In a recent Wall Street Journal article, I read the following statement about Renault’s CEO, Carlos Ghosn: “the CEO (Ghosn) seemed to inspire awe in a way that discouraged discussion.”
Ouch!
True or not, I’m sure that would never be a goal of Mr. Ghosn’s, or any other leader for that matter – an organization’s intellectual strength hinges on open, unrestrained discussion. This fosters creativity which leads to good ideas, and critical thinking which eliminates bad ones.
So, what can leaders do to encourage discussion and thus cultivate thinking organizations? The answer depends to a large degree on the unique personalities involved, but here are a number of steps I believe to be universally effective.
1. Be human – as a leader, share stories of your own struggles, demonstrating that the road to great ideas is typically crooked, torturous, and humbling, but worth the effort.
2. Install more whiteboards – these are the ‘easels’ of great thinking. Put them up, then monitor and encourage their use.
3. Challenge your team with regular, creative puzzles – just as with physical exercise, the more we use our brains, the more effective they become. Mental exercises, however small, feed the brain.
4. Assign your team non-routine, mental tasks - forcing people to think beyond their everyday routine strengthens neurological pathways (and not doing so does the opposite). Whenever I run a Problem Solving workshop, my clients always ask me to tailor the case exercise to their specific industry and the specific issues their team faces. I comply, but increasingly I believe I am doing them a disservice. Thinking outside your comfort zone is vital to building mental capacity.
5. Provide idea logs – any physical, tangible reinforcement of thought as a priority is good. Keep an ideas log yourself. Let your team see it as critical to and inseparable from you. Lead by example. Then suggest they follow suit.
6. Establish the right environment – How, when and where do you think best? I’ll bet you didn’t answer sitting in a cubicle typing on the computer. Yet that’s how the majority of our time at work is spent. Find ways to schedule thinking time that is distinct from your team’s routine.
7. Be patient – great thinking takes time – and is preceded by many failures. One of my favorite quotes is from Thomas Edison, the greatest inventor of our time, who said “Why, I haven’t failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” Embracing and learning from our failures is vital.
It’s not easy to be intellectually great. It’s perhaps even harder to nurture and develop the intellectually great (i.e., to “manage” them). It requires persistence yet patience, focus yet openness, structure yet freedom. This is, I suppose, why so many managers and organizations fall short.
As managers, I want you to think of me as someone who can provide your teams with the tools and motivation to be analytically superior. But I’d be terribly remiss if I didn’t mention your role in the process.