John Adair's 100 Greatest Ideas for Smart Decision Making E-Book

John Adair

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 192

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

John Adair’s 100 Greatest Ideas for Smart Decision Making is a one-stop of practical advice and tips on problem solving and productive thinking from one of the world’s best-known and most sought after authorities on leadership and management. Inside you will find:

• 11 Greatest Ideas for Practical Wisdom
• 8 Greatest Ideas for Problem Solving Strategies
• 13 Greatest Ideas for How Your Mind Works
• 8 Greatest Ideas for Clear Thinking
• 13 Greatest Ideas for Productive Thinking

…and 47 other fantastic ideas, tips and tricks that will give you the confidence, answers, and inspiration you need to succeed.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

100 Greatest Ideas . . . in an instant!

Title page

Copyright page

Author’s Note

Preface

PART ONE: Effective thinking skills

Thirteen greatest ideas on how your mind works

Idea 1: Inside your head

Idea 2: The mind at work

Idea 3: Your depth mind

Idea 4: What the depth mind can do

Idea 5: Become aware of your depth mind

Using your depth mind in sleep

Idea 6: Checklist – Listening to your depth mind

Idea 7: Learning to trust your intuition

Idea 8: How intuitive are you?

Idea 9: Intuition at work

Idea 10: Conscience

Idea 11: The whole person thinks

Idea 12: Valuing

Idea 13: Know your mind

Eight greatest ideas for clear thinking

Idea 14: Analytical ability

Idea 15: Hallmarks of a good analytical mind

Idea 16: How to achieve clarity

Idea 17: The power to simplify

Idea 18: Asking the right questions

Idea 19: The untrapped mind

Idea 20: The skill of clear thinking

Idea 21: Think for yourself

Five greatest ideas for truth

Idea 22: The love of truth

Idea 23: A rock for decision makers

Idea 24: Integrity

Idea 25: The principle of falsification

Idea 26: ‘As if’ thinking

Follow-up test

Effective thinking skills

Clear thinking

Truth

PART TWO: Decision-making strategies

Twenty-two greatest ideas for decision making

Idea 27: Decisiveness

Idea 28: Five steps in making a decision

Idea 29: Thinking clearly about objectives

Descending

Upwards

Idea 30: What is information?

Idea 31: The time/information curve

Idea 32: Factor analysis

Idea 33: Develop options

Idea 34: Why consultation matters

Idea 35: Avoid an either/or mindset

Idea 36: Using the lobster pot model

Idea 37: Checklist – Options

Idea 38: Probing the consequences

Idea 39: The committee of sleep

Idea 40: Assessing risk

Idea 41: Consider your options

Idea 42: The point of no return

Idea 43: Practice makes perfect

Idea 44: Depth minds at work

Idea 45: Five ways to improve your decisions

Idea 46: Integrity in business decisions

Idea 47: The do nothing option

Idea 48: Banish the fear of mistakes

Nine Greatest Ideas for Sharing Decisions

Idea 49: Your role as leader

Idea 50: Task, team and individual

Task need

Team maintenance need

Individual needs

Idea 51: The three circles interact

Idea 52: Eight functions of leadership

Idea 53: The decision-making continuum

Idea 54: The goal of consensus

Idea 55: How to achieve consensus

Idea 56: Checklist – Sharing decisions

Idea 57: The wisdom of groups

Follow-up test

Decision-making strategies

Sharing decisions

PART THREE: How to solve problems

Eight greatest ideas for problem-solving strategies

Idea 58: How solutions differ from decisions

Idea 59: A unisex model

Idea 60: Six steps for problem solvers

Idea 61: Checklist – Problem solving

Idea 62: Reflecting on problems

Idea 63: How to tackle systems problems

Define the deviation

Identify the cause or causes

Idea 64: Spot your problems early

Idea 65: Face the cannons

Follow-up test

Problem-solving strategies

PART FOUR: Generating ideas

Thirteen greatest ideas for productive thinking

Idea 66: Creativity

Idea 67: Dots and matchsticks

Idea 68: Always test your assumptions

Conscious assumptions

Unconscious assumptions

Idea 69: Avoid negative critics

Idea 70: Holistic thinking

Idea 71: The holistic mind at work

Systems as holistic concepts

Idea 72: Ideas grow like plants

Idea 73: Imaginative thinking

Idea 74: Imaginative abilities of the mind

Idea 75: Exercise your imagination

Idea 76: Imagination in action

Idea 77: Imagination in perspective

Idea 78: Checklist – How imaginative are you?

Eleven greatest ideas for useful originality

Idea 79: Quantity or quality?

Idea 80: The creative thinking process

Idea 81: Creativity in action – Thomas Edison

Idea 82: Widen your span of relevance

Idea 83: Make fuller use of your depth mind

Idea 84: Write down ideas

Idea 85: How to improve your creativity

Idea 86: Suspend judgement

Idea 87: How to lead a brainstorming session

Idea 88: Ten questions for entrepreneurs

Idea 89: How to encourage innovation

Follow-up test

Productive thinking

Useful originality

PART FIVE: Practical wisdom

Eleven Greatest Ideas for Practical Wisdom

Idea 90: Time to think

Idea 91: Reflective thinking

Idea 92: Ten principles of time management

Idea 93: Intellectual humility

Idea 94: Foresight

Idea 95: Calm judgement

Idea 96: Learning from experience

Idea 97: People decisions

The role of the depth mind

Idea 98: Judgement

Idea 99: Three elements of practical wisdom

Intelligence

Experience

Goodness

Idea 100: Your path to practical wisdom

Follow-up test

Practical wisdom

Appendix: Solutions

Idea 1: Who owns the zebra?

Idea 67: The nine dots and the six matches

Idea 82: Inventions and developments

About John Adair

Index

100 Greatest Ideas … in an instant!

Whether you’re a first time manager or an experienced leader, running a small team or an entire organization, straightforward, practical advice is hard to find.

John Adair’s 100 Greatest Ideas … are the building blocks for an amazing career, putting essential business skills and must-have thinking at your fingertips.

The ideas are short, punchy and clustered around themes, so you’ll find answers to all your questions quickly and easily. Everything you need to be simply brilliant is here, and it’s yours in an instant.

Look out for these at-a-glance features:

Personal Mantra –

Powerful statements as a source for inspiration

Ask Yourself –

Questions to get you thinking about the most information

Remind Yourself –

Key points to help you reflect on the Ideas

Checklist –

A list of questions to help you put the Ideas into practice

100 Greatest Ideas … 6 Great Books

John Adair’s 100 Greatest Ideas for Effective Leadership

John Adair’s 100 Greatest Ideas for Personal Success

John Adair’s 100 Greatest Ideas for Brilliant Communication

John Adair’s 100 Greatest Ideas for Smart Decision Making

John Adair’s 100 Greatest Ideas for Amazing Creativity

John Adair’s 100 Greatest Ideas for Being a Brilliant Manager

This edition first published 2011

© 2011 John Adair

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Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

9780857081759 (paperback), ISBN 9780857082220 (epub),

ISBN 9780857082237 (emobi), ISBN 9780857082169 (ebook)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Author’s Note

Effective business people have fine-tuned leadership and management ability backed up by exceptional decision-making, communication and creative skills and the know-how to implement it all successfully. These six areas are the basis of the 100 Greatest series.

None of these skills stands alone, each is interconnected, and for that reason I’ve revisited key ideas across the series. If you read more than one book, as I hope you will, you’ll meet key ideas more than once. These are the framework on which the series hang and the repetition will help you become a master of modern business.

Likewise, if you only read one book, the inclusion of key ideas from across the series means that you’ll benefit from seeing your chosen subject within the wider context of Leadership and Management excellence.

Good luck on your journey to becoming an effective manager within your organization.

John Adair

Preface

Success in any field depends on your ability to make the right decisions all the time. None of us get it right all the time, but this book will help you to learn valuable lessons from your own mistakes and – what is much less costly – the mistakes of others.

The basic unit of the book is the Idea. These Ideas are clustered together under themes and divided into five Parts.

As you will see, an Idea varies considerably from covering just one simple big thought to being a ‘cluster bomb’ of smaller ideas for improving the related activities of decision making, problem solving and creative thinking.

The Ideas are all independent of each other, like prose poems. So this isn’t the kind of book that you have to start at the beginning and read through until you come to the end. Find an Idea that looks interesting and then work your way out from there.

Think of the Ideas as a hundred oysters, collected in a basket for you from the floor of the world’s ocean. Now it is all up to you. To coin a proverb, God gives you the oysters, but you have to find the pearls. Good luck!

John Adair

PART ONE: Effective thinking skills

The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgement should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge.

Albert Einstein, German physicist

Behind your practical, everyday thinking there lies the most complex thing in the known universe: the human mind. Nobody hires and pays you nowadays for your physical strength. You are employed because you have a mind – and can use it effectively.

There are three forms of applied thinking that we all need: decision making, problem solving and creative thinking. These overlap considerably but they can be distinguished from one another:

1. Decision making is about deciding what action to take, which usually involves choosing between different options.

2. The objective of problem solving is usually to find a solution, answer or conclusion.

3. The outcome of creative thinking, by contrast, is new ideas.

Any leader who aspires to excellence obviously has a vested interest in seeing that the best decisions are taken, that problems are solved in the optimum way and that the creative ideas and innovations so necessary for tomorrow’s business flow freely.

As Roy Thompson, a great business entrepreneur, once said, ‘If I have any advice to pass on, as a successful man, it is this: if one wants to be successful, one must think; one must think until it hurts.’ He added, ‘From my close observation, I can say that there are few people indeed who are prepared to perform this arduous and tiring work.’ Are you one of them?

Thirteen Greatest Ideas on How Your Mind Works

Idea 1: Inside your head

Every head is a world.

Cuban proverb

The physical base of your mind is of course your brain, the grey matter housed in your head. Your brain is composed of about 10,000 million cells. In fact, it has more cells than there are people on the face of the earth! Each one of those cells can link up with approximately 10,000 of its neighbours, which gives you some 1 plus 800 noughts of possible combinations.

Amazing, isn’t it? But there is more:

At any one moment your brain is receiving about 100 million pieces of information through the ears, eyes, nose, tongue and touch receptors in the skin.It consumes about 10 watts of power per day. If scientists tried to build a brain of silicon chips, they think it would need around 1 million times more power than the human brain.If you were to stretch out all the nerve connections in our brain, they would reach a distance of about 3.2 million kilometres.

Before we go any further, I would like to double check that your brain is fully switched on. See if you can solve both parts of the following problem within 30 minutes – the world record is 9 minutes.

Who owns the zebra?

1 There are five houses, each with a front door of a different colour, and inhabited by people of different nationalities, with different pets and drinks. Each person eats a different kind of food.

2 The Australian lives in the house with the red door.

3 The Italian owns the dog.

4 Coffee is drunk in the house with the green door.

5 The Ukrainian drinks tea.

6 The house with the green door is immediately to the right (your right) of the house with the ivory door.

7 The mushroom-eater owns snails.

8 Apples are eaten in the house with the yellow door.

9 Milk is drunk in the middle house.

10 The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left.

11 The person who eats onions lives in the house next to the person with the fox.

12 Apples are eaten in the house next to the house where the horse is kept.

13 The cake-eater drinks orange juice.

14 The Japanese eats bananas.

15 The Norwegian lives next to the house with the blue door.

Now, who drinks water and who owns the zebra?

Time’s up. How have you got on? Now turn to the Appendix, where I talk you through the best way of solving this problem.

‘The more difficult a problem becomes, the more interest­ing it is.’

Idea 2: The mind at work

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Chinese proverb

When you are thinking to some purpose there are three principal mental functions at work:

Analyzing – resolving wholes into their constituent parts

Synthesizing – building wholes out of their different elements

Valuing – judging or appraising on scales of relative worth

These activities take place on various levels of the mind. Sometimes they submerge like a submarine into the depth mind (the unconscious) and resurface later on.

We think as whole persons, not as disembodied minds. Therefore emotion or feeling is ever present, waiting in the wings. It plays a positive or negative role in the drama of thought.

Idea 3: Your depth mind

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us.

English proverb

The phrase ‘the unconscious mind’ is very familiar. Following popular expositions of the theory of Sigmund Freud, who did more than anyone else in modern times to put the unconscious mind on the map, we tend to think of the unconscious as a kind of dustbin for our early personal frustrations. Into it drops all our mental rubbish: the bruised egos, the damaged wishes, the broken loves, the resentments, fears, hatreds and rages of our childhood.

We then force down the lid on these suppressed feelings. But they erupt again in our dreams and in various forms of behaviour, such as the celebrated ‘Freudian slips’. We have to remember, however, that Freud based his conclusions on his study of mentally ill patients.

To counter this rather negative image of the unconscious, later Freudian psychologists felt it necessary to coin yet another word: the preconscious. This stands for the realm where helpful subliminal thinking takes place, and is roughly equivalent to my own term, the depth mind.

The metaphor of depth here is drawn from the analogy of the sea. The conscious mind is like the surface; the subconscious is the depth of a few fathoms where the light penetrates; while the unconscious is the deeper recesses into which we cannot see.

Case study: C. S. Forester

As a novelist C.S. Forester is perhaps best known for his sequence of stories about Horatio Hornblower, a British naval officer in the era of the Napoleonic wars. In this extract from an autobiographical account of his early years, the author reflects on creation and the part played in creation by the unconscious or depth mind:

In my own case it happens that, generally speaking, the initial stimulus is recognized for what it is. The casual phrase dropped by a friend in conversation, the paragraph in a book, the incident observed by the roadside, has some special quality, and is accorded a special welcome. But, having been welcomed, it is forgotten or at least ignored. It sinks into the horrid depths of my subconscious like a waterlogged timber into the slime at the bottom of a harbour, where it lies alongside others which have preceded it.

Then, periodically – but by no means systematically – it is hauled up for examination along with its fellows, and, sooner or later, some timber is found with barnacles growing on it. Some morning when I am shaving, some evening when I am wondering whether my dinner calls for white wine or red, the original immature idea reappears in my mind, and it has grown.

Long Before Forty (Michael Joseph, 1967)

Far from being a marginal and outdated quality, intuition is central to the way successful thinkers work.

Therefore encourage intuition in yourself. Become more aware of it. Be more receptive to its often faint whisper. Always subject it to evaluation, however. Granted that safeguard, intuition can save you a great deal of time in decision making.

Idea 4: What the depth mind can do

While the fisher sleeps the net takes the fish.

Ancient Greek proverb

The functions of the conscious mind – analyzing, synthesizing and valuing – can also take place on a deeper level. Your depth mind can dissect for you, just as your stomach juices can break down food into its elements.

The depth mind, for example, is capable of analyzing data that you may not have known you had taken in, and comparing it with what is filed away in your memory bank.

The depth mind is capable of more than analysis. It is also close to the seat of your memory and the repository of your values. It is also a workshop where creative synthesis can be made by an invisible hand.

An organic analogy for its function is the womb, where after conception a baby is formed and grows from living matter.

You may also have experienced the value of thinking of the depth mind’s neighbour that we call conscience in the form of feelings of guilt or even remorse. Conscience is useful, because its red light may tell you that your decision making has led to a wrong move.

Intuition is the power or faculty of immediately apprehending that something is the case. It seems to occur without any conscious reasoning. And there is plenty of evidence that effective decision makers do listen to their intuition.

At its best, intuition works because more information is going into your mind through your senses than your faculties at their conscious level can process. So your depth mind does some informal analyzing, synthesizing and valuing, and an intuition that occurs in the conscious mind is one of its products.

If an intuition comes to you after a longish period of time it is likely to be more reliable; if it comes very early in the story, take your time in checking it out.

There is a dark

Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles

Discordant elements, makes them cling together

In one society.

William Wordsworth

Idea 5: Become aware of your depth mind

Unconscious thought, there is the only method: macerate your subject, let it boil slow, then take the lid off and look in – and there your stuff is, good or bad.

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island

The first step to making productive use of your depth mind is becoming more aware of its powers.

One of the daily wonders of the mind, for example, is how we can recall things so swiftly on demand. If you are asked a fact, such as someone’s name, you may often say (if you are like me), ‘Give me a minute or two and I’ll remember it.’ A few minutes later the name pops into your conscious mind. Amazing.

Memory as our private data bank plays a central part in our thinking, but is not the only contribution of the depth mind to effective mental activity. The most interesting manifestation of the depth mind is to be found in all forms of human creativity.

No one knows quite how the depth mind goes about its work. We do know, however, that it is capable of carrying out all the principal functions of the mind – analyzing, synthesizing and valuing – on a subliminal level, and then ‘announcing its findings’ to the conscious mind.

The depth mind can both supply you with the seed of an idea and carry out an often intricate process of synthesis for you over a period of time. Both contributions are present in this passage by Lewis Carroll:

I was walking on a hillside, alone, one bright summer day, when suddenly there came into my head one line of verse – one solitary line – ‘For the Snark was a Boojum, you see’. I knew not what it meant, then: I know not what it means, now: but I wrote it down: and, some time afterwards, the rest of the stanza occurred to me, that being its last line: and so by degrees, at moments during the next year or two, the rest of the poem pieced itself together …

Can we develop this immense reserve power of our depth mind? Yes, within reason. Some people are more gifted in that way than others. But awareness of the part played by the subconscious, coupled with a friendly interest in how it works, can set you on the path to self-development.

Using Your Depth Mind in Sleep

You may have had the experience of ‘sleeping on’ some decision or problem and finding that your mind has made itself up the next morning. If you haven’t, give it a try. The depth mind principle can also be used to memorize material. Just before you go to sleep, read what you have to learn, preferably out loud, and as you settle down, concentrate on the material. As soon as you wake up, try to recall what you read – you may be surprised at how much you have remembered.

Idea 6: Checklist – Listening to your depth mind

Do you have a friendly and positive attitude to your depth mind?

Do you expect it to work for you?

Where possible, do you build into your plans time to ‘sleep on it’, so as to give your depth mind an opportunity to contribute?