Thought: the great differentiator

I had drinks with Dr Edward de Bono the world famous thinking skills guru, it was not the first time that I met him, the first being about a dozen years ago. He said that in terms of thinking, the world has not changed that much. People are generally rather bad at organising thinking!

Before I continue with the theme, a piece of scary news should be conveyed to all loyal patriots! De Bono told me that the next day he was flying off to Australia to coach the Australian Cricket team. He said that they had said they were most scared of the South Africans and needed every edge that they could get, hence the appeal to 'thinking Ed.'

When seeing various parties squaring up against each other, whether it be sporting teams or companies, I often think of those boxing cut outs that used to appear in the newspapers before any big fight. Typically one would see two 'cut-outs' of the fighters facing each other in the newspaper with all their critical dimensions marked on the pics. The pics would show; height, reach, fist diameter, chest diameter and any other comparative number that the sports writer could think of.

The one glaring omission, in my opinion, was IQ! I reckon that by the time a boxer gets to the rankings of the top 20 or so in the world, then any one of those 20 has the power and speed to knock out any of the other 20. Piece of cake! What makes it difficult to do in practise is that the target guy does not just stand still and let himself be hit. He is uncooperative, and he moves around making himself a difficult target. In fact he tries to make himself a very difficult target, and that takes brainpower. So the one thing that determines which boxer wins, is which of the two is the smarter. Who can out-think the other guy, so as to be able to punch at the right place at the right time?

The same is true of rugby. It always surprises me that two world class national teams have a combined weight of their forwards that is very similar to the opposition, the difference being only a few kilos. One finds one team's pack weight is like 850kg, and the other team is 857kg. So one team can't just barge the other guys.

This means that the rugby team that wins is the one that thinks best. Just like the boxers, all physical attributes of the two teams are usually so similar as to be essentially equal.

So it has to be the same for cricket. Hitting harder, running faster or bowling faster is not going to make a material difference. But thinking is! I would therefore recommend that our cricket guys should take serious note of the fact that the Aussies invited Dr de Bono to go and coach them. His coaching will no doubt be entirely indoors, but it should be taken as seriously as the other type of coaching, out on the field.

But now back to the world of business, what is the connection to boxers, rugby and cricket? Well, it is self-evident that competing companies also need to think. Dumb comment, you might say, they know that they have to think. Quite true, but do they really do it?

In my experience the answer is no! I am, of course, talking of formal structured thinking, otherwise known as lateral thinking or problem solving. As de Bono points out, the conventional high probability vertical thinking is the norm. It is termed 'high probability' because if you do it correctly you should get the right answer. For example, how do I replace the brake pads on my car? That question has a logical known answer that will be found by normal process thinking.

But asking; how do I come up with a new marketing strategy, is another issue altogether. That needs non-conventional lateral thinking. I carry out lateral thinking sessions with companies, and I present lateral thinking courses, and believe me when I say that very few companies do this in any sort of structured fashion. However it is this mode of thinking that leapfrogs a company a jump ahead of the opposition. So if the Aussie cricket team suddenly starts using innovative tactics, you will know that you are seeing the results of lateral thinking training.

Dr Kemm's column Techtrack appears each week in Engineering News. Engineering News can be accessed at www.engineeringnews.co.za.