Unleashing Organizational Genius

“Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.” Albert Einstein

Introduction

Organizational vitality and innovation depends on our abilities for creative thinking, for early identification of opportunities and to confidently manage change.   These abilities have never been more essential and least available than in the context of our current global economic crisis.   The external context in which human service organizations have been operating has left many organizations overwhelmed with how to survive, let alone how to thrive!  After decades of funding uncertainties and financial constraints, “doing more with less” has become more than a solution to a transient problem – it has become a habit of thinking and behavior.  Like most habits, “doing more with less” may have become so automatic that we have resigned ourselves to never again operate from a different framework.

“Problems cannot be solved by thinking with the framework in which the problems were created.” – Albert Einstein.

Changing our framework or perspective is the key to generating new solutions and unleashing our genius for creating healthy and more successful organizations.  Understanding how habits of thought and behavior are formed can provide the power to choose new and more effective patterns.  This article uses systems thinking concepts to illustrate some practical approaches drawn from cognitive and positive psychologies which can provide short term methods for increasing our capacity to thrive even in the midst of crisis.

Systems Thinking Approach

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

Understanding the dynamics of groups or systems provides valuable insights for changing our world. A system can be considered as an organized group of elements or parts, distinguishable from other parts outside the system, acting in dynamic relationship so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  From this perspective we have access to a number of ways of looking at the consistent patterns of interaction which organize the structure and processes of the system.  Concepts and patterns isomorphic to systems in general permit us to develop a similar understanding of the various system levels and subsystems within the broader organizational system.  A system is only as healthy and vital to the extent its constituent parts or members are empowered to function at the level of their full potential.  The ideas discussed below are more powerful when applied to all system levels of the organization including the level of “self in the system”.

Creative Thinking

“Creative thinking is not a talent; it is a skill that can be learnt. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and where appropriate profits”. – Edward de Bono

One dimension of understanding a system or organization is to consider the degree to which the system is open or closed.  Characteristics of open systems include higher self-esteem of individual members; clear communication; greater ability to change rules when needs arise; respect and encouragement of differences; and, an increased flow of information between the system and the outside world.  Self-esteem of individuals in closed systems tends to be lower; communication is indirect, unclear and incongruent; rules are often out of date and rigid; “group think” is imposed to reduce the fear of differences; and, the system tends to exist in isolation from the outside world.

An open system provides the progressive climate needed to support creative thinking abilities.  Greater self esteem of members enhances confidence to think the unthinkable.  Clearer communication increases constructive sharing of ideas leading to the discovery of more ideas.  The ability to democratically negotiate rules provides opportunities to update rules that have become barriers to creative interaction.  Encouragement of differences provides an environment that is conducive to the expression of new ideas thus avoiding the stagnation of “group think”. Bringing in new information from the outside supports the discovery of new ideas to address old problems or bringing old ideas together in new ways to reveal innovative solutions.

The openness of a system can be increased by employing cognitive processes to explore current beliefs and attitudes, develop an understanding of how these beliefs and attitudes were formed and taking action to update beliefs and attitudes to enhance the capacity of the system to discover its innate creativity.  Through these processes we can bring back into awareness the limiting thoughts that have become “just the way we do things” and introduce new habits of thinking and behavior more appropriate to our current context.

Understanding the nature of limiting thoughts makes it possible to identify and then replace them. The stronger the identification or attachment we have to a particular thought or belief the more likely that it will become limiting.  Limiting thoughts can be identified by paying attention to feelings of stress or anger.  Thinking limiting thoughts does not feel great.  One tends to feel constricted and diminished when thinking them.  Limiting thoughts are often accusing, blaming and critical in nature, putting the fault on something external.  Language can also help us identify limiting thoughts as they are often attached to words like need, should, always or never.  Limiting thoughts are most likely attached to our self-image and can restrict the freedom to express one’s full potential.  Unlimited thoughts on the other hand are expansive and provide freedom from unhealthy stress.

Identifying Opportunities

“Instead of pouring knowledge into people’s heads, we need to help them grind a new set of eyeglasses so that we can see the world in a new way.” – John Seely Brown

Biologically, the brain processes 400 billion bits of information per second, but is only aware of 2,000 bits at any one time. It is not surprising therefore that many potential opportunities go unnoticed.  We do however have access to a very sophisticated piece of technology to help us notice what is most important – the mind! At the base of our brain stem is a group of cells known as the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS is a little control centre that serves as a filter for what enters our conscious and unconscious mind. The RAS is also very obliging and without question filters what enters our minds based only on where we focus our attention. Do you focus on the problem or the solution? When we consciously activate the RAS by focusing on solutions we draw to our attention the information and opportunities that will assist us in putting the solution into action.

Very often solutions have been staring us in the face but the blind spots created by our past conditioning have kept us from noticing them. When we change our thinking we gain the ability to see things from a new perspective. Changing faulty beliefs and assumptions and maintaining new habits of thinking does, however, require some consistent effort. Our opinions result not only from our experiences (what is said and done to us), but also the way we interpret these experiences. Over time these opinions become the thoughts, beliefs and attitudes we assume to be true and our choices and behavior reflect these “truths”. Eventually some of our behaviours become redundant patterns that totally bypass our thoughts, cognitive processes and conscious choices of intention.

Creating change means bringing back into consciousness our “self-talk” cycle: our self-talk determines our self-image, our self image determines our behavior, our behavior reinforces our self-talk and round and round we go! To create the change we desire we need to start sending ourselves the right messages. Vision statements are a powerful tool for changing our “self-talk” cycles.  Visioning can move us away from the problem and put our focus on what it would look like with the problem already solved. In order to correct negative self-talk we need to actively and emotionally engage our cognitive processes with the visions we aspire to create. Unfortunately for some the use of visioning is not considered to be a valuable exercise. This limiting thought becomes a barrier to understanding how vision statements can be introduced to the process of the mind to create dynamic change.

Divergent thinking abilities are closely related to creative thinking and are essential for writing vision statements with the power to inspire and energize new patterns of thinking and behavior. Divergent thinking is expanding in nature, starting at a single point and moving outwards to many possible answers. Convergent thinking on the other hand is a process of reducing information towards one correct answer. Both thinking styles are necessary for increasing knowledge, however the over emphasis of convergent thinking in our education systems has possibly led to devaluing divergent thinking and by extension the devaluation of the essential role vision statements play in creating positive change. Approaching the visioning process from the perspective of convergent thinking gets us stuck in trying to define how we will progress towards the vision.Visioning is a divergent thinking process which activates the RAS and opens our minds to the expansiveness of possibilities.

Managing Change

Flexibility is a systems thinking construct postulated by David Olson, professor at the University of Minnesota, to describe functional systems in terms of balancing stability and change.  In Olson’s three dimensional Circumplex Model (1999) unbalanced systems with a high degree of flexibility are described as chaotic – lack of leadership, dramatic role shifts, erratic discipline and too much change. At the other extreme unbalanced systems with a very low degree of flexibility tend to be rigid – authoritarian leadership, strict discipline, roles seldom change, too little change. Flexible systems balance stability and change, leadership can be shared and decision making is a democratic process, negotiations are open and include all parts of the system, roles are shared, rules can be changed, and when necessary, change is accomplished with ease. In times of stress balanced systems will adapt, while unbalanced systems will tend to resign themselves to their extreme patterns of chaos or rigidity creating a cycle of more stress.

Resignation is an unawareness of our ability to make different choices and opting instead to take for granted even the things we find distasteful about our situations. This attitude that we are powerless to change things translates into blindness for exploring possibilities. Playing it safe or choosing to look good rather than risk failure characterize the limited thinking of resignation.

Every member of the organizational system brings with them their own tolerance for change – their own “comfort zones”. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know” is the limiting thought that keeps us invested in the familiar and fearful of change. To make the familiar strange and the strange familiar (to change), we must first experience discontent with our current comfort zones. Visioning plays an important role in changing our self-image to include the changes we desire thereby making the familiar unacceptable and providing the motivational energy to discover opportunities to achieve the new.

Our Vision for Unleashing Genius through exploration, understanding and action we access the creative power to construct open, flexible systems with the ability to unleash the full potential of the whole and each component part.  Consciously choosing to understand our context from new perspectives challenges the current beliefs, attitudes and assumptions that have led to our current limited thinking and behavior patterns.  Dynamic visioning converts resignation into vitality, innovation and the pursuit of opportunities.

Introducing this vision to one’s daily self-talk starts the process of becoming the change one desires and supports the growth of dynamic organizations ready and able to go beyond solving problems and unleashing the genius to proactively meet the demands and challenges of our every changing external context.