The world of the 21st century is connected, complicated and ever faster changing. This has
important implications for how we should approach our work and for the skill we need to succeed.
Hi guys and welcome back to Brain-friendly Thinking. I’m stating the obvious when I
say that our world has become more and more interconnected in recent decades.
We’re now transferring a vast amount of data internationally,
have highly globalised supply chains and, if we’re not in a pandemic, the number of people
who travel for business or leisure purposes is huge. This high degree of interconnectedness
has two main consequences. Firstly, our world becomes a so called small world network.
Usually when we think about an event and its impact, we think about it like an explosion.
Close to where the explosion occurs it is strongest, and this is where the crater forms.
As you get further and further away from that point, the impact of the implosion
decreases. If you want a larger impact radius, you need to use more explosives. In a small
world network on the other hand, the impact of an event can reach both elements that are
close to where the event occurs and elements that are far away from that in roughly the same time
and the impact does not necessarily decrease, just because you’re at an element that is far
away from where the event occurred. Take COVID-19, for instance, we’re all very strongly affected
by that. No matter where in the world we are. The second consequence of a higher connection density
is that the number of feedback loops increase. A feedback loop means that one element affects
another element which affects another element which affects another element and so on, until at
some point there is an element that again affects the first element in the chain. And there’re two
types of feedback loops: positive feedback and negative feedback. Positive feedback means that
if any of the elements of the loop starts to change in one direction, the loop acts to
reinforce that change. So it will get further and further away from the equilibrium point
where it was originally situated. Social media is a great example for a positive feedback loop.
The more people there are on a social media platform, the more sense it makes for other
people who are not yet on that platform to sign up. And because more and more people sign up,
there are more people on the platform, which means that the incentives for those which have not
joined yet is even larger than before. And this is why social media had such an incredible success
over such a short amount of time. In a negative feedback loop, the elements are connected in such
a way that if any of the elements starts to change from the baseline where it was before, the loop
will act in such a way as to bring it back to this baseline. This is also known as a control loop.
A negative feedback loop is anything that tries to counteract a development. This can range from
behaviour changes such as social distancing in order to counteract the increase in number of
COVID-19 cases and policy changes, all the way to racism and terrorism and anything in between.
Now the thing is that in highly interconnected networks, both small world network and feedback
loops are interacting with one another. Any event that occurs will ripple through the network
and, as a result, will feed into countless positive and negative feedback loops.
Thereby strengthening or weakening them. This then changes the state of other elements of the system,
which will create new events which also ripple through the system and feed into positive and
negative feedback loops. And so the whole system is continuously in motion. All of
those feedback loops are constantly interfering with one another and influencing one another.
And that makes for a highly unstable system. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing in itself.
Our bodies are highly unstable which allows us to adapt to new situations,
but at the same time they’re just stable enough so that we don’t start falling apart.
But this has consequences. Why? Because we have goals, dreams, wishes. Each of us has a desired
state of the world. And we’re constantly working towards reaching that state. However, because
we’re living in such a dynamic network, there’re so many influences which constantly affect the
real state of the world. And they are constantly pushing the state into one direction or another.
And usually not into the direction that is aligned with our goals. And that means we have a problem.
Because our desired state is not aligned with the actual state and there’s no simple way to
bring them back into alignment. So that means that we either have to work more to change the actual
state to get it closer to the desired state. Or we need to work to change our goals and dreams, so
that what we desire is closer to what we actually get. In any case, it will require adaptation,
learning and problem solving. Now what do we do when we encounter a problem?
We could approach it with excitement, because it provides us with an opportunity to learn.
But usually, we rather see it as a distraction. As something that disturbs our usual flow of things.
And we don’t like that. Most of us are spending our days doing routine work.
Work that’s very close to work we’ve done in the past and that is well within our comfort zone.
And we like it that way. Actually, we want to get even better at this. Splitting the work into
smaller and smaller compartments, getting more and more efficient at what we’re doing, but basically
repeating the same over and over again. So most of us react with all the maturity of a
three-year old. What we want to do is not really to solve the problem. We want to push it away,
so that we can continue with our normal way of doing things. We’re looking for a quick-fix.
Just anything that gets the problems out of our mind. But if we have a problem,
the definition of the problem is that there is no simple way of aligning desired and actual state.
We need to think. We need to come up with new ideas. We need to implement things we haven’t
tried before in the past. However, the more we think in a routine way, the more efficient we get
in thinking in that way, the easier it becomes for us, but the harder it gets to think in a new way.
So that’s not an ideal situation. It was ok in the past when life was much more stable.
At that time it was completely ok that there were only a small number of very original thinkers
who went ahead and paved the way and then everybody else could follow. But we’re no longer
living in this world. We’re now transforming our world more and more into one that is constantly
changing. And right now it doesn’t seem to be the case that we have already understood
that, in this new world, we need to learn, we need to adapt, we need to create much more than before.
What can we actually do? Well, let’s have a look what people are doing that are very creative and
good at problem solving. Take Bach, for instance. Bach was a composer that was
enormously productive. He created approximately 1100 composition over his lifetime. And
at the same time he was highly creative. He didn’t just try to crank out one piece of music after
the other and try to get more and more efficient. Instead he was exploring the music he was writing.
Many of his compositions are conscious explorations. Any type of music has inherent
rules. And these rules allow certain combinations, but exclude others. So, in a way these rules set
up a space of solutions. And anything that is considered baroque music needs to fall within
this space. Many of Bach’s compositions were consciously intended to explore this space.
For instance, Bach composed 24 preludes and fugues. One each in each major and minor scale.
He wrote many pieces of music that took an instrument and used it to the full
of its capacity. Again trying to explore: “Where are the limits? How far can I go?”
And as he was writing these compositions, he would get ideas for new compositions,
other things which he could try out. He also studied the work of other composers,
both people who had come before him as well as his contemporaries. And studying these would
give him further ideas what he could try. And so one composition led to the next and to the next.
And this was the reason why he had such an enormous productive output. And not
only was he highly productive and creative, but moreover, that also made him much better
at improvising. There is a story when Bach visited the court of Frederick the Second of Prussia.
The king played a small melody for him on the piano forte and challenged Bach to improvise
a fugue on that. Bach complied and on the fly he created a beautiful three-part fugue.
Why? Because he had explored the space so much. He had so much experience. He knew
what sounds good and what doesn’t sound good. And so it was much easier for him to get an idea of
what he might try and how he might combine different parts into one overall structure.
Of course, not everybody is as productive as Bach and not all of us need to be.
But we can still extract core principles. Because we can find the same principles in different form
applied in many of the great thinkers. Everywhere. Scientists, artists, product developers. And this
principle is: rather than to wait for the problems to come to you and then search for solutions,
rather than letting the next product sneak up on you and then searching for product ideas,
we should go out proactively. We should select a focus topic and we should make it our mission
to go out and to actively explore this topic.
Actively search for opportunities. And then develop solutions or ideas
that incorporate these opportunities. And while doing that, try to see more opportunities.
At the beginning, that is really, really hard. Again, because we’re usually thinking in
our routine tasks. The reason is that whenever we create something, an experiment,
a product, an artwork, we need to make decisions. And any decisions we make means
that we incorporate certain possibilities and leave out other possibilities. But usually we
are in our routine work mode. And that means we don’t even realise the decisions we make.
We are not aware that we could make different decisions.
Just being able to see this already requires a lot of thinking. A lot of creativity and problem
solving skills. So that means we need to proceed in iterations. Every iteration we try to implement
something else, some other idea, try to make another decision. But once start looking actively
for them, once we’re starting on an iterative approach, where once we have finished one work
product, we start the next work product with the intention of implementing another opportunity…
when we get onto this path… and we’re looking at other work products from other people in our
field, we see what they’ve done, what is still open, where are the problems,
slowly but surely we’ll start to see these decisions. We start to see these opportunities.
And then we can go and we can utilise them. This is when we get really creative. This
is when we get really good at problem solving. Because rather than making the same decisions
over and over again without knowing, we can make our decision consciously.
Especially in a world which is highly dynamic, which constantly changes, where we need to adapt,
this will give us the edge to do so quickly. To be able to improvise. Using thinking tools can
help us on our quest. But only, if we use them right. Tools are a means to an end.
Whether we get to this end depends on how we use the tools.
If you want to find out how I use this mind-set to help me create better video ideas,
you can watch the video right here. If you want to find out more about potential thinking tools
that can help you along the way, you can click the playlist right here. Otherwise,
if you found the video useful, please don’t forget to give the like-button a high five.
Consider subscribing if you haven’t already. And until next time: keep thinking!