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MindSightsTM Facilitated Thinking Smartphone Technology |
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Why MindSightsTM |
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Your Mind
At Work |
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The business visionary,
Peter Drucker in his 1999 book Management
Challenges for the 21st Century said: ““One of the biggest
challenges of the 21st century will be to increase knowledge worker thinking
productivity fifty-fold, the same increase as manual-worker labor
productivity during the 20th century. WELL … The
time has arrived to improve knowledge worker thinking productivity with MindSights Facilitated Thinking
Technology. The technology amplifies
natural human “thinking” effectiveness to better resolve real world
challenges, on the spot. It works by
turning your smartphone into a skilled consultant, educator, or trusted
friend who delivers timely advice … as if they were present and personally
guiding you. MindSights is not an
answer machine … but a thought provoker machine that emulates the way
exceptional thinkers …THINK. The purpose of
Facilitated Thinking Technology is to emulate these traits by making the
right (Questions, Tools, Process) available in Smartphone apps. The goal is to
use the apps in real-time to improve individual and team thinking
effectiveness. In essence, Smartphone Apps are based on
the premise: Choosing the right cognitive tools for knowledge-workers follows
the same principle for selecting the right physical tool for manual-workers: “pick
the tool appropriate for the “thinking” task at hand”
The knowledge worker challenge: ► Apply an increasing amount of information … ► Upon a more complex job … ► With knowledge that is becoming obsolete
faster … ► Using a memory that forgets much of what it learned. The
Challenges Information
overload The quantity of
information to perform work is increasing faster than workers can remember. A
study at Carnegie Mellon analyzed how much information the average worker
needed to remember for doing their job. It was found that in 1986 workers
retained in memory about 75% of the information their jobs required. But by
2007 it was down to about 10%. Knowledge
and skills obsolescence Not only is more knowledge and skills
needed to perform work, but those skills are becoming obsolete faster. Accelerating change causes the lifespan of
knowledge to grow shorter and shorter. Information
Spin Not only is the need to
remember more information a challenge, but a myriad of information sources
enables anyone to “spin”
information. Critical thinking is required more than ever to assess
information truthfulness and validity. Growing job complexity Work is quickly getting
more complex. Workers are noticing that job practices that were successful
yesterday, may not work today and even worse … cause more problems. Traditional
training and learning is too slow The more work practices
change, the more training is needed.
But change is starting to occur faster than people have time for
retraining. Learning
& Forgetting As workers struggle to
acquire more skills and information, one thing hasn’t changed much … it’s our
memory. Not only do humans have a memory capacity issue, we also have memory
recall limitations. Some studies have shown that the average person
(knowledge worker) remembers only about 5% of what they have been taught. Even if this percentage is extremely low,
the point is: when the time comes to
apply learning … much might have been forgotten. Scripted
“Autopilot” thinking And finally, while all of
us possess the ability to think in different ways, each of us develops
dominant thinking patterns. The result is our brain
naturally follows scripted thinking patterns. This kind of thinking works
well when work practices are fixed. But in a changing workplace, workers who
apply an old script to changing situations are likely to produce poor quality
and even incorrect results. The Bottom line Change (Think) or Die! In a quickly changing
world, the capacity to adapt as individuals, organizations and nations
becomes preeminent. A basic law of nature is: all species must adapt to constant change
… or die. As humans we adapt by “thinking through” change. So as change accelerates … so does our need
for higher order thinking. At a global
level, Dr. Edward deBono may have said it best in
his book, Think! Before It’s Too Late: “The biggest problem facing the world today is not pollution, war,
poverty or climate change, but inadequate thinking”. At a personal
level, we need to adapt to survive … keep our jobs, keep our businesses
competitive, keep our nation innovative, and keep our world healthy and
sustainable. Each of us no
longer has the luxury of reacting and thinking though change after it occurs.
Today we need to successfully deal with change in real-time and the exact
moment it occurs. And
better yet “think through” change before it occurs.
MindSights
Facilitated Thinking apps work the same way exceptional thinkers … THINK! They routinely apply these three thinking
practices:
a.
Choosing the right thinking process …
affects what questions you ask. b.
Asking the right questions … affects
what information you gather. c.
The information gathered … affects how
you understand the problem/situation. d.
The way a problem/situation is
understood … affects how you analyze it. e.
How the situation is analyzed …affects
how you develop ideas or solutions. f.
The ideas and solutions that were
developed … affect your actions. g.
Your actions … affect the quality of
your work/life!
At the heart of Facilitated
Thinking Technology is a Thinking Emulation Grid™. With a just-in-time
approach, the grid delivers the right questions to ask, the correct thinking
tools to use, and the proper thinking process to enhance personal or team
thinking performance. The grid works
by guiding thinkers along specific Thinking Processes and Thinking Tasks to
reach Thinking Points. It is at these organizing points where you apply the
thinklets as if the human consultant or expect were working directly with
you. In some respects, this
grid works the way our brain does and functions like Google using key words to find information.
MindSights’ emulation grid uses thinklets
to facilitate finding the right cognitive tools and questions to ask for
better thinking.
1.
Thinking Processes Thinking
Processes are the mental structures or frameworks in which
thinking occurs. Like a human
facilitator, these processes guide thinking by helping people focus on what
is important and prompting them to think through situations more effectively.
Correctly identifying the
right thinking process to use is a critical first step for successful
thinking. Proper identification is vital because different thinking processes are needed
depending on the situation you are trying to address or resolve. MindSights
gird is based the following thirteen basic thinking processes:
Thinking, of
course, generally does not following one process but is a combination of
processes. That is why the grid is designed to use “Thinking Points” that
enable jumping around as needed. Note: Today,
the Creative Solving Problem (CPS) process developed by Alex Osborn in the
1950s is really the only process used. However, using CPS for every thinking
task is like using a sledgehammer for ever hammering task. 2.
Thinking Task Within each Thinking
Process are Thinking Tasks … the basic building blocks of thinking.
Understanding the sequence of thinking tasks within a “thinking process”
significantly influences knowledge worker thinking. In its absence, thinking
is more likely to be haphazard and lead to ineffective results. For example
here are some of the tasks within a four step decision making process. Note:
Your decision may not require using all these tasks, but you need to make a
conscious choice of what tasks you need to use. Step 1:
Determine readiness for making decision 1.1: Clarify
and frame the decision to be made 1.2: Identify
decision makers 1.3: Understand
relevant facts 1.4:
Sufficient solution alternatives Step2: Select
decision strategy and criteria 2.1: Select
decision strategy 2.2: Develop
evaluation criteria Step 3: Pick
decision making tools 3.1:
Statistical decision tools 3.2: Group
decision tools 3.3:
Individual decision tools Step 4: Make
decision and validate correctness 4.1: Choose
best alternative. 4.2: Validate
decision correctness 4.3:
Communicate decision. 3.
Thinking Points Thinking points are the
cross section between “Thinking Processes” and “Thinking Tasks.” These points
are where cognitive tools (thinklets) are applied, just as if the human
teacher or facilitator were working directly with you and providing
intellectual guidance to help you find your own best solution. 4.
Thinklets - Tools for the mind. So what are thinklets?
Thinklets can be viewed as mental triggers or “thought switches” that
activate thinking patterns not commonly used.
These thinklets generally lead to new associations, relationships, and
ultimately new innovative ways of thinking. There are four basic kinds of
thinklets.
5.
Thinking Information & Content From
a knowledge-worker perspective, information can be viewed as the “raw
material” of thinking. For the most part, a direct correlation
exists between data and thinking. Effective thinking occurs only if a person
acquires the right “critical mass” of relevant background data and
information to think upon. Applying good thinking upon bad information
results in ineffective thinking and in poor quality results.
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