This is how you break out of your old patterns

Thinking better is about looking beyond the things that are obvious and seeing the things that are hidden from view.

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“A well defined problem is 90 percent solved” is a thought often attributed to Albert Einstein.

When it comes to clear thinking, are we stuck in the ancient factory default settings? So often we have the perfect elegant solution to the wrong messy problem. Is it a mistake to leap to trying to find solutions to obstacles?

Strange thing is, we are our decisions that we make in ordinary moments, like right now, always in the present. But constantly worrying about the past, and projecting our vivid imagination into the future. May be useful to turn off the automatic pilot mechanism, and ‘think about how we think’.

In recent years there has been a lot of research on how we make decisions, building on the work of Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky and others.

Creation and insights from the new field of behavioural economics has shown that the ‘rational individual making informed choices’ found in Economics 101 text books is a myth. Prejudices and inbuilt biases, and a craving for the comfort of being right, distort our business decision making.

Almost ancient settings

Just like a smart phone, a manager comes with default ‘thinking - problem solving’ settings. But these settings were created thousands of years ago by our ancestors, just wanting to defend their territory, working at the survival level.

Only aim of the default settings is to protect oneself, self preservation, trying to organise the world into a hierarchy, that maintains our precious beliefs, making us feel better, warm and cozy.

“We all have weaknesses, many of which are built into our biology. We are, for instance, vulnerable to being hungry, thirsty, fatigued, sleep deprived, emotional, distracted, or stressed. All of these conditions can push us toward reacting instead of thinking clearly, and blind us to the deciding moments of our lives.

"Each of us also has a limited perspective on things: we have inbuilt tendencies to form judgements and opinions even in the absence of knowledge. We’ve seen that our instincts for self-preservation, group membership, hierarchy, and territoriality can all trigger bad judgements that harm us and the people around us,” writes Shane Parrish in his highly recommended 2023 book: Clear Thinking.

Noticing our default thinking

Long ago these tendencies were useful keeping us alive, but in today’s silicon savanna world they can serve as a road block, holding us back, weakening, making things harder than they need to be.

These four defaults have been written into our DNA by natural selection, that our brains will automatically execute:

Emotion default: we tend to respond and act on the basis of feelings, rather than reason, hard facts and figures

Ego default: kicks in when we react to anything that upsets our sense of self worth and position in a group hierarchy

Social default: we generally conform to norms, ways of thinking, and acting copying - imitating our larger social group.

Inertia default: we gravitate to being habit forming and craving chocolate chip cookie comfort. Change can be upsetting, so we prefer ideas, ways of doing things and places that are familiar.

It’s not that these defaults are bad or good, they are just there. But when things are going from bad to worse, it’s likely these defaults have taken over. Ideal is that one can just observe, see them for what they are, and control them, rather than being controlled by them.

Play a game with yourself, next time you are faced with a major problem in the corridors of commerce , run it through the default settings.

Then, press the pause button, and see if you can take another perspective. In todays world, knowledge is abundant and free, knowledge is the booby prize.

Trick is to be able to break out of old patterns. Stop being: always right. Easier said than done, those patterns, configurations become our identity.

Focus on defining the problem – not the solution

“Given one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and 5 minutes finding the solution,” advised Albert Einstein.

In the Monday 8 am catch up meeting, Nash, the vivacious astute 39- year-old newly appointed CEO describes the ‘challenges’ facing Acacia Bank.

It’s a growing list including, increasing transaction costs, inability to attract a younger tech savvy client base, and the sudden resignation of the experienced finance director accused of sexual harassment.

Nash knows the time and brain power of her top managers is precious. Ever creative, she recognises how one defines the problems, impacts the range of possible solutions.

She senses things hidden, unsaid, unspoken, deciding to spend time on just defining the problems, thinking about the root cause, not the symptoms.

Asking a question like: “What would have to be true for this problem not to exist in the first place?” And “What do you know about the problem, that other people don’t know?” Continually perceptive, she decides to separate the problem defining phase, from providing possible solutions.

“Thinking better isn’t about filling your brain with answers to questions you’ve seen before. It’s not about memorising what to do and when. It’s not about letting other people think for you either. It’s about looking beyond the things that are obvious and seeing the things that are hidden from view.” writes Parrish.

David J. Abbott is a director at aCatalyst Consulting. [email protected]

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