Always the beautiful answer Who asks a more beautiful question. E.E. Cummings The single most important habit for an innovative thinker may be to ask questions. A well formulated question stimulate and inspire. Questions leads to more questions and the question is why we focus so much attention on answering questions and so little on asking …
Change a Point of View – Thinking Strategy
Recently we came across a handsome book by Jodie Newman called Business Creativity. In the chapter about Creative Toolkit, we found five tools that we clustered around the theme Change Point of View, because basically they come all down to the same principle. As we earlier pointed out each of us looks at the world …
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Visualisation – Thinkibility Nibble
Where do you search for ideas on reflection and ways to enhancing your awareness? How do you visualise the thinking steps to be taken to solve a problem? Mental as well as physical components make up a successful athletic performance and the last decades various techniques have been developed to mentally prepare athletes. Imagery is …
Making Thinking Interesting
Often it is stressed that we should be creative and search for alternative choices or possibilities. And seldom the interpretation of a phenomenon itself is subject to creative alternatives. In history, politics and news we follow mostly the elucidation as given by experts, journalists or opinion leaders. In organisations, we make “sense” of what is …
Focus on What Matters When it Matters
When it comes to living incognito among coral, the pygmy seahorse is the specialist. Coral reefs may be bright and spectacular but they are rough places to live, so animals often use camouflage to stay safe. Focusing the attention on what we are looking for may seem easy. We can easily multitask and search for …
Patterns in psychological research
Much, almost all psychological research has been conducted on students. It is for university professors the easiest way: students are at hand, no travelling required, students are cheap and available at convenient times, etc. I have never seen psychological research of elderly other than research related to mental problems of elderly. I never came across …
Patterns in Organizational Design
Thinking Patterns, or logic bubbles, is one of the key concepts of breakthrough thinking. It is not easy to explicate thinking patterns in day-to-day thinking neither in scientific disciplines. That is why we will attention to this phenomena in some next blog posts, for example, psychology research, education, free press, 24/7 schemes and “daily thinking”. …
How Sure Are You?
What thoughts race through your mind when you hear the question, “Is that your final answer?” Are you a contestant with good metacognitive skills? Can you judge how sure you are that the answer is right? The skill to self-reflect and to know about yourself is a key to understand whether you just made a …
Focus the Attention for a LOOOONG Time!
Paying attention is a form of jogging. Jogging requires practice and training. And if you practice for a while, you may one day experience a feeling where time disappears. You are in a zone and feel like you could run forever. Flow, a coin termed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, means you are in intense absorption. Completely …
Robots, Evolution and Emotions
Can a robot evolve? Or is it chained to the insides of a program? Names like Incher, Jitter and Wings, hit that the robots may not be simply ordinary robots. The Cornell Creative Machines Lab has designed a program within which simulated robots "build" themselves out of cubes of virtual muscles and bones. They provided …
The Thinkibility Notebook
Many people, like artists, athletes, general practitioners, teachers and musicians take notes about their performance in order to improve their skills. By reflecting about their experiences they gain awareness about what is working well and what not. They become reflexive practitioners: paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions. This leads …
Blocking the Left Brain Functions
One of the most fascinating books I ever read was written by Paul Watzlawick, a family therapist, psychologist, communications theorist, and philosopher. In his book The Language of Change he explores the idea that sometimes a completely nonsensical interaction may lead to a very concrete result. He suggests that using language patterns from the left …
Conceptual Thinking
Many people are not very proficient in Conceptual Thinking. Perhaps because it is nowhere taught. Conceptual Thinking is thinking with the aid of concepts. Some people describe it as the ability to effortlessly walk up and down the ladder of abstraction. A concept is 1. A general idea derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences. …
I’ve Still Not Received Your Weekly Three Breakthrough Ideas
From the Manager's Desk Dear Joanne, today it is Friday, and I have still not received your three breakthrough ideas for this week. Please send me a mail, so we can discuss it in our team meeting on Monday morning. I have wondered many times why employers are so wary to tell their employees to …
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Patterns in Organizations
I know research laboratories that are organized like assembly lines. They employ a huge number of staff involved in planning, financial control and reporting. They rely of the principles behind scientific management (Taylor-ism). They use standard software to control resources, designed for industrial companies like SAP. I know also organizations that help the poor, which …
Innovate the Innovation
Companies and governments must be innovative. But how? Many organizations wait for some curious creative ideas to suddenly appear out of nowhere. The suggestions that are put forward are often not so useful after all. Other organizations go a little further. They organize an “innovation day”, set up a committee on innovation, they try to …
Curses of Experience
Having experience or being an expert is socially highly regarded as desirable. Expertness and experience is, by many definitions defined as unconscious knowledge. There is a need to acknowledge that. However, there are some hidden traps for experts. Building up expertise Experience is gained by gradually building up skills by doing increasing difficult or complex …
Hands were Made for Walking – Everybody should be Taught That!
Imagine that doctors claim that hands were made for walking, and that everybody should be taught that for a better quality of life. You may object and suggest that we have evolved to walk upright on our feet. But determining how evolution influences us today is not easy. Tracing evolution backwards is a process filled …
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What is a Really Good Idea?
When do you know that you have stumbled on a great idea? When do you assess and harvest the fruit of a creative session? When has idea generation delivered an invention? When is has a thinking breakthrough been attained? Unfortunately, books about brainstorming tend not to provide an answer to these questions. At least, have …
Directing the Thinking
Can you direct and control your thinking? And do you know when it is necessary to direct your thinking? Many of us have never learned, at least not deliberately, to direct our thinking. And we may not reflect upon our thinking. We think as we perform other bodily functions, automatically, unconsciously, without attention. However, the …
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