Comments for Greenhat Thinking

Comment on C..C..C….. by Mark Abrahams

Mark Abrahams — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:37:19 +0000

That this message first went out in the first year of the new millennium is indicative of an available structured approach, ideas, services and products all in a mix of the right people – yet we find ourselves in what is not a broken economy but which is a NEW economy.
I would love to know of the survivors and developing organisations in private & public sectors who took advantage of this incredible offer and resources made available – to apply the 3 Cs and all else that could have been or was facilitated.
There is much going on in the world today – yet it remains that it is the lack of systemic & intellectual approach which prevents the great ideas either hatching or being actioned, to grow and develop – to arrive at solutions and actions plans which designers can and are able to realise.
In a backward fashion, the major issues, such as sustainable solutions and simply maintaining what we have – e.g. fish stocks and forestation – may come about by default (much as I may like to believe that it is part of a big designed picture led and managed by caring humans). Stressed humans, working together with a common aim, can achieve anything and everything – nothing is impossible. Yet hubris and avarice prevent the ideal philosophy being generated and applied.
To deal with these issues anew philosophy must be developed, agreed and planned for action, in answer to the many challenges facing us which must be converted into opportunities.

Perhaps it is as simple as improving the marketing. What happened to Saatchi? Who knows just how and what this De Bono gathering of experts can achieve? Who is already using the team?

Keeping this simple, instead of creating perceived hurdles in the minds of so called leaders who are burdened with a high degree of learned helplessness brought about by the levels of concerns and undermining influences that always occur in organisations under war conditions, let’s get this message out there – apply these brains to the major solutions, take a lead in creativity.

I heard a story the other day that, at a high level corporate board meeting, some powerful individual referred to ‘six hats thinking’, as an aside. To me, this indicated the scale of the challenge. People and leaders, rushing madly towards decisions for which they have not applied sufficient thinking, skirt around issues by referring to the fact that thinking tools and methods exist. But they do not use them. The first thing that serious leaders could and should but won’t do is innovate themselves, use thinking tools and training to change themselves. Only then would marketing the three Cs and all the knowledge and skills behind all of this be successful. It will take time. Today would be a good day to change.

Let’s imagine our future without such change.

Comment on .. maintenance and problem solving .. by Mark Abrahams

Mark Abrahams — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:16:02 +0000

This is a core &, by inference, valuable message.
Individually, I view all such thinking with respect to the greater challenges with which the world is faced. It is cultural evolution, better thinking to invite CPS and best use of all thinking tools, that will bring about the major change and parallel thinking. Organisations, big & small, should all have say in the future size & scope of government. Should government aim to protect individual rights and free markets and focus upon promoting equality and solving society’s problems? Such top down thinking, against my previous beliefs, is required to provide the leadership, guidance and direction that the majority of people wish for. Faith and religion can otherwise become a substitute for problem solving, to deliver comfortable thinking instead of the designer thinking of my dreams and wishes.

For sustainable, maintainable solutions we must, all of us, review our philosophy and values. And my philosophy includes great contributions from Mr De Bono. Philosophy is what you know, therefore requiring maturity often gained by simply living a long time and experiencing or observing and learning from both success and failure.

The truly great thing that we, human kind, have at our disposal is our ability to imagine. Imagining the future and then going about designing what happens NOW to create that future is an ability which only we humans, as beings on this planet possess. And, only together, can we each contribute, knowing and controlling what we feel and then what we do.

As a designer I have the designed the future I wish for my children, their children and so on. A good or great designer needs a platform and a working example to demonstrate their design, to then identify the challenges and an equal team to help him or her deliver the solutions. Following that line of reasoning, the designer must also be or be in partnership with a leader who can and will communicate the design and gather those who can then perform, replicate and convert the challenges into best possible solutions. By having the best people, evolving the best team, the required procurement, including risk management, is assured. And it all begins with a shared philosophy, a design in mind based on the past and the future and using the opportunities of present to trigger the change wished for by the ethical majority.

Back in 2001 (when this message was first published) Mr De Bono knew many of the ways forward, how to tackle challenges and how to design outcomes. Unfortunately, visionaries are only listened to by 3 to 5 % of the population who even get as far as opening their minds to looking and listening and learning. Let’s not allow the pessimists and realists of this world to impact upon our vision of the future.

Thank you Mr De Bono.

Comment on .. maintenance and problem solving .. by Roger Remy

Roger Remy — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:52:30 +0000

Thanks for this message.
It is one of the most pertinent comment I have read in the last couple of years.
Having read almost all books of Mr. De Bono and participated in the training at the Holst Group, I am practicing my self and facilitating the 6 Hats and Lateral Thinking in business meetings.

The 6 Thinking Hats also serve daily communication and handling differences in rejecting the black hat attitude we instinctively maintain every time somebody proposes something we don’t like.

Coming back to today’s comment on design, I would link it even much further with company strategy, which is also too much on what we know as opposed to exploring new ideas in the perspective of existing constraints and unmet needs.
In this context, I would advise to link Design with Blue Ocean Strategy, a concept and tools elaborated at INSEAD a few years ago; very few business people have considered its full potential (same negligence as when Mr. De Bono first produced his 6 Thinking Hats).

Looking forward to your future message and reading your latest book ‘New Thinking for the New Millenium’.

Roger Remy
international Training & Consulting
Rue du Temple 11
1096 Cully – Switzerland

Comment on .. maintenance and problem solving .. by Roger Remy

Roger Remy — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:50:42 +0000

Thanks for this message.

It is one of the most pertinent comment I have read in the last couple of years.
Having read almost all books of Mr. De Bono and participated in the training at the Holst Group, I am practicing my self and facilitating the 6 Hats and Lateral Thinking in business meetings.

The 6 Thinking Hats also serve daily communication and handling differences in rejecting the black hat attitude we instinctively maintain every time somebody proposes something we don’t like.

Looking forward to your future message and reading your latest book ‘New Thinking for the New Millenium’.

Roger Remy
international Training & Consulting
Rue du Temple 11
1096 Cully – Switzerland
Office Tel. +41 21 729 39 35
Mobile +41 79 448 69 34

Comment on …. comfort for defeat … by Brian Welters

Brian Welters — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:31:57 +0000

at the bottom of the important reminder to design a \’way out\’ of everyone, I read \"Positively improve the culture your business with Six Thinking Hats\".

I should love to know if there is an \"of\" missing intentially to catch our attention, or if the author was so familiar with the phrase that s/he did not notice.

I guess that\’s a way out for us all!

Thanks

Comment on ‘idea creativity’ by Mark_Abrahams_UK

Mark_Abrahams_UK — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:21:12 +0000

I applaud this – which I receive as the reflection and reinforcement of the requirement for better communication – leading to better understanding and therefore thinking. Many appear to spend (or is it waste) their significant intellect deciphering rather than applying their creative knowledge, skills and abilities instead of actually resolving problems, converting challenges into solutions and action plans, playing with the rules and regulations that we humans have duplicated across our existence, reducing the coincidence of an actual solution converted to be productive. And this is none-so-the case than with respect to mature individuals who have been ‘retired’. What a depth of creative solution finding has settled in that particular pot. So yes, let’s treat creativity as without mystery event, without event, as an ability with which the majority of us were born but which still labours under the cloud of perceived misconception and misinterpretation. WE can do whatever we are prepared to take responsibility for – and it takes us all – just one voice is OK but it takes togetherness to actually get things done, so that we can have the designed future about which we, as a group, envision. And it will take leadership and good management by trained thinkers to turn this particular vessel about, to sail against the wind which blows upon us all. Our destination will be determined by how we set the sail….and the sale.

Comment on ….imprisoned by a web of concepts and perceptions… by Mark Abrahams

Mark Abrahams — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 09:18:51 +0000

The typical response to this question, for people adjusting to what is not a broken economy but a new global economy in which jobs are disappearing & will not return, will be that demonstrated by Stephen Covey (the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) in as much as, instead of ‘sharpening the saw’, questioning, applying creative problem solving technique, they will be too busy working unnecessarily hard to cut down the tree with a blunt saw.

This applies to individuals and within the corporate setting whereby bad habits and behaviours are entrenched, emotional intelligence is lacking and the factors which got them where they have arrived remain unchecked. People do not, as a rule, have time-freedom (or they do not attempt to create such thinking periods of time) and the ‘ra ra let’s get motivated’ mentality is as work. Before motivation must come education, otherwise, if the guy is an idiot, you end up with a motivated idiot.

Then you get people like me, full of creative well-honed solutions who get sidelined for being and thinking differently. Perhaps, for people like me, our hubris can also lead to intellectual failure (or learned experiences as I like to call it) in that we feel that others should ‘spot us’ and put our skills and knowledge to work instead of going out there and marketing, selling our ideas. Or maybe it’s just me.

We have issues with avarice and, almost always, in the world as it is, greed tends to win, it being a driving force, a reason linked to wealth creation. Also and more simply, for it to be possible, on any scale to look at things a different way, we must have a systemic approach otherwise the IP may never be converted to solutions or action.

Personally, I can’t be bothered anymore to spend my valuable time finding the best solutions if they are never to be put into practice, and then duplicated. So who do I think I am? Someone who sometimes or almost always, looks at things in a different way and I find it hard to believe that many others don’t. Let’s change the way, still more, by and in which we educate people, starting in schools.

Comment on Australia’s hung parliament an ‘opportunity’: Edward de Bono by Mark Abrahams

Mark Abrahams — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:27:00 +0000

Must we trust only the politicians of this world to sort out the major challenges we face for which we must all take some responsibility?

In my view we must all do what we can, individually, as groups, in business, to bring about the change we require. We must arrive at decisions and stand for what we believe. I am not convinced that this is the modus operandi of politicians.

Yet coalition government is a real opportunity for well reasoned and vital change which otherwise would be less likely.

Comment on Australia’s hung parliament an ‘opportunity’: Edward de Bono by Mark Abrahams

Mark Abrahams — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:12:41 +0000

Having just visited Australia and witnessed the political goings on first hand, including discussions with a few Australians (and then New Zealanders), I drew a few opinions from my experience. Add to that my UK citizenship and the UK political debacle – the result being mass uncertainty and a coalition government, then my individual viewpoint, matched with my personal and professional experiences gained over nearly 60 years mean that I have opinions – I stand for something – and a coalition government has the best potential to deliver what I want to see. Politics is a strange game (just like football – bizarre things and results can and do happen). And the media can not only predict outcomes but can apply such influence as to convert potential outcomes to certainties. So does a hung parliament present a “tremendous opportunity” as Mr De Bono asks, or is it just yet another sign the systems we have lived by for so many years and decades are finally broken, that the confidence and belief has now evaporated.
Take the USA, as an example. I wanted Obama to win but not for the politics he represented. Actually, it was mostly because he wasn’t Bush. But the Conservatives or Republicans of this world do represent what I believe is a better management approach for the world – that people are productive and pay taxes to pay for services inclusive of those for people who are less well-off. Yet there are degrees of well-offness which need to be debated. And, in the arena of debate, my take is that of OBJECTIVISM matched with CPS and the visualisation of the best possible data to really enable the decision-makers (who should be US) to arrive at the best possible solutions and action plans. Such plans have to be DOABLE, TRACKABLE and ADJUSTBALE – otherwise it will again be to no avail.
In summary of a completely separate debate, I have no real confidence in politicians so I do not see that a coalition is that tremendous opportunity. What we all really need is a world-wide get-together of the best business minds – those who are not intent upon takeover and the creation of obscene unmanageable conglomerates but those with a controlling influence who can persuade people simply to think better, then do what is needed to create a new world economy taking into account such things as the running low of natural resources, a non-consumer led generation of leaders who don’t need to play word games for the sake of a vote.
Most politicians, whether in coalition or in opposition, spend most of their time hearing from the civil servants or influential business leaders and learning their trade as they go – also spending their public time defending their position. They are as much good to us as chocolate fire guards in front of a lively and hotly burning fire. The way forward is simply that of best possible data management matched with refined thinking methods applied by those who do not depend upon a vote and who have already made it in life – so they can work without personal avarice. Yet it all comes down to intellectual and systemic function. All the best thinking in this world we live in comes to nought if we don’t actually do something about the major concerns with which we are faced. And there are a good few concerns I, just me on my own, could submit in need of solutions. So how many more solutions are there out there which we need and don’t even know about.
Must we trust only the politicians in this world to sort out the problems for which we must all take some responsibility?

Comment on … politicians … by Mark_Abrahams_UK

Mark_Abrahams_UK — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:52:47 +0000

Regarding Politicians, this is a big question….the same as if someone desperately wants to become a manager or a director, should that automatically rule them out of the race because they want it too much, probably for the wrong reasons. The question of what is expected of our elected Politian’s must also be gauged under the umbrella question – who is actually running things …. where does the power actually lie?
The major consideration is that politicians don’t have to be qualified to be a politician – in the academic sense anyway. They tend to learn on the job – which seems to me a dangerous fact. But do we want people in political power who have learnt it all from whatever academic resource? Well yes, I suggest we do. I suggest that there should be an apprenticeship also – which happens sort of, but only by default, depending upon the route to power taken. Mostly, as with many present-day considerations, this comes down to money, to financial backing and to factors beyond what is likely perceived as what actually goes on in politics. Avoiding any conspiracy theory, one can look to find the burgermeisters and, as with health and safety investigations, if we follow the money we will normally find out who is ultimately responsible. But hey, don’t most people simply need politicians who will make today’s good or bad news story – someone to blame? If so, so what? Personally I, along with many others, have philosophy which guides and drives me. Seeking answers which the politicians can never give – for many many reasons not the least being that they need votes, many of us know the sort of ethically motivated world they wish to live in – we just don’t know how to vote in a system which will provide this new world.
And, after all, things aren’t too bad for the small percentage of us who live in the world as it now is. Applying a form of objectivism, if we can find a way to do what we creatives must do for the planate and its people to thrive or survive, then we need politicians who pay more than lip service to get the right ideas in the right places at the right time. That way we can create global economy, such as is possibly already sort of forming in some way, which can look after the majority of our kind who live below the poverty line or worse, are in a living hell because of a natural disaster.
Thanks for the question. It sure made me think. And I think you’d like answers to the ideas you pose. CPS mixed with my philosophy would get us there – so that we could arrive at tracked solutions, apply planned actions and avoid the risk which Politicians appear to take. Finally, it was interesting to note that, when Obama took his time to think through an action plan (e.g. upping the ante in Afghanistan) he was criticised, labelled a procrastinator. It is the press which most worries me – not the Politicians. Politicians only fanny about – the press form views which lead to votes.
Who is running my life? Me. That is the way we must all think – or else we are in for a dangerous ride.