Knowing thinking techniques is nice, but putting them into practice is better.
Today I show you how I use the techniques myself using the talk by John Cleese about
creativity in management as an example.
Let’s go.
Hi guys, welcome to Brain-Friendly Thinking.
What I introduced in the last couple of videos are a number of thinking techniques and theory.
But what I really would like to show you is how you can use those techniques in a practical
way.
What I gonna use as an example is a talk by John Cleese of Monty Python fame about creativity
in management.
This should be very interested and I’m really looking forward to this talk.
At the same time I’m walking you through what I’m thinking.
Hopefully that should clarify some confusion and it should give you some inspiration on
what you can do yourself.
Let’s get into it.
What I do first is, I create an ABC-list so that I can activate the knowledge about the
topic that’s already inside me.
That makes it easier for me to later hook on new information, and also to take in the
new information in a more mindful way.
From more than one perspective.
So, how many words have I got?
I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 words.
Which is a…
Yeah, it’s not too bad.
I If it’s really good, I get about 20 – 25 words, but 15 is a, is a normal word count.
It says creativity in management has something to do with innovation, with getting ideas,
but very importantly with priority.
A lot of managers don’t make creativity a priority.
It has to do with planning.
Because if you plan, if you think about what could happen, you you need to be er creative.
You need to train creativity.
A lot of people are not trained in being creative, so… erm…
Then we have Apple and 3M as very creative companies.
Especially 3M at least in the past, I don’t know how it is at the moment, gave the employees
20% where they could work on any project they liked to work on.
Erm, we have lots of limitations, of course, based on everyday business that can get very easily
into the way of creativity.
If you want creativity, a lot of people do brainstorming.
You need the clear task that you want creativity.
Whatever ideas you come up with, you need to follow them up.
Erm…
You need to work on your ideas.
You have to do it repeatedly.
Just doing one brainstorming once, as a lot of people are doing, is not enough.
You have to do it again and again and again for new ideas to show up.
Well this is my general thinking at the moment.
Let’s see what John Cleese has to say about this.
Next I watch the talk by John Cleese and while I’m watching the talk, I create an ABC-active.
If you don’t know what an ABC-active is, I made a complete video about this.
But basically, whenever I hear something that I would like to remember, I write down a keyword
which later serves as an anchor for me to reconstruct the original context of that word.
Good, now that I listened to the talk and I created my ABC-active, I now gonna go through
all the words and I gonna categorise them according to the semantic courtyards, that
means “Which of the words are closest to the essence of the talk?”
I’m going to use three colours for that.
Those words which are closest to the essence of the talk I mark in this purple or violet
or whatever it is.
Then I gonna use orange for the medium ones.
And for those which are very far away, I gonna use a dashed blue line.
And let’s see.
What…
His main points were that there're two modes of thinking.
There’s an open mode.
And there is a closed mode of thinking.
The closed mode And these are really two of the words which are closest to the essence
of the talk.
Without these two words, nothing else makes sense.
Closed mode is efficiency.
It gets the task done.
Open mode is exploration, is playfulness.
Yes, he mentioned five steps.
If you want to get into open mode thinking, if you want to ponder your problems, you need
to create a space, time, and time is twice, time, time, then you have confidence and what
was the last thing?
You must go into the mood.
You must…
Joy.
Joy was the last one.
I remember now.
Now he did mention intelligence.
And he did mention intelligence as He said that intelligence does not factor into creativity.
However it wasn’t very close to the erm essence of his talk, so I just underline it
with blue.
I just wrote it down, so I don’t forget this.
Hmm…
Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm…
Again, the oasis of quiet.
I would I would not put it into the very central category.
Simply because, I think there is more than one way of getting into the open mode of thinking.
Oasis of quiet is one of the possibilities, one that he emphasised, but there are others
as well.
So I think that the oasis of quiet which you should create for yourself is just medium.
So again, you have contemplation.
During the oasis of quiet, when you’re in the open mode, that’s when you’re comtem
contemplate your problems.
I should maybe have written down problems as well, should I add that now?
Hmmm, hmmm…
I don’t…
No, I don’t think so yet.
And curiosity.
I think I think I will put them into the middle category.
They're important definitely, but they’re not as important as exploration and playfulness
for open mode thinking and I don’t want to clutter the innermost categories with too
many words.
And so I go through the ABC-list.
Usually, there is one or a few words which I know that are close to the essence of the
topic, or, conversely, which I know that are very far away from the essence of the
topic.
This is where I start.
And then I jump from word to word, whichever word catches my fancy at the moment, I think
about them, why could it be in one category or the other?
I try to make a judgement, sometimes I defer decisions and come back to this word later,
and while I’m doing that I will repeat part of what I have read or what I have just heard.
Until slowly, but surely, all of the word end in one category or the other.
Next step.
I gonna create a CaWa with the most essential words from the previous step.
Now the first thing that comes to mind is we have close mode thinking.
That can go with C.
We don’t have M for mode or O for open, so I just say, close mode versus open mode
thinking.
What else have I got?
I have playfulness.
And I already wrote down ability to play, I’m not sure whether I want to leave it
like this.
But, what breeds close mode thinking?
It’s anxiety and purposefulness.
I don’t have a P for purposefulness, but I can say anxiety and, ampersand, purposefulness
breed closed mind.
Or something like that.
A, anxiety.
Good.
Really, if I think about it, he talked about five important factors for getting into open
mode.
Ah, I have playfulness, I have exploration.
Then why don’t I say, here, playfulness and
exploration from that we get an open mind.
Good, that’s fine.
So we had the What are the five factors for…
Ah, you have the probability.
Really what you’re doing is, you’re influencing, you influence your probability.
You influence your probability.
And now what are the five…
I’m still at the five factors.
Factors, I don’t have an F for factor or for five.
I don’t have a W for ways.
It’s not really a technique.
It’s a… hmmm…
Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm…
It’s not a creativity factor.
What else can I use for factor?
Contributing factors.
Influencing factors.
Maybe instead of influence factors, I can call them influencing factors.
Yeah, why not, I call them influencing factors.
Influencing.
I’m not super happy with that, but… yeah…
I can’t think of anything at the moment.
And we had, space, time, time, confidence and joy.
Let’s see whether I can create some CaGas which can illustrate some of the points.
I mean, if you think about close mode and open mode, open mode is sort of from where
I’m now I can go in any direction.
This is sort of openness, it’s not necessarily open mode.
But still, it’s ok, I think.
What about close, how can…
What about close mode?
Close mode is a little bit like tunnel vision.
So, close mode would be something like bst everything goes through smoothly.
These are the edges of the tunnel, if you like.
Zack, zack, zack, zack.
Yeah, that’s the close mode and that’s the open mode.
Feedback, however, I can draw.
Because from feedback something goes forward and then it loops back onto itself.
That’s the definition of feedback.
I do something and then I take this into consideration before I do the next thing.
For changing operation mode, what I think about is something like a switchyard?
For trains.
So at this point you have the ability to influence and go either to open mode or to close mode.
However, rails are actually a very good CaGa for closed mode, but definitely not for open
mode.
So…
Hmmm…
Maybe I should do this again.
Maybe instead of drawing it like this, I can draw it So this is your closed mode.
Then you got your switch junction here.
One part continues to go straight.
And that’s when you decide to stay in closed mode.
And the other one goes very wild.
And this is your open mode.
But then you need to bring it back.
And so we have another switch junction here when you bring it back to closed mode.
Or you can decided can decide to stay in closed mode.
Yeah I think this is actually a good CaGa.
So, the last thing that remains to be done is to colour the CaWa in.
Pooh, that was quicker than I thought it would be.
That video got a lot longer than I thought it would be.
But, yes, these are some of the ways in which you can use the techniques which I introduced
in the last couple of videos.
What did you think about this video?
Did you like it?
Did you find it useful?
Let me know in the comments down below whether you would like to see videos like this more
often in the future.
Before you go, don’t forget to check out the other videos and playlists,
and if you haven’t done so already, you might consider subscribing.
And until next time, keep thinking.