the smart thinking book

SMART THINKING60 BURSTS OF BUSINESS

BRILLIANCE

SMART THINKINGSome examples. There are 60 in the book.

GROWTH ~ COMMUNICATION INNOVATION ~ CREATIVITY RELATIONSHIPS ~ THINKING

FORMAT• Choose an area such as growth• Stick a provocation on the wall• Read the stimulus sheet for one

minute• Apply to your business, brief, or

issue• 5 minutes per thought• Repeat ten times• One hour per area • Move to any of five other areas• Or repeat for a new brief or issue

STIMULUS

LET’S DO SOME SMART THINKING

GROWTH

1. PLANNING• Do you have a plan?• How long should it

take to design one?• Do you need one at

all?

2. MODELS• What can a model

tell us?• Are your models

reliable?• How should they be

used?

3. TARGETS• Why have a target?• Numerical or

thematic?• Absolute or relative?

COMMUNICATION

1. TOPICALITY• What is your point?• What is your point of

view?• Are you prepared to

say “I don’t know”?

2. ATTITUDE• Should you change

the nature of your meetings?

• Could you adopt assertive inquiry as a discussion style?

• Are colleagues respected?

3. CLARITY• Do we really need to

do this?• Are we just doing

rather than thinking?

• Do we churn out stuff just for the sake of it?

INNOVATION

1. APPROACH• How curious are

you?• What do you use as

stimulus?• What habits could

you change or introduce?

2. OPPORTUNITY• What is the nearest

Adjacent Possible?• What is the simplest

thing to do?• What next single

step can you take?

3. NOVELTY• Do you or a

colleague keep saying “We tried that before and it didn’t work.”?

• Can you break with the past?

• How can you ‘forget what you know’?

CREATIVITY

1. ENVIRONMENT• How stimulating is

your office?• What could be

changed cheaply?• Where should we

generate our ideas?

2. AMBIGUITY• Where are we on

this project?• Is it unclear or

heavily regimented?• How do we resolve

the tension between fuzziness and apparent control?

3. ORIGINALITY• What if this thing

didn’t exist at all?• What if we were

designing it from scratch?

• Can we start from first principles?

RELATIONSHIPS

1. ATTITUDE• Is your business far

too serious?• Are you?• What can be done to

lighten things up, without losing professionalism?

2. MOTIVATION• What’s in it for you?• What’s in it for

them?• How can we ensure

enough motivation to make the project a success?

3. HUMILITY• How can you bring

modesty to your work?

• How can you help your team?

• How can you help your clients or customers?

THINKING

1. THOUGHT• Do you have enough

time to think properly?

• If not, how can you create it?

• Do you and your colleagues place enough value on thinking time?

2. ACTION• Could you earmark a

Think, Do day or time period?

• Could the whole team?

• Could the whole business?

3. RESTRAINT• Can you resist the

temptation to do something, anything?

• Which current issue would be better left alone?

• Which areas are best left to sort themselves out?

BREVITY EQUALS INTELLIGENCE

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