interviews
with my grandfather
My other dogs a Doberman:
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During the time I have had the segment I have also put out a challenge to people to redesign a social
system in a creative way. I took this challenge myself and reinvented a university program with a
life skills component. And I also mentioned the Nintendo Wii as a great example of creative
thinking as well.
http://lukehoughton.com/2007/12/15/creative-project-of-the-week-songs-i-made-ages-ago/
I made two songs using FL studio which are on the eclectic side (I will admit that) as part of my
commitment to creativity.
http://lukehoughton.com/2007/11/02/creative-project-of-the-week-adding-pictures-to-my-novel/
I added pictures to my novel and spiced up the first few chapters. But that's enough about me now
you have a turn at being creative.
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Exercises to stimulate your creativity
1. Create a thought experiment about something you are interested in. For example, what is
something that you are very passionate about?
2. Visit http://www.creativethinking.net/WP4_ThoughtExperiments.htm and do the thought
experiments here
3. http://youtube.com/watch?v=UjSjZOjNIJg
4. There is a traffic crisis worldwide what are some solutions you could come up with?
5. Another De Bono example
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Skill 5 Intuition: Knowing you and your inner person
Isn't it funny that one of the most intriguing things about us is us? Why is that we go to school,
grow up and follow whatever we do and never think about it the reasons why we make decisions.
We have in us dreams, desires and natural inclinations that we often don't even know are there.
However, there are really two different kinds of voices that come out of us when it comes to desires.
The first is a desire to do something out of our own strength, what we can call what we would like
to do and the other is something that comes out of us, which we can call what we should do.
Who are you?
Scientists tell us that we have two parts to the brain, the left side and the right side. Traditionally we
have called the left side rational and the right side intuitive. In the spiritual workings of man there
are also two really strong ways of discerning what comes from where and how to understand it. On
the left (rational) side we have cognitive structures or logical conclusions that help us to reach
certain kinds of solutions and on the right side we have intuitive reactions that come from the
creative inner workings of our spirits. There is much confusion in Christian circles about how our
two parts work together and how they function.
The left side of the brain is often labelled the logical brain. This side of the brain takes our ideas and
shapes them into logical structures for us to understand things so we can appropriately frame the
world around us. These frames form the foundation of our thinking when it's logical thinking. Such
thinking is a connected set of ideas that can be logically explained. Those who lean to this side of
the brain quite often are adept at putting together very good arguments and can see the loopholes in
the logic of others. Some people I work with are very good at building logical bridges from one end
of a problem to another but all the time they are in analysis mode. All they are really doing is
coming to solid conclusions based on the evidence they have before them.
Evidence is the substance that the natural left side of the brain creates things with. Its evidence is
solid, factual and represented by sense data that it perceives to be useful to the person who is
beholding it. A mathematical equation is purely logical. It has a sound formula to it that if you
followed it would result in a known answer. It's logical and rational. Most human beings operate
this way when they are in the spirit. They see something and reach a conclusion based on natural
evidence. An example is that I like Lasagne very VERY much. This is a logical conclusion I have
reached by eating it and desiring its taste. This has nothing to do with the other side of my brain and
it certainly has nothing to do with the way I am.
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Knowing who you are does not come from drawing natural conclusions. It comes from something
much deeper than that. If God had exalted the mind beyond its position in the body to be the centre
then we could so easily say that we were made to be purely logical and absolutely natural but this
isn't the case. The left side of our brain reaches out into the world around us and makes logical
conclusions. The other side the right side of our brain is the intuitive side. This is what we know
about ourselves that we haven't logically concluded.
Intuition is an inner knowing that presents us with information we have NOT logically derived from
our experience in the world. This information stems from a deep inner knowing within us about
something. Quite often we rationalise God out of existence before he has had a chance to tell us
something. We draw logical conclusions without thinking about what we already know on the
inside. Knowing the real you, who you really are, comes from the information that is not logically
derived because it's that which underpins everything else.
Logic can better be thought of 1 + 1 = 2 but stop for a minute. You know what you know about
yourself because you know it. I know I like to play the guitar. Something inside me gets great
pleasure out of creative things and I really enjoy it. I didn't reach that conclusion by running a
stochastic model, I found it out by just being in the right conditions to find it out. The real you is not
logically available it's intuitively available. If you find yourself attracted to certain things and you
can't explain why then you have found it or at least some of it.
I have a small black Chihuahua who went out into the backyard the other day and began barking at
a bluetongue lizard. At first I thought she was just being annoying but after a while she got more
and more vicious! When I went out the lizard was gone but the dog was still barking. Why was she
doing that? Why didn't she just let it go? She kept going because instinctively she didn't know why
but she had to do it. There was no real reason why but she had to do it. The conditions drew a
tendency out of her that she wasn't aware of and it bubbled to the surface.
One time I thought I was called to make lots of money and build a successful business. As time
went on and the creative edge of business maintenance set in I realised I was have hidden
entrepreneurial desires that come out in certain conditions yet I am a dreadful manager! The day to
day grind of trying to come up with sales and make things work was horrible. I felt so tired and
exhausted but I didn't have the money to get someone else to do it. I am called to be creative and if
I don't pay attention ... it finds another way to come out of me. I can write a short story or a novel
and it just flows out of me. I get ideas, characters and all kinds of things coming to me. Now, I am
not special but when the right conditions come along I find the real me.
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Logically if I try to come to conclusions through reasoning, a survey (although they can be helpful
in finding the underlying desires) or whatever I won't find the real me. I already know what I am
like and all I need to do is look at the way I am and I will find what I am supposed to be doing. A
friend of mine likes to play chess, draw puzzles and play computers. I have found him to always
look at what's going on around him and come to the closest available solution which is less than
helpful. However, put the man in front of a computer and he could make it sing. Why? The right
conditions present him with what he likes doing being logically creative with technical things.
Now if I took the same person and told him he should sit down and come to a reasoned conclusion
about who he really is he would have to come up with something rather than simply being who he
is. The hardest choice you will ever have to make is deciding to be who you really are. You have
been given talents and gifts by God for a reason. What conditions will you need to make it work for
you? What will make you bark?
One half of your brain is logical for a reason, you need to reach conclusions about things that are
well thought out and you need to make good decisions. If you want to learn how to drive a car, add
up an equation or discern black from white then you need to know some stuff. That's logical. You
are not a machine and you are not an equation you are a living breathing spirit. I am not saying that
you will know what you are supposed to do that's a completely different story but the beginning of
knowing who you are starts with what's already there. You just need the right conditions to come
along to tease that the real you out.
In concluding this article I would like to say that I think one of the greatest problems we have in the
Christian world we have is that we have a church centric mentality. Every dream and every desire is
fine so long as it's supports the vision of the pastor. There is nothing wrong with vision bearing
pastors or church but at some stage you must realise that God may not want you to be involved ...
he may have other desires in mind for you. Supporting your local church is good so long as you
recognise that you are as much a minister as the pastor is and that you have a role to play that is
equally as important. There are a lot of people who simply never find their calling in God because
they cannot conceive of it outside of the four walls of the church. This is nothing more than
religious nonsense. You are important and God loves you remember that.
I hope that you think about what I have written here. Don't look at yourself through logically eyes
to find the answer ... look inside into your intuition. What does that tell you? If you can't see past
your logic ask yourself this question: What am I naturally drawn to? What do I want to do like
nothing else I have ever done before? It's my prayer that you will find this and over time allow God
to show you what he has in store for you.
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Each one of us whether we realise or not has something special to offer. I often struck with surprise
when I look at the general population of my students as I tell them they had better be sure the career
they choose is something they know they can do. Consider for a moment that you may not know
enough of yourself to understand that you are actually attracted to certain things and just plain hate
others. For example, I hate doing day to day routine things like paper work. Yet I recognise it as
being extremely necessary to keep myself employed. What I get a thrill out of is doing creative
things like writing, brainstorming and so on. That's because I have an underlying stream of
creativity that flows through me. That creativity is somehow infused into my being.
In a previous post on emotions I spoke of the need to look at the underlying nature of emotions and
how they come out of us on a day to day basis. In that post I drew the analogy that people will not
often come to you and say, 'I am angry at something that happened in the past so I am going to take
it out on you if you don't mind.' People get angry for whatever reason and you become the victim
of it. The same thing goes for people who act as extroverts in social groups. They have been seen as
'extroverts' because that's a central underlying part of their being flowing out of them.
So what's different about you?
It has been said that we are all the same and there is nobody who is special. I believe this to be true
but for a different reason. Everybody has something different about them that makes them 'unique'.
The connotation of something special means that you have some kind of status that makes you
better than the rest. You are no better or worse than anyone... we are all in the same boat. Money,
sad to say, does not make you a better person. Quite often it makes you much, much worse. There is
however, a side to you that makes you entirely different from those around you. What makes you
special is the fact that you have something different than people who are around you. That
difference is what makes you an individual and it's something you need to nurture.
The Mask
What you are really like is often sheltered under a mask that you were to make people think
something about you. If you want people to think you are a certain way then you will wear a mask.
I really saw a part of the Mask movie in which the main character is asking a psychologist advice
about this mystical mask he has found. The psychologist uses the mask as a helpful metaphor to
understand the reality of how we pretend in our social interactions. That pretending we do hides the
real us from people. What makes us different or special is something that is underneath that. Here is
an example in my own life.
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When I sit down to write something I often don't plan it out. I don't need to worry about it because
it writes itself. The fiction project I have on this website for example I wrote one page at a time by
sitting down and just letting it flow through my imagination. That's me. That may not be you.
You may be like my sister in law and be completely into administrative things.
The bottom line
The bottom line of course is that you should not do things you should not be doing. Despite the
grammatical errors in that previous sentence it is worth repeating. If you are involved in something
that is contrary to your nature you will eventually find yourself confused, frustrated, annoyed and
angry. Don't burn yourself out. There are some things that are stepping stones but if you take a
position that is not going to teach you something, or help you reach your goals, then you will wind
up miserable, frustrated and annoyed. Just don't do it. You have something in you that makes you
special. It makes you different from those around you. Find out what it is. Find out what your
underlying talents are and develop them day by day. Practice them, dream about them, believe
them into existence.
I want to repeat myself here because I think there are a lot of unfulfilled people in life. You will not
find peace in your life until you begin doing what you know you should be. You can change and
yes it's not late or too early. Don't do what you think you should, find out what you are really like
and go towards that one step at a time. After all, you are special in some way.
Yesterday I spoke about the deep things that underlying what we do. In that post I spoke about the
need to recognise the deep things that reside inside us that lead us to act. What I want to do today is
begin the deep things series by talking about how to recognise the underlying emotions in situations
that you may be familiar with. Feelings like superiority, happiness and joy are all deep level
emotions that we need to recognise.
People don't come up to you and said, 'you know what I feel angry because of something that
happened to me once and whether you like it or don't I am going to dump it all on you.' What really
happens is the person explodes, you cop the blast and then all things from there stem forward to a
messy conclusion. Why is that? I think personally that this occurs because we don't really know
how to recognise the underlying emotions that dominate us and why we feel the way we do. We all
have them. Why is it then that we systemically set about ignoring what the inner person is telling
us. The language of that inner person is not words: it's thoughts, ideas, pictures, symbols and
suggestions.
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Often when we think about emotions, we think about preferences. Such preferences I think are
stored on the level of our mind. A preference towards Lasagne or KFC is a mental decision based
on a external sense. The sense of taste and the sensation we enjoy when we eat such things
stimulates in us a desire. That desire eventually becomes a preference towards certain predilections
in the area of 'sense'. What happens when the area of our emotions is stimulated by something
beyond our immediate sense? What of those things that we notice about ourselves but simply do not
like. Such as: anger, criticism, hatred and the like? Where do such things come from?
Foundational Perspectives
Say for a moment you have working class values. If you don't think about what your values are and
imagine that you thought about work and it's value in your life. I am plagued with working class
values. I cannot see a way around it. Almost everything I do has to be work. One day I sat back and
questioned this after reading an earlier version of Richard Branson's autobiography. That person
worked hard... but he worked smart. He, with the help of thousands of other people, built the
Virgin empire which despite it's critics is very large and very successful. He now spends his time
flashing that toothy smile for the cameras and evaluating business plans (reminds me of the e-myth
... not not e-commerce). The reality is this simple: the rich don't make money from hard work...
they make money from having a good idea, making it work through collective mobilisation and so
on.
I know people who work as long and hard as Bill Gates and they as broke as broke can be. Why is
that? I was bought up in a house where both parents worked hard and made very little money. That
is not their fault. It's a deep 'foundational perspective' that flows out as a underlying emotion
causing actions. We need to recognise these foundational things and be aware of them. These deep
things we believe have feelings attached to them. They are so real and powerful that they make us
think and act in s ways that we often don't understand.
The first step: knowing how you feel
These foundational perspectives are the basic set of ideas that we hold to that help us to make sense
of the world. From these we can deduce that there are emotions that build from these perspectives
that are part of us. We often identify ourselves with certain things like work by attaching our
emotions to them. We cannot help it. When I say I am an academic it makes me feel something.
Something deep. That deep thing that I feel is a sense or a 'knowing' of what I think an academic is.
I think of ideas, papers, teaching, marking and so on. Each one of those activities raises within me a
certain level of 'feeling' that I really don't understand. When I think of the amount of
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administration I have to do in my job... I have feelings of dread! I hate administrative work though
it's necessary. Those underlying feelings are incredibly important because that's how we can know
what we are like not what we think we should be.
The question for me is why do I hate administrative work? I can tolerate it, I can use positive
thinking to cope with it but essentially I hate it. Deep down there is some feeling arising out of the
real me, the inner me, letting me know that I am not like this. This doesn't mean I quit doing it...
but I probably should not pursue a career in it. If we think about this from another angle. Why do I
feel the need to avoid the work? What is it in me that makes me want to not do it. It could be that
I simply hate it. On the other hand it could be because I am lazy! If you have inclinations towards
certain kinds of things (I am not talking about nasty things) like sport, writing, reading or whatever
that's you coming out.
I really like to write. There's something in me that feels the need or desire to do it. I cannot explain
why. Ever met someone who just sends you batty and you cannot work out why? That's
something in you that sends you nuts. I met this guy once who just had to be the centre of
attention. He would make loud jokes and remarks and no matter what he would always have to be
the centre of attention. It got the point where I felt like strangling this guy because I am exactly the
opposite. I don't like to be loud or to be the centre of attention. At heart there was a personality
conflict. Neither of us could really help it... it's just our core personality floating to the surface.
Think for a moment why you are the way you are. Why not in the interim take this personality test
to get you started. If you would prefer a funnier test why not take this one that helps you see what
kind of Simpson you are! By the way I am a moderate introvert.
Understanding underlying emotions and moving towards intuition
It's 5pm and you are on your way home after a long day of work. As you leave work you slide
effortlessly into traffic. The more you drive the slower things go until finally you hit a solid stop
two minutes drive into your journey. Up ahead all you see is a long row of cars, banked up for
miles, with no real hope of escape. How does that make you feel? To be honest it makes me feel
mad. I have waited for a long time to get here and now I am basically stuck because everybody
leaves work at the same time. No matter when I leave work I ALWAYS encounter traffic. Now I
am getting angry.
Is it really the traffic making me angry or is it something else? I think it's something else. When we
are faced with a situation in which things aren't going our way we often display outwardly
emotions that are reflections of our inner thoughts. What ever we are displaying on the outside is
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what we have built on the inside. As you recognise patterns in your life, like anger, worry and so
on. You will begin to notice that these things are deep down in you and that they build themselves
into perspectives in your mind. How do you feel when you have been picked on for something you
didn't do? Has anyone ever forgotten your birthday? How did you react? Those reactions come
from the inner needs that are usually expressed as emotions, thoughts, ideas or deep down
suggestions.
The key to recognising underlying emotions
The key lies in watching how you behave. For children we might use a behaviour diary to check on
what our kids are doing wrong. I think for some of us we need to reflect on how we act. For
instance when you are sitting in traffic, ask yourself why traffic bothers you so much. Try this:
1. Recognise the feeling
Notice the style or quality of the feeling as it arises. Then:
2. Question why
Reflection begins with asking why? Why do I feel this way? What makes me angry when I am
stuck in traffic? Why do I feel this way? One of the key things I suffer from is setting silly goals
for myself. These 'benchmarks' are things like: 'when I have enough money I will be happy' or
something like, 'unless I do this or that I am not cutting it'. The only place that goal exists is in my
head. For me it's like I need to be something special in order to feel pleased with myself. These
benchmarks are total fantasies that are basically connected to my brain in someway that I can't
really explain. What I am learning at the moment is to shift these perspectives I have set by
creating new things to believe in. That doesn't mean that I live with my faults... but it does mean I
reduce the expectation I have on myself to over perform. Why do we strive for so much anyway? I
mean what's the bloody point?
When I see people speeding in traffic and running red lights I wonder... what's the rush? What
thing in them tells them that they have to perform. What set of ideas floating around in their brain
says, 'you have to be there on time so get there now as fast as you can.' This is madness. One day
all this rushing will come to end ... along with your life. So why worry about it? If you are always
rushing ask yourself why? If you are always late... why are you always late? There's a reason.
Maybe you just like people looking at you. Who knows?
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3. Begin to understand the underlying tensions that create the emotions
As you ask why, you should be able to identify what emotion is coming out of you at that time (I
will discuss this is more detail in the next post). There are things that create in us tensions that
force us to act in certain ways. The western society is filled with pressure to perform. We have a
huge crisis of materialism at the moment that is driving people to work harder, faster and longer
without seriously thinking about the consequences. We all know stress is a killer yet we continue to
work more and more and more until we explode. Why? What tensions are in us that make us do
this? Why are they there?
In the next post in this series I am going to talk about some techniques I find helpful for recognising
underlying emotions. The key thing to remember from this post is you are human and you will
have outburst of emotions. It's a part of life and you need to be aware of this as you travel along
life's road. Remember, you have them whether you acknowledge it or not.
I was in the car driving home from work when I suddenly realised something. Big actions often
come from deep seated unconscious feelings that we really don't understand. Think about the
decision to have children, was it a rational choice or something that you felt you had to do. What
about the choice to follow a career in the field you are in? Was there something about that kind of
job that just spoke to you? A lot of the time the choices we make, especially those from the heart,
cause us to take huge actions.
There is a thing called post-hoc rationalisation which I lectured on the other day that says we often
take actions and later justify them by making sense of what happened because we don't really know
why we did what we did. Take me for instance. I am attracted to things that are new. No, not shiny
things... new things. I like to create stuff and make it. In my job I don't get much of a chance to do
that at present so I have been a bit tired. But, when I am working through something new and ideas
are flowing I feel like I have had a fire set under my backside. It's truly wonderful. Why is that? It's
because deep down that's me and when I see that in the world it's me coming out.
As small step we need to begin to pay attention to what we do and trace it back to what we think
and then some kind of underlying feeling or emotion. These deep things we ignore are us. I have
once heard it put this way you are not what you think about you are the bit behind the thoughts. I
think in business we need to pay more attention to these things and take them more seriously. I
think this is an interesting topic and I will be posting more about this in the next few days. Thanks
for reading.
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Allowing a free flow of intuition
Our western educational process generally discourages us from following in the footsteps of
intuitive thinking. We are encouraged to follow the well worn path of reasoning but very rarely are
we asked to intuitively think about things. Think for a moment about the things you know about
yourself. Say for example, you are driving down the motorway and somebody cuts you off. What's
the first thing you would say? What kind of things do you find funny?
These kinds you just know about yourself are intuition. You don't need to go to far to find the
answers because these are things that you know. Ever gone to do something and you felt that you
just shouldn't do it? Or perhaps met an individual that you just didn't like from the very first time
you laid eyes on them? Why is that? I teach a lot of people at university who are very good at
reasoning but not so good at intuition. It's almost like we thing we have to switch off the role of
intuition in our education process because it's counter cultural. Today I want to make a case for
encouraging the free flow of intuition.
When you know that you know
The Late Steve Irwin once said in an interview that he always had a deep passion for wildlife. You
can tell he wasn't lying when the man used to quite happily pick up a snake and not worry about it.
I had the pleasure of seeing him perform literally weeks before he died. He put so much passion
into his shows that it was really amazing to watch. He wasn't pretending and he certainly wasn't
making it up in my opinion ... it was 100% passion. How could he do that? I think because he just
knew what he should be doing. He knew that he knew that he should be working with wildlife and
with animals. You have instincts on the inside of you that are dying to get out. Can I tell you that
you need to develop these instincts. That which you know about yourself will change as you learn
more about it but the core 'knowing' or intuition you have will never change. That which you know
that you know about you is who you really are.
You never have to think about intuitive things
In a previous article I spoke about the art of conjecture. Often when we take guesses we are basing
our decision making on our intuition. Harvard Academic Daniel Isenberg found that top managers
often make most of their decisions when they talk out loud to themselves. Why is this? It's because
they are thinking through their decisions to see what feels right. Intuition is always there you never
really have to think about it... but sometimes our subtle reasoning processes make us believe things
we think are helpful but really are not. A conclusion after careful scrutiny is not intuitive thinking.
We are using intuitive thinking when we are doing what our gut is telling is the right thing to do.
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Intuition has built some great things
Go back and study some of the greatest entrepreneurs. How many of them just knew that they
would make it and this 'faith' drove them on to create impossible things. I am talking of people like
Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and so on. If you carefully look at how these
people make their decisions there is as much reasoning as there is intuition. Some of the biggest
decisions I have made have been through intuition. It's not a flawless guide... but it's a lot better
than me just reasoning.
I would encourage you today to stop reasoning so much and begin looking towards your intuition.
Knowing stuff is good because it develops us and makes us better. However, than can be no
replacement for genuine 'gut instinct' in times of crisis, testing and extremity. Don't rely of your
mathematics or basic processes of mental reasoning only... remember your gut!
Intuition Exercises
1. What would you feel like if you had peace?
2. What would it feel like if you could feel it? Write down your answer.
3. Think of something that went terribly wrong in your life. Write it down. Now ask yourself
were there any alarm bells ringing in your mind before those things happened? If so... why
did you ignore them? How did they make you feel?
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Authors note
Did you like what you have read so far? If you did why not navigate to www.lukehoughton.com
today and sign up for my feed. On this site you will get regular blog posts from me plus you can be
a part of some of the up and coming creative projects I have planned. Thanks for reading.
Luke Houghton, December 2007.
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