Apples or Pears, Elevators or Stairs

The Ying and Yang balance of reason and intuition, explored with neuroscience and

psychology

AnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndCreativity!!!

From RSA AnimateIain McGilchrist

Apples and Pears, Elevators or StairsExercising Judgement

for Leadership and Innovation

Next Step Associates

Understanding how Decisions are made

Thinking about ThinkingIn context

Slide 3 of 28

Some basic background

Thinking happens to you, in you, but only for a tiny bit of it are you in control

Most of the events are beyond your attention

The events are like traffic in Paris in the rush hour, lots of accidents happen

The events are the judgements which create decisions

Decisions are events in your head which you watch, if you are paying attention

Not Paris

Apples or Pears

Reason says.........................

But the focus on reasoning meant....

Fortunately

Even though the traffic always has final control of events

But you have may some influence on the traffic, the flow and strength of the judgements

All events are judgementshappening in your mind

Corpus Callosum

Types of thinking

Creative: Synectics, TRIZ, Lateral Thinking, etc etc etc etc etc

Intuition: Prone to whims but good in a crisis

Reasoning: The Cheap Calculator added on to the brain to rectify errors - focus

Focus

Mindfulness

I think Mindfulness might be trying to develop these 3 types of thinking BUT:

It's very easy for people pushing the fun/feeling part and not developing the other bits

Types of thinking

Creative: Synectics, TRIZ, Lateral Thinking, etc etc etc etc etc

Intuition: Prone to whims but good in a crisis

Reasoning: The Cheap Calculator added on to the brain to rectify errors - focus

Types of thinking 2

Creative: The What if? Thinking, - including What if not?

Reasoning: What does what where and why/how?Intuition:

Why? What valueWhat goalWhat aspirationWhat level is the end solution and through all

the parts to it?

Right and left brain

Level of thinking

Synecticsone approach to try

Now SynecticsWorld.com, the company started early 1960s, Boston USA

Creativity tools – e.g. President's Idea

Evaluation tools, e.g. NAF rating

The NAF process

You take a whole bunch on ideas

You get people to privately rate them out of 10 for Novelty, Appeal and Feasibility

People altogether mark up what they have written

The NAF processwhy it works so well

The reasoning brain wants Feasibility to be high, but Synectics fans know they don't care about this score

What you want is Novelty to be 10/10, this is where the passion lies

With passion you might be able to solve any problem

The NAF process

Appeal? You train people to find appeal in Novelty, gently!

What the process is doing is disrupting the normal Judgement/Evaluation process

So new ideas can win through

Slide 15 of 28

And Now:Types of Context

Complexity – especially look at Thomas Jordan, Skillful Engagement with Wicked Issues

Competitive vs Collaborative

Risk, catalytic or progressive

Project Stage, - Early – middle – late - completion

What does not work

Intuition is poor when motivational bias is unstable, e.g. Love, Death, Ego driven, Id driven

Reasoning is poor when complexity is high and decisions are risky and urgent (ie project stage is near completion) or catalytic

(project stage might be at collapse)

Creativity is poor when projects are urgent or close to completion

What works

Practise! Checking reason with intuition, and

creativity Checking creativity with reason and

intuition Etc Checking reason with reason, and …. Checking intuition with intuition and …. Adding creativity to creativity, IFF!

Summary

Understand what you can and can't do in your head

Summary

Review Context in relation to the traffic management of thinking

Summary

Engage thinking processes using necessary checks with one thinking system against another

Summary

To see the traffic flows, you need to be at the 'necessary distance'

Summary

To see the traffic flows, you need to be at the 'necessary distance'

Summary

To see the traffic flows, you need to be at the 'necessary distance'

Slide 26 of 28

And Smile

It works

Just 3 of my Books

How to Invent (Almost) AnythingTRIZ, Synectics and Psychology

Judgement Day Discussions about how the brain works

How to advise the President Judgement, Thinking, Context and Decision

Making

Search on Amazon for 'Graham Rawlinson'

Additional notes

For more reflective thinking these notes have been added

Slide 29 of 51

Consider Context

But Managing traffic lights and roundabouts

and overpasses and subways and.... takes up a lot of time

Consider Context 2

Reviewing and checking context is a time saver If and Only If:

If you check context using creative and intuitive thinking, and reasoning

Is the balance right?

Consider Context 3

The more you understand and practise using context to decide on how you manage the thought traffic the better you get at doing it

Don't forget to leave your arrogance on the table at home

Will power

The traffic moves through Paris on its own energy, but you use energy managing the Traffic Systems

Is back in Fashion:Baumeister & Turney 2011 Willpower,

Penguin Books

Will Power 2

When the batteries run down traffic lights all stay red or all stay green or all keep switching or all switch off

And, the express way lane management is a free for all

Will Power 3

Recharging batteries, glucose is good!

The more you use the batteries the more they store

Drain all power and recovery takes much longer

Will Power 4 Reasoning is a cheap calculator and uses

lots of power

Bias created when power drops as rote memory not affected, so machine reverts to economy mode

Compromised 'compromised' by low power

Irrational decisions, including postponement are energy saving devices the system uses

Judgement and Decision Making

The Judgements are being created by the traffic flow around the neurons in your head

You can manage some of the flow

You can stop all traffic for a while

You can let some traffic through as priority

Judgement and Decision Making 2

The Decision Making you can do is the management of the judgement process

The Decision Making you can't do is the creation of outcomes, that is done by the traffic, the judgements as events created by the movement of the traffic

Types of Context

Complexity

Competitive vs Collaborative

Risk, catalytic or progressive

Project Stage, Early, middle, late, completion

Types of thinking

Creative

Intuitive

Reasoning

Remembering that there are 3 types is a decision you can take!

Example 1 CrimeComplex, collaborative, progressive, low risk

(mostly) Need: 1. Multiplicity thinking, good guys are also bad

guys and vice versa, often, not all minds play out.

2. Abandonment of reason, crime is not a reasoned act, mostly, and almost never simple.

3. To ‘Walk in the shoes of the criminal’, metaphorically.

4. Use toolkits to map the multilevel and multi-mind nature of crime.

Right minded thinking!

Employment

Low risk/slow change, collaborative, complex Need: 1. Emphasis on creative and intuitive, take

time to get it right. 2. Keep asking with personal interest: ‘Are

things getting done?’ ‘Who is deciding if they are the right things?’

3. As change is slow, working on Eco Mind Sets is where long term progress will be made.

4. Unknowns become knowns ‘after the fact.’ Learning is by exploration into new territory.

Summary

Understand what you can and can't do in your head

Summary

Review Context in relation to the traffic management of thinking

Summary

Engage thinking processes using necessary checks with one thinking system against another

Summary

To see the traffic flows, you need to be at the 'necessary distance'

Summary

Always remember, it is the thinking traffic that creates the outcomes

- you only nudge the control mechanisms

And Smile

It works

Just 3 of my Books

How to Invent (Almost) AnythingTRIZ, Synectics and Psychology

Judgement Day Discussions about how the brain works

How to advise the President Judgement, Thinking, Context and Decision

Making

Search on Amazon for 'Graham Rawlinson'