Breakthrough thinking:

Learn and create your future

Eng. Gamini Nanda Gunawardana

We take in children to schools as (question marks) and release them to the society as (Full stops). This is what present day conventional education system does. One of the greatest philosophers of our time Henry David Thoreau; said “Our education system makes a straight cut ditch of a free meandering brook.”

Through the conventional education system, we all have been trained to look at our past performance, history records and to extrapolate to the future in order to predict our sales projections, to forecast weather patterns and even to predict countries development indices.

The world is changing fast. New technologies are emerging; cultures are going through drastic changes; natural disasters are becoming more and more unpredictable - which all of us experienced during past few days; world hegemony is being shifted to Asia. With all these rapid changes around the world validity of using past to predict future with a certain degree of certainty is becoming more and more questionable. If future is not a reflection of past predicting future based on past performance is similar to driving a motorcar forward by looking through the rear mirror. We all know what would be the outcome.

Be optimistic

Albert Einstein once said - “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” If so, what is the solution? What is the higher level of thinking that can be used to solve today’s problems?

By now most of you are feeling uncomfortable, confused and may be even depressed. Nothing, wrong with you. When you feel uncomfortable doing something it’s because you are pushing your limits. What comes after that is excellence. Be optimistic. What has gone wrong is the education system we have been trained to think over four centuries. Our education system is based on rational and logical thinking process developed by Rene Descartes in 1596 - 1650 AC. This, predominantly left brain activated rational and logical thinking process undermines the innovation and creativity the right brain can infuse in problem solving.

The Descartes Thinking Paradigm is based on machine theory and fact-centrism. Descartes believed that;

* Everything is divided into elements
* The elements can be replaced
* The partial can solve the whole and
* The sum of parts is the whole

Analytical approach

Although above assumptions are true for a machine world; are those assumptions hold good in an Organic World. Certainly still human beings are not robots. Hence the progress of human beings is hindered by the limitations on Analytical Thinking Process. Generally using the analytical approach for finding solutions, we may visit an advanced country and try to learn from their past and present successful cases there. This is dangerous. Why?

* While we are analyzing and/or studying the present situation, our competitors will advance more. We may not be able to catch up with them and always will be a follower.

* We may try to introduce the learning from a foreign country here totally disregarding the differences such as cultures, people, situation and objectives in a developing country while reducing the effectiveness of the solution and losing our creative thinking power.

* With the technological developments taking place in the 21st Century we are facing drastic changes in every sphere of activities. Hence projecting future based on past using the conventional problem solving method may not be effective and accurate.

Ideal future solution

If Sri Lanka is to emerge as a developed nation, it is essential to get away from conventional analytical thinking process and concentrate on developing breakthrough products and services.

Approach to facilitate creativity, innovation and to look at things from a different perspective is called ‘Design Approach’ or paradigm shift to Breakthrough Thinking. Breakthrough Thinking is based on “Learning from the ideal future solution and Designing an ideal future solution”. Breakthrough Thinking can help to bypass the advanced countries and companies, because this approach does not copy or import the successful cases and it is a substance-based-thinking. Breakthrough Thinking is based on the epistemology of system view, which means organic view, purpose orientation and interdependent holistic view, completely different from the conventional Descartes Thinking paradigm.

Defining the purposes or the substance of working on a problem ensures that you will apply your efforts in areas where you can have the greatest impact. Thinking about the purposes for working on a problem prevents wasted effort. This approach guarantees that you are not going to be working on something that will not meet your needs. Further, finding the right purpose greatly increases your chances of discovering a breakthrough or an innovative solution. Finding the right purpose to work on involves thinking about purposes at different levels. For any problem there can be many purposes of solution.

Missing bicycle key

Let’s consider a small problem: finding a missing bicycle key.

You buy a new, expensive bicycle. Since you have had the experience of having a bicycle stolen, you purchase a chain lock for securing the cycle while it is unattended. But a problem arises because you have not made a habit of carrying the key with you and sometimes you misplace it. We will take this as the problem and keep on expanding to bigger purposes to see what would be the outcome.

Purpose or substance expansion can go on as follows;

* Locate the missing bicycle key - for what
* To have access to the bicycle - for what
*To have transport - for what
* To go to school

So as you can see once we expand the purposes the problem domain change from locating a missing bicycle key to a feasible method of transport to school. If the problem is not to lose the bicycle key the solution could be a self-locking combination key as shown in Figure I. - A breakthrough product.

Where as a viable alternative among other feasible solutions such as school bus, car, cycle motorbike etc. could be skateboard, Figure II - A breakthrough idea. Generally 5 - 8 percent of people are born with creativity. Another 5 - 8 percent does not have any creativity - they are robots disguised as human beings. For them left brain has nothing right - because everything is logic and rationality and Right brain has nothing left - because it is technically dead no feelings, creativity or emotions.

The most incorrigible set of accountants, lawyers, engineers, doctors, bureaucrats, management consultants fall into this category. Creativity and innovation can be rekindled in the majority of 85 - 90 percent. Break through thinking is the approach.

It based on seven universal principles - Figure III. Principle 1: Uniqueness The most successful problem solvers do not begin by trying to find out what has worked for someone else. We can’t clone others’ successes. Copying what others have done doesn’t necessarily produce the same results for us.

Principle 2: Purpose

Make sure you are working on the right problem. Ask, “What are we trying to accomplish?” And, “What is the purpose of accomplishing that?” and “What is the purpose of that?” Focusing on purposes lets the uniqueness of the situation become clear and helps to strip away nonessential aspects to avoid working on just the visible problem.

Principle 3: Solution-After-Next

We must look beyond the immediate situation and its solution, to the solution we would use the next time we had to address it. Work backwards from an ideal future solution for achieving needed purposes, not forward from today’s situation or problem. Having a target solution in the future gives direction to near-term solutions and infuses them with larger purposes.

Principle 4: Systems

Most of what we have to cope with in problem solving is unseen. The systems understanding of our solution serves as sonar and radar, designed to illuminate the seven-eighths (similar to an iceberg) of all solution ideas and recommendations that otherwise might be overlooked. Every solution or system is part of a larger system and solving one problem inevitably leads to another.

Principle 5: Limited information collection

Don’t become an expert about the problem. Become an expert on solutions. Before taking the time and wasting the effort to collect and analyze extensive data, determine what purposes would be achieved by gathering that data. Data is only a representation of the real world.

Principle 6: Involving people or people design

Individuals are the core to a solution’s success. Their concerns and ideas must be treated as the fabric of excellent problem solving. Breakthrough Thinking starts and sustains the entire process with this principle. Changing the thinking process changes the ‘feelings’ of people.

Principle 7: Betterment Timeline

No matter how effectively you create a new process or system, or improve the present one it will never be good enough to meet the needs of various customers in the future. What happens is a kind of invisible, slowly creeping process rotting.

Processes that once worked extremely well will be required to meet additional purposes and requirements over time.

New technology will render certain processes obsolete. People and environments will change.

Seven principles discussed above are universal and that can be applied to any situation in your life. If Sri Lanka to progress we should promote and facilitate creativity and innovation. With that creativity we will be able to fulfill our ambitions and flourish as human beings.

Think Smarter, not harder.

The writer is a Management and IC T Consultant, Corporate Trainer, SAGA Resource Development Consultants Ltd Managing Director

[email protected]