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The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking. -A. A. Milne
Changing your way of thinking is not easy. Culture, habit, and time pressures conspire to keep the things as they are. Getting to the next level, regardless of what level that may be, requires this very change however.
I was fortunate to stumble upon an article titled “The sexual life of ideas: flirtation, promiscuity, procreation, and seminal creativity but no virgin births“. The insight presented by Ross Dawson is simple. Ideas do not survive alone. They need to socialize with other ideas and mingle. When other similar ideas are encountered they create new ideas, sharing traits of their parents.
Environment. When trying to get to the next level of thinking within your organization perhaps the most important fundamental element to put in place is an environment which will encourage ideas to brought forward. Ideas which are not shared have no chance to grow – the acorn cannot become the oak.
The Right People. The next element to establish is the blend of people. Diversity of thought and diversity of concept are necessary. Deep thinkers and broad thinkers need to intermingle. Internal people with comprehensive knowledge of the culture and environment need to explore with external people having extensive knowledge of leading edge thinking. This is a great place to leverage your ecosystem.
The Seed. Some people like to start with a vision of the desired end state. I prefer to start with a seed of an idea. This may be an end-state. It may be a directional statement. It may be simply a concept. From this seed the ideas will feed each other until a complete picture is formed (or the amount of time alloted is exhausted). In my experience, this seed can form might oaks quite quickly given the right environment and people.
Technology. In recent years social / collaborative technologies have moved closer to having mainstream status. While not a silver bullet unto themselves, used properly and placed in the right environment they can both accelerate progress of both depth and breadth of thinking. One of the reasons for this is that the mechanics of these tools typically do not get in the way of the thought process.
It is worth noting that these elements are all necessary to get to next level thinking. They should be considered necessary but not sufficient. Above all else you need a desire to change, an understanding of why you want to change, and a dedication to follow through on the commitment to change.
