Getting To Balance. Wabi-sabi!

Often overused word - balance. 

We know we need to be more balanced. Well I agree completely. The yin - the yang. The dark - the light, the masculine - the feminine. Good cop - bad cop. The east – the west. And. I want to explain a more subtle and personal version of it. One that has been in my life forever and I wonder whether it resonates with you!

Because my need to get an idea down is almost a neurosis - I have this frenzy - a thing going off in my head - (in fact my whole body) - I have to scribble - get it down. This rough thing is enough to make me want to rethink it. I will scribble it again. A chicken-scratch in the sand. 

But when I look back it every iteration is still full of meaning to me. Right up to the final thing but not worse or better – just part of the arrangement of things.

A diamond in the rough.

Recently I've been contrasting this 'raw material' with fully thought through bits and all the intermediate bits to tell entire stories. This juxtaposition is many times more powerful than a consistent set of things at a consistent standard of finish. Hybrid is good. The roughness of it is somehow much more authentic. Much more approachable. Like a beaten and battered leather armchair is far more comfortable than a new one.

This intrigues me because that's how I feel about everything in my world. The deliberate placement of things that are seemingly careless but just feel right alongside the other thing. This is called 'wabi-sabi' in the Japanese culture and it's genesis is wrapped up with the incredible tea ceremony. Studied carelessness.

I apply this to my work. 

If I could draw a completely accurate and straight line in a strategy session I wouldn't. The imperfections in it denotes a much more natural state. As we work with teams we see a much more human sympathy with the imperfections. I always hated using a ruler in my technical drawing classes. My art teacher told me the ruler was the work of the devil. (I loved my art teacher!) If I enter a place that is just too perfect it makes me uneasy. In fact anything that is aiming to be just perfect is just not. I strongly recommend Leonard Koren's book 'Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers.' It is in many ways a doctrine for my entire world-view.

Just to make my point and to encourage you to find out more about it he describes the universe of wabi-sabi as follows. 

1. Firstly the Metaphysical Basis – Things are either developing toward or evolving from nothingness. 
2. The Spiritual Values. Truth comes from the observation of nature. Greatness exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details. Beauty can be coxed out of ugliness.
3. The State of Mind. Acceptance of the inevitable. Appreciation of the cosmic order.
4. Moral Precepts. Get rid of all that is unnecessary. Focus on the intrinsic and ignore material hierarchy.

If you want to buy the book - http://amzn.to/dSaROE If you want to find out more about the dude - visit Leonard Koren's Blog http://www.leonardkoren.com/

In search of a global Wabi-Sabi.

Imagine if this set of characteristics, these values and these ideas, were how we all lived our lives - and how we treated and combatted this increasingly commercial world. What if instead of craving that latest fridge-freezer we didn't. What if these values were how we all felt and – what if the media and the politicians urged these thoughts and not patronising denial, deep crust pizza or train smash TV.

"A comprehensive aesthetic system, its worldview, or universe, is self-referential. It provides an integrated approach to the ultimate nature of existence (metaphysics), sacred knowledge (spirituality), emotional well-being (state of mind), behavior (morality), and the look and feel of things (materiality). The more systematic and clearly defined the components of an aesthetic system are - the more conceptual handles, the more ways it refers back to fundamentals - the more useful it is." - Leonard Koren

I couldn't put it better if I tried. So I won't.

"Wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent." - Tadao Ando

"One grasps the purest essence of a rule or concept by understanding its totality. Then if one desires, the derivative forms may be modified to meet current needs." - Sen no Rikyu 

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Business & The Holy Grail

Like many notions these days, the idea of 'NOW' is a fleetingly helpful frame of reference.

For the business 'now' mostly means our current context - a wide definition of now! And yet 'now' must always consider NEXT. The gap between now and next is the plan of how to get there and requires us to think about a few critical things. There is no short-cut to this.

We have to bend our collective minds around the following at least:

1. What outcome do we want?
2. How would we measure that?
3. What's stopping us getting to these outcomes?
4. What would NEXT look like?
5. What is vital/imperative to have in place to get there?
6. What are our strategies and tactics to get there?
7. How must we re-think our operation and approach to get there?
8. What does our roadmap need to look like to get there?

Within these major headings comes the more subtle questions around - everything we have to know about our markets, our customers. Conversations about communicating the value, our decision criteria, the distinguishing values, the processes, the systems and the culture we need. Add to this the myriad dimensions/flavours of everyone in the teams opinion and it is a rich discussion.

To make the crucial decisions about strategy in all of this we have to place some bets.

We also have to be as creative as we can be to think beyond how our competitors might think about the same topic. We may even be better off thinking about a better topic.

Just making a better version of the thing that we did before is far less valuable than re-imagining what the better outcome might be anyway. For a better outcome for the enterprise then we need to ask significantly better questions and that demands an open mind and the jettisoning of our prejudices on everything.

To plan a strategy on what we have today and what we know is foolish.

The stuff we do today is probably a commodity. The stuff we think we need to do is probably also fast becoming a commodity. The future strategy has to bend its mind around what really is next. Can we create a new category and vastly out think the competition. Innovation demands we think differently. We have to become alchemists. It's tough.

For example - we need to consider the stuff that gets missed between other stuff. We have to go beyond the stereotypical safety of what we know. Become evangelists for what we can dream that lives outside of our current boundaries. The edge.

So in today's world think long and hard about these three questions.

• Your customers probably don't know the full extent of what you do so what do you think they think you do? Is that the most valuable – will that keep you ahead?
• If you could imagine the 'bits' in-between your product and your competitors product - and describe the gap between that and what your customers would REALLY like - what would that be?
• If we could create value in-between the spaces created by our products and our competitors products what would we call that category and can we own that/build that before everyone else?

More on this topic here: http://johncaswell.posterous.com/ask-a-silly-question-go-on

PS: I wanted to share this - most recent visual tour through what we are up to about all this. "Changing the way business thinks and works to maximise opportunity in the 21xt Century." Nothing small and yet a rapid, simple and logical approach that works.

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Mind's On Fire - Part 1 (Extracts from a Discussion With Myself)

Although I'm very clear about a 'thing' - there is always the risk of not knowing where to start describing the thing. Anything. I'm talking to myself. Inside my head. Sometimes I'm not listening to myself. Am I making myself clear? No.

I will picture a 'thing' and it will be clear - and whole - and stunningly crafty. As I try to give it form though it will be stillborn, exceptionally dull and scare cats with its ugly and corrugated appearance.

I've realised that I'm very uncomfortable in that final half hour before the session days start. When I'm waiting for the team to turn up for the sessions. They arrive and are often nervous - and that transmits itself into the space. My space. It makes me uncomfortable. I can start to blather about rubbish at that point. A bit like at dinner parties. No agenda. Just small talk. 

I try to make sure I am still working at something so I can avoid this aimless chatter and start the sessions clean. I would just fidget and ruin it otherwise.

I'm now depressed with the lack of memory I have to focus. Do I need an upgrade? Am I on the latest version? I'm good at saying yes to the latest automatically available upload. Have I missed one? Crap.

I got there by train.

I wonder what the person opposite me is thinking. They are sitting transfixed, almost entranced - with a free newspaper in their hand, iPod in their ear, doing their nails, eating a burger - and texting something. We reach the platform. I get out. I move to another platform. More people flashing by, all looking at their iPhones, burgers or the floor. I dodge. I'm good at it. I'm a bullfighter.

I know that I am pushing this point a little too much. The audience agrees with the words. The data supports the claim. They got it so why are you banging on? They are nodding! Yes but I can see someone frowning. I can't carry on unless I know what's going on in her head!

I'm now on the Tube.

The stimulus of this scene always makes me enquire to myself - what are these people really like. I would be certain to like a bunch of them - and yet I never will. It would take an unfortunate and cataclysmic issue, a horrendous event or some chance 'happening' like a heart attack to make us make contact.

If only we could create a platform, a structure that everyone might collaborate around that asked for all to contribute to a simpler story. If we want to get there (Z) and we are here (A) then let's think about these 6 or so big factors. Then a more intelligent journey would be the outcome right? Why doesn't that make sense?

Bizarre to consider.

Considerably increasing that slim chance to meet these people would be the internet and the social nature of that platform and media. I may even know the people I'm looking at now (on-line) for all I know. How about that! I would know them because they share an interest, passion or idea that caused us to connect. In a thread or comment or by clicking 'Like', 'Follow' or 'Friend'. A sixth platform in one day.

London is great when the sun is shining and it's warm. It is also fabulous when there are big thunderstorms and the sky is black and I am in my apartment looking at the river becoming wild. It's especially nice when I get back into London from the wilds of 'Not London'. I'm so familiar with this platform.

That gives me ideas.

And the trouble with ideas are that we cannot quite explain them. We have them, rather like dreams - then they're gone. Or in the describing of them they take on other forms. So when we think them through we have to visualize them in writing and drawings. Or they are diminished.

I have to get everything clear and in shape before I tackle this next bigger challenge. I know I would rather be doing something differently but I have to do that. I'm hungry.

I love social media but am I social?

I draw strategies. These are a bunch of ideas being mashed together through my idea of a rigorous logical structure. I'm always astonished at how hard it is for people to think this logically. If you want to go from A to Z then you have to consider B,C,D etc.

But for some reason people don't immediately default to much that is logical or sequenced.

I shake my head and I'm back.

What?

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Smashing. The Mental Model!

Who's driving? And - where on Earth are we headed?

And who's got the frickin map? Yeah! 

I seriously believe that the pointy–headed people in space – are the people who must be in charge of the worlds GPS – and I'm convinced that they have it rigged! They have somehow limited the number of destinations available to us humans. They've made darn sure we don't go to places that they don't get money from. All of it done, of course, in the name of a better life for us all – a three car kitchen, a slimmer tummy - a far better pizza. Yes I know there is more.

Importantly for me though - who is judging the benchmark for 'better'? Can any one person answer a question like that? Who is better than who, which is better than what and why. Everywhere you look everything is compared and ranked. From beauty pageants to performing dogs and talent competitions for 4 year olds. Everything. And to me it all just seems to get not better. 

But who created the model for these comparison anyway? Who designed the diabolical framework? Is anyone thinking what is happening as a result? Is anyone awake on the bridge of this inter galactic death ship? Is there a bridge? Where did this race to the bottom get started? It's either those weird dudes up there, or us - or it just happened out of thin air right? Over a long time. A very very long time.

We hear it all around us. 

The instructions. Like machine gun fire - "Reduce the time it takes to do anything and everything please - It's job 1 - It's vital. Life or death. Do it now." The cry comes from the boardrooms - "We need to be better! No, I don't know what that means precisely but just do it. What? - OK then - better means get us to increased turnover, increased performance, lower cost, more meaningful customer experiences – and while you are at it – add more differentiation to it all!" 

WTF. 

Oh and put an end to war, poverty and injustice. Make it all better.

And woven within it all - "Let's have more passion, emotion, love and equality – they sound good. I will get more votes – more ticks. Yes, and bring me a slice of that pizza. That's better."

While any one of these – without the possible exception of the pizza – is a very well worth while objective, the degree of real thought that gets put into any of them is often miserly. When you add all of these things up and try to solve them at once it is a very complex set of patterns and issues indeed. 

For many companies - and sadly - these conversations have become the equivalent of small talk at dinner parties. Ignored, banal and pointless – something to be avoided at all cost. And anyway whatever the work that results, it gets compared to some arbitrary set of measures beamed in wirelessly from Beetlejuice – which at any minute could go supernova anyway! (According to Professor Brian Cox)

I know. 

Some people are very good at small talk. Professional. I despise it and I am not. I loathe it. Why? Well it's not only meaningless it has become the single biggest barrier to making valuable progress to civilized life. Depending on your definition of civilized life. Small talk has become - in and of itself - the way the majority of the world now seems to talk to each other. Ignorant, banal and pointless. Small. XS. 

It is has no connection to anything of importance and so the decisions that get made are made in a deep fog - a wool of meaninglessness – and they carry weightlessness. No weight. No wait! 

Can we change these frames – these utterly mental models? 

Well erm… yes. 

As long as we are prepared to suffer a medium (even long-term) onslaught by those so called 'people in charge'. Those (usually) very grey people with the fixed paradigms bolted into their craniums – the occasional slab of cast iron sticking out of their necks. We have to be prepared get secretly angry and violent – not easy to perfect this. I'm still trying.

Every one of our principles will be exposed right down to the raw - they will be burning red – acid and vitriol will be poured into our ears while our eyes will be physically abused with a pointless diagram or two. It will be a highly emotional water boarding in a mental Guantanamo.

Our standards will be challenged by literally everything we disagree with and abhor. Inequality, self serving, profiteering, lying, shallow, deceitful and all of it in the name of official policy. We

 need to remain smiling and civil - charm personified - while drinking from this fire–hose of abuse, ridicule and prejudice. 

We will be forced to stand upright and personable while reeling from a whirlwind of differing and confused contexts delivered by people who have no real appreciation of themselves and the shame they are bringing onto the English language and our species as their forked tongues speak.

Reducing the Signal To Noise

Even writing about all this worries me. People will think I'm negative. I'm not – quite the opposite - I am trying to reverse it in small ways as an 'Army Of One'. I know there are millions of people who think the same way or similar and doing a lot more than me to turn the tide. I do worry though that unless we all get joined up more meaningfully that I’m just adding to all the blather. I'm going now.  

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Etiquette Shmetiquette, David Attenborough and the birthing of a big idea!

Can I have some English Mustard? 

"Yes Sir." 

It was a stupid request on my part. I should know better. I travel a lot. I eat in restaurants a lot. Stupid me. Was he lost? 8 minutes is a bloody long time when your meal is already in front of you. What was going on? What were they doing? I was on my own - the hotel restaurant was both cold and empty so there was really no excuse. I was cold and now - so was my meal. 

The problem was not that the person serving was a dunce or a bad person - but the system dictated a silver spoon, thin white bloody china - the right 'branded' saucer. I don't know where the mustard was being kept – the Dordogne? Anyway I used the fleeting bits of clarity between the raging red mist to ponder.  

The lightbulb moment? Or the moment of the lightbulb!

It's hard to say quite what happens - or when - but there is that incredible moment – that 'lightbulb' moment - as if a whole series of combinations of entirely random bits have tumbled into place in the metaphorical lock. A door to something amazing sucks itself open with a satisfying rush of air and relief! I love that moment! Crystal clear consciousness and the birth of a great idea.

What's the big idea?

All our clients always have great ambition. I hope that’s why they call us in. They want light speed progress towards brand spanking new territory. The sun-kissed uplands of opportunity. It might be new market value - at any cost. It might be superior quality in some specific regard. It will always be a transformation of sorts requiring bulbs to go flashing on all over the savannah. 

So we ask them to describe the unique essence of what they do. Then how it might best be described! Often they have not been forced to think creatively like this before. It's a fascinating moment.

They will say - "The value of our stuff? - well it's huge." We will say - "Yes of course it is but why and how can you describe it in this world of super-superlative, over-use and crazy claim?" they will say "Right."

Anyway we start the conversation.

(Imagine that David Attenborough is doing this voice over - as if describing a pride of lionesses circling their prey… In fact you could read the whole piece in DA speak – it would make it all so much better.)

"The air is thick with anticipation. It is now the hottest part of the day. Rich and colourful marks are appearing on the white parched wall in the distance - the leader encourages everyone to focus. It is still now. Then slowly - but surely imagery starts to appear. It's as if it is imagining what the audience is saying - in pictures, phrases and ideas. In fact that is precisely what is happening." 

"As the pace quickens the red earth is thrown up by the heels of many impatient minds. Only a couple of minutes has gone by. It seems much longer. We are witnessing a deeply inner debate - a stand-off between these powerful mammals – it seems to us onlookers to stir endlessly around the same topic – sometimes rather too long for some. It's an age old process – these mammals can be seen to do this almost every day.

"Some of those in the centre of the group are getting restless, impatient for a charge – towards a big idea. New words get thrown into what now looks like frenzy – it is frenzy. All of this remarkable spectacle has taken nearly five minutes. "

"Fresh meat gets offered up - a slogan, new phrases, a new slant, a famous quote - the temperature increases – mingled with speckles of dust catching and sparkling like firefly's dancing in the suns early evening rays. (may have gone too far there) There's even more anticipation, blood can be seen rushing through the necks of this now trapped circle of flesh. A redefinition of the key requirement is called out. A reminder of what we are trying to do. Around and around another couple of minutes."

"Then as if by some distant signal - at some magical, imperceptible point, as the image builds in peoples minds and on the wall, a noticeable change emerges. A finale. It happened in a split second. What a brilliant idea! - that’s it!"

So how come English Mustard takes 8 minutes?

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If you ask a London cabbie!

Go on, next time you are in London and you get one of those chatty ones, ask him something - anything, especially the best way to get somewhere of course. They know everything. I'm often blown away by their erudition! Some of them are far more schooled in stuff than me. Far more. 

Bad luck though if you get one in a grump.

I wondered what it was about the construct of the mind of a cabbie that enables them to do this. I thought it might be the little yellow light bulb that is glowing constantly above their heads. Maybe. And then of course it struck me, right or wrong, (they would know) that they are wired to triangulate, to shove a framework of reference around everything – at speed. That is how they do it. They can bring images and words, features and random stuff together in a flash. Their mind just goes immediately into how to solve the riddle of how to get there from here. Wherever. 

They structure, they visualise and that makes them think.

And in the process they can chat contentedly away at you for 20 minutes about everything that is wrong with the world, why we as a species will never learn, what ails us about the current government, the last Mayor, the stupid two-way system around Piccadilly and any 'what' or 'not' about the capitals football teams and their wives or girlfriends/boyfriends. (Soccer to some)

Speaking of light bulbs - there is a wonderful light-bulb joke on the familiar subject of just how many this or that does it take to screw in a lightbulb. For taxi drives the joke is posed thus - "How many taxi-drivers does it take to screw in a light bulb?" - the answer - "What, all the way up there!?" - told with a cockney accent and probably not at all funny unless you come from the big city.

Anyway - so if you ask them anything you can hear literally their heads (from the back of course) whirring brilliantly with all this data, all the structure they place around it, all the criteria slotting seamlessly into place. All the many decisions about the journey and why and why not and whether this time of day or pot holes or road works or new one-way streets, which café on the corner, what bridge, or what would Jim do, or when did they last eat and what's for dinner. 

Then within 5 seconds tops - 'ping' - they come up with the best answer you could get about anything. OK it may cost a bit more than the underground but what an experience. They are a mobile education.

Maybe we should call it the Knowledge!

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Living Life Axiomatically!

Isn't it incredible how the arrangements of a few well chosen words can make an almighty difference to things? 

I'm always in awe, often speechless, when I come across a stonking new quotation or axiom. I can feel physically moved. For me it is the precision with which the meaning it wishes to convey is built. A set of 'mere' words - their juxtaposition and meaning so carefully studied, then distilled so as to be at their most potent. To make my point I could simply say – "Less is more."

Those of you who know me well will have seen me Facebook thousands of quotes and ideas in words that I gather from around the place. I always try to credit them if they are from others but I haven't here for simplicity and flow. They most certainly keep me going. 

And so it began. Now it is possible to sum the important phases of my life up in a few short phrases.

Well the first one that stuck with me, and I don't know why it is so relevant, was - "Marry in haste, repent at leisure." I will work out one day why that one was so memorable.

Then I grew up and became more committed to actually doing something of value in the world. I started reading and practicing the art of creativity and real change. I merged these two forces together and realised that creativity and change comes down to us. It is our own energy and consciousness that will ever make anything happen. 

The following quotation literally shocked me into action.

"In the future there are three kinds of people. Those who let it happen, those who make it happen and those who wonder what happened."

This wonderful epithet has been a friend to me for years.  In the pantheon of incredibly powerful written ideas it sits at the very summit right along with one other told to me by a dear friend who reminded me at a pivotal point - 

"Life is not a dress rehearsal!" 

These six words moved me so much that they forced me to change literally everything in my life at the time. I sure pissed a lot of people off. My career, my family and my entire attitude to life. Changed forever. I will never forget him telling me that and I can picture the very place. I became rooted to the spot with the profundity of it. He asked me if I was alright as he smiled knowing the power he had sent in my direction.

Along with a thousand others I could pick to get us up to date – the following duo set my sails more firmly in the direction I am now in.

"If you don't know where you are going, every road will take you there." - inextricably coupled with a subtle but vital variation on the one above -  "It is the learners who will inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."

I'm sure you have your own and I would love to hear them!

I will leave you with one I created to live my current era on and one that sums up the huge optimism and frustration I have that drives me every day. "Let's avoid solving the wrong problem really well…" As I look around the world and at virtually every system and also sitting, as I am now 39,000 feet in the air, experiencing the crazy conditions we now live our lives within, this works for me at every level.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Vision For Better Thinking!

A lot of people have asked me recently to republish this piece. It was originally written 8 years ago and hasn't really changed much over that time. Of course I have tinkered with it but it stands some of the tests of time - thanks for asking and feel free to rip into it.

A 21st Century Vision. Group Partners Vision

Against a constant tsunami of warped opinion and diabolical dogma - way out ahead of the 'norm' - the quality of thinking is what marks out real leaders. They are wise and often profound - they are the strategists, the imagineers and so they are the ones out in front. They are designers, story-tellers, artists – they define leadership. 

These new leaders actively encourage fresh input, new ideas. They say when they are wrong – even when they are not. They remain cool when challenging the status quo. They challenge it with good reason. It's because they are constantly figuring out how a newer/better world would work, and they do it with a curious mind. These new thinkers stand out from the rest. 

They hold argument with grace. Ideas are everything, they are the raw material of everything humans can do and achieve. Thinking is the machinery that uncovers, inspires and encourages an 'idea' and turns it into valuable action. We call all of this creativity and it is what makes the difference. – Group Partners

The world needs a new kind of idea and a new breed of thinker. Interestingly all of us could contribute to that right now! The idea of 'idea' and the act of 'thinking' are the two stand-out heroes of the 21st Century. Why aren't we leveraging them more right now!

Everywhere you look lazy thinking causes untold catastrophes. Political inadequacy, countless wars, deep social unrest, dopey laws, media cynicism and exploitation. All of it leading to our individual stress and frustration. Much of it adds up to a wide range of issues. From anger over the Bankers salaries to the dumbing down of the younger generations. What are we missing in this? Why don’t we do something. Global tensions are rising and rising due to the long-term and unchecked fuelling of the systems of self preservation. It is a self balancing inertia. And this is an outrageous situation. Whether large corporation or a member of a local community you recognise the need for change.

These are now wicked problems. What is called for is equally wicked thinking. Ideas and thinking of a higher class than ever before

Tipping Point to Thinking Point.

We know deep inside (if not always consciously) that massive change is going to happen at some point - probably in the next decade. Momentum has now outstripped our ability to deal with it all. The complexity for humans (of situations like terrorism, aids, climate change) make the conditions ideal to want to campaign to cause the change we seek (political, business [financial institutions], media, social injustice) - if only we could/would choose to collaborate, align and strike.

We know that some dread the turbulence and the inevitability of this and simply ignore it, possibly because of the fear of losing what we already have. Others push for it, feeling they have nothing to lose. And some - like the fool on the hill - just sit and watch the world spinning round. The fact is there is a time - RIGHT NOW - to throw all we have at the chance of action, systems and above all exploit our 'ideas' and our 'thinking'.

“An idea isn’t responsible for the people who believe in it.” - Don Marquis

The most radical change is not brought about by command and control government but by enlightened social change. This is as true in a small or large business as it is in society. This means we need to understand whether it is a business or our whole society that we are a part of a living system - a network. Enlightened social change is caused when the momentum is there – the right motivation and behavioral conditions are met. This means new ideas become catalysts. This argues that we need to replace current paradigms – and that requires collaboration by us all – we are the people who are most affected.

The business of thinking - the enterprise of idea.

Everywhere you look in business there are serious pressures to change. Change means risk, mitigating risk requires thought and calculation. Placing new and hopefully better bets. For thought to be of any value we need to foster clear ideas. Ideas that live inside the minds of a few people in a business are worthless. Often we've seen a brilliant strategy (idea) stay marooned in the board room because the enterprise couldn't share it. The enterprise wasn't engaged, the leadership couldn't think it through and then articulate it. The business, those that had to do the work, wasn't invited to play. No method of collaborative endeavour - whatsoever.

Group Partners focuses on large, complex and global clients. They typically have large and complex enterprises with large and complex issues. The enlightened ones know they want to change the way they think and work. We know they are seeking alternatives to the standard approaches that they tell us no longer work. We change this beyond all recognition.

These clients hire Group Partners and licence its approach, tools and software. And through partners they can sustain the work we have started. Accredited ‘Partners/Affiliates’ apply forms of Structured Visual Thinking™ and 4D™ under licence or in collaboration with us. Our ‘Clients’ are amongst the largest organisations on the planet. Our ‘Partners’ are varied in size, geography and market coverage. Our approach is well-known amongst those who need to think and do things differently.  

Putting Method Into The Madness.

By collaborating, sharing and reasoning through logical conversations we've proven we can make the intangible real. We can resolve every business problem. We can tell better stories, we can engage widely into the enterprise. The power of a proven approach is a critical contribution to the world of thinking. It is a big idea in and of itself.

Group Partners has invented an approach to stimulate, capture, realise, calculate, communicate and sustain thinking. This is about processing ideas into practical reality. The 'way' of discovering and developing better ideas.

Structured Visual Thinking™ and 4D™ are already proven tools. 

The Vision is simple. The 3 core elements 'Logical Structures', 'Visualization' and 'Improved Thinking' are pervasive. They are delivered through real-time interventions, via training methods and also by systems. In this way they become sustained and repeatable. Available to everyone.

"There is no substitute for quality thinking. None. There is a framework though - 4D™." - Group Partners.

Our Aim: 

Becoming the alternative to traditional ways of thinking and working. Replacing inappropriate and outdated consulting methods. Working with partners globally. There is another way to thinking about how to solve complex enterprise issues and we are it. Visual, logical and intelligent frameworks that are capable of being deployed by the clients themselves, or with our partners - not by expensive and self serving consulting firms. (We have observed that these firms have an interest in long term or unnecessary assignments that the client is poorly connected with and are unsustainable.) 

"Let's avoid solving the wrong problems really well."

These tools are supported by services, tools and systems that enable the delivery of our proven methods.

Focus & Alignment: 

We were clients ourselves and observed the triple killers of inconsistent decision making - poorly defined strategy and little or loose controls by the senior team.  All of this arose through the absence of a common framework for steering the ship. Most critical change and transformation programs go astray because of gaps in definition, priority or importance. Communication and understanding cripple programs before they even start. On top of that you can add behavioral and cultural disengagement.

Objectivity Rules OK!: 

Our belief is that the senior team usually know the answers, are well aware of the issues and are best placed develop the solutions. We are not consultants. When we were clients we lacked any impartial, agenda-neutral approach to assist our thinking. There was always someone with an opinion and that opinion could be right or wrong.  It was high-risk. There was no way of thinking through the issues properly or to do so in a creative and high energy way. We invented the tools for this. They are called Structured Visual Thinking™ and 4D™

In Great Company: 

We have worked with over 2500 of the worlds biggest companies and Governments. This means we’ve learned the hard way what does and doesn't work in developing successful business strategy. Our clients want to leverage the best of the best practices. Our aim is to accelerate leaders towards a conclusion that they themselves have created, that they own and that they can share. In addition the approach provides clarity, focus and inspiration at the same time as avoiding gaps and duplication. It ensures that the business doesn't solve the wrong problem really well.

Rapid: 

It’s fast. It doesn’t involve weeks and months of expensive time out or wasted senior resource. Given a clear ‘exam question’ a senior team sees results within days. Initial intervention sessions that develop alignment typically involves a senior team for just two days.

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Seems we have a problem...

Until it gets fixed - In the meantime - head here http://johncaswell.tumblr.com/

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Aiming Low.

Our media has perfected a sewer rat/train smash mentality. And it's no coincidence that we are calling social media - 'Social' Media.

Playing to the lowest common denominator (it would appear) IS the strategy for guaranteed profit and cash. At the expense of our lives and our futures – but let's not get picky. Yeah, so are we all good with that? What could WE do anyway right? 

Ensuring that our ethics - the low bar of morality sinks deeper into the swamp with every edition - IS the best way to keep them demon denominators falling. No question. The more they fall the more big business and society cashes in on the lazy product and services that go with. Easy! Cheap. 

Reality TV doctrine states it like that and sees to it that each 'new' sad idea sucks yet more blood from the audiences along with their cash. Whilst frowned upon publicly (through the self same media) by both the political and business ‘systems’ it’s no secret that this very clear business model exists. It is the model. Simples. 

Lowest common denominator means highest possible audiences. Numbers!

Speaking personally - as a westerner - I intensely dislike all the big three systems. I call them the unholy trinity. Politics. Business & Media. The political ‘system’ represents everything I dislike. It's corrupt, foolish, inept, untrustworthy, unhelpfully argumentative and not intelligent. It has a bad side too. Business, typified by the financial sector, needs no more 'outing' and the media, well that our diet and we get what we deserve if you agree with most commentators. And we do nothing about it because we don’t have a voice. 

Sadly we seem to lack a credible alternative to these systems. 

I don’t hear the triumphant throngs or massive hordes of fans for the fat cat salaries of the ‘system’ of Business or the 'Business of things' - Finance, Education, Health or whatever. I meet countless people who are very unhappy working for these businesses so the internal ‘systems’ are pretty messed up too. 

This isn't rocket stuff. 

But we don’t have a single ‘system’ of our own – under the control of the WE. 

One that could change any of this. We lack a unified ‘system’ outside of the 'Unholy Trinity'. I will not go into the other major ‘systems’ like religion here. I do so to avoid getting stuck/sidetracked.with the point I want to make. It is the same point.

All of these systems were borne out of command and control thinking.

Understanding the western systems means to get at the heart of our stuckness.

It will be argued - I'm sure - but I think the following is true. Most of the problems and frustration in society can be laid at the door of our inability to influence these three institutionalised ‘systems’.

I believe that they are so well entrenched and so self serving as systems that - however unintended initially - they are the cause not the solution of the problem. They are deeply woven into the subconscious. We are not really challenging them as if we thought of them as ‘systems’. We are simply anaesthetized.

Worse still they defend themselves by purporting to be at our service and disposal.

These three systems are connected and self serving - Political, Business and Media. Each is in cahoots. Each has a wink and a nod to the other when we are not looking. Sadly they wink and nod even when we are.

WE vote in the governments, we buy from the businesses and we are influenced (or say are not) by the media. But we are the recipients of all these three interlocking systems. The media swings between each color of political party in order to keep this insidious and diabolical melting pot going, business goes where the money is and governments know that this keeps all the systems oiled (as long as it can keep it in balance).

WE are immensely critical of all three and we can and do complain. We complain all the time. We've complained for as long as I can remember. But the dirty little secret is there is no WE.

There is no We. We are not WE.

Apart from the internet there isn't a ‘system’ that I can see that is representative of WE. I don’t see a ‘system’ capable of being a valid alternative in a way that balances out or alters the unholy trinity. Why would they let us is? The internet though presents a compelling opportunity. However it is merely the platform. 

WE have to use it as WE.

I remain optimistic but impatient. Slowly we see the 'unholy trinity' being challenged in critical ways.

• Media is struggling with its sales, caught in the headlights of blogs, self publishing and citizen news self-reporting. Look what is happening in the Middle East and Africa with Facebook and the social media. It’s still very free and open source has had dramatic effects to enable a fluid world of opportunity for newer and greener shoots.
• Political change is apparent via the 'voice' that is increasingly created on-line. Political blogs, surveys, manifestos, tribes and communities rising up and thankfully it is still democratized and free of too many controls. Countries are being overthrown by social media.
• Business has had to get its act together to understand the phenomenon of online channels but its early days and proves that business simply follows the mantra of shareholder return above all else. When it comes to them being sustainable or more ethical, well they will go there but only if its profitable. Organic foods is profitable so yes they do that and if alternative energy investment by the big oil companies isn’t they will pull out. They did.
• I can't speak about the Financial Services and Banking sector pay situation here. But my message would be to - enjoy it while you can you leeches as with luck a smarter generation is growing up and gonna deal with you - because my generation failed.

Well it's not surprising. It’s the system.

"The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way man thinks." - Gregory Bateson

I am suggesting that we need to be a more complete and connected 'WE' if we are to alter the thinking - and if WE wish to avoid the catastrophic implications – the pursuit of growth at the expense of all else. Well…

We humans aren’t deliberately stupid and a vast majority of us see that if WE continue this way then there is a highly predictable outcome. Destruction of the raw materials - end of the 'system'. It is finite. Our ‘system’ relies on constantly squeezing the contributors to the supply chain. The result frustrates all the mini-systems and suppliers that are implicated - constantly marginalizing them in the name of profit or efficiency and ignoring the natural systems that it raids to create the goods in the process.

Nothing stays the same. 

Such a simple statement.  Positions on this idea rage on every second of the day. It's such a natural and obvious truth and we seem utterly fascinated by the why, what and how of it all. At the same time we are so blinded by the significant opportunities presented by it.

Instead of leveraging the natural systems, evidence of which we see all around us, we fight or ignore them. Each time the natural cycles come back at us with interest. We fuss and interfere with the 'way' of things and wonder why they bite us so badly. Whether it's depleted natural resources or the differences of cultural systems leading to wars we just fail to understand what we are dealing with. 

C'mon us – let's imagine WE!

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A Drive-By in Downtown Dystopia!

Forever the optimist – but just checking in.

Are we already living in that futuristic society we've apparently been clamouring for? 

By some definition if you look around you could argue that we've already degraded into the required repressive and controlled state. A dystopia - a negative utopia characterized by an authoritarian form of government. Dystopias are said to feature different kinds of repressive social control systems, a lack or total absence of individual freedoms and expressions and constant states of warfare or violence. 

Dystopias also explore the concept of humans abusing technology and how humans individually and collectively cope with technology that has evolved too quickly. A dystopian society is also often characterized by widespread poverty and brutal political controls such as a large military-like police. Hmm.

I'm encouraged though by the fact that my increasing number of younger friends are just as fucked off with the systems as I am - and prepared to do something about it. The big question is what, with what tools and where do we stick them?

"Men are even more susceptible to suggestion than horses, and each period is dominated by a mood, with the result that most men fail to see the tyrant who rules over them." - Albert Einstein

Looking around at the political, media and (certain) business systems that are in cahoots to keep us servile, I would suggest the following pillars of old society and systems that ensure our soporific dystopian state

The pillars of 'old enterprise' inertia.

1. A cornucopia of myopia and dystopia - our world seems represented by individual 'stuckness' and small thinking. Not smart – just dumb. We experience it all around and held in place by those who defend outdated tradition. Little evidence of dynamic thinking - cognition – patchy reasoning, little reflective analysing
2. In the shadow of tyrannical pyramids – the vast majority of humans still live and work in the age of the creativity sapping 'Org Chart' – beset with hierarchies of command & control cultures; seeding frustration, demoralization, low output, corruption, fear, uncertainty and doubt.
3. Gorillas In The Midst – 800 lbs of systemic permafrost - we seem happy to live with the official 'systems' unwritten code that we all know is ‘there’ and that we cannot do anything about it. Do not speak. Do not speak.
4. Bedevilled by 'experts' - hiding behind standards and so called 'best practices'. Outdated doctrine built on dubious data that was designed for another era. Dressed as an expert gets you past the scanners and ensures that we solve the wrong problems really well. Self-serving bollocks.
5. Hoovering With Idea Vacuums - No intuition please we don't get paid for that. Thus no spark, not even ignition – little inspiration, creativity or energy for change.
6. Leadership? What leadership? - breeding apathy, amnesia & anaesthesia – what 'burning platform' - I'm alright jack! People in positions of power, unproven, unqualified and with little humility, charm, grace or credibility to secure any follower ship.
7. Lies, Statistics and Damn Lies and Statistics – oh and software – making the data prove what you want it to prove – making it so layered that everyone gives up - or put language around it to confuse the crap out of everyone who dare get close to witness it's lack of integrity. The trail goes cold. So does our breath. 

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Is it me, or what?

Without question we humans are the biggest barrier to progress we have.

Our minds are conditioned, over our lifetimes, so as to ignore extremely plain clues that constantly hit us in the face and cause us pain. All of us. "This thing, product, system, relationship, idea, process, lifestyle, sandwich, drug doesn’t work for me but I still do it." Strangely masochistic as within these clues lie the solutions to our aims. I've spent my life asking questions about this phenomena and in the process boring myself senseless with the repetition of the answers.

Now though I have proven to myself that it is possible to alter the way people perceive, realise - and then think through the actual choices they have. We have evidence that a more reflective and structured approach to thinking delivers outcomes that are both natural, more valuable and carry less risk.

Some of this is just blindingly obvious, some is just simple and logical while other bits require time and effort. But it can all be inspirational. And so it works. We begin to change our frames.

Interestingly the tool that changes the way we think and work requires two discrete dimensions. Structure and Visualization.

The 'Structure' part comes in many forms but is basically a series of specific frameworks that are built around logical calculation and reason. Something to force our brains to re-imagine everything. The 'Visualisation' part is about utilising all our human senses and so leverage (rapidly) - more meaningful transmission and translation of all the relevant data. It is both powerful and creative.

Our human brains (along with models and other tools for calculation) then chips in a third dimension all of its own - we call this 'Thinking'. Enter - Structured Visual Thinking.

"There are only a few images that are not forced to provide meaning, or have to go through the filter of a specific idea." - Jean Baudrillard

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Truth Serums!

Ripped skin and broken noses. Tortured by convenient memory.

As we humans talk to each other it's fascinating to notice how little real agreement exists.

Yes there is much nodding and smiling. And just a little later people will remark about how good this or that conversation was. Then the various parties will go to war over the suddenly glaring differences they have. Hand to hand combat. Differences they had in these earlier conversations (but hadn't realised) now cause severe pain and mortal blows.

I know this because when I take a pen and draw these group conversations on the wall I 'bust' open the hidden definitions and semantics. Naked - the fact is written for everyone to see and remark. No hiding place. I could write it badly - but I try not to. But I draw a picture as well, a manifestation of the 'idea' of the conversation to prove its legitimacy. The picture has a real magic in it. It's not the art it's the idea.

The combination of a sincere phrase and a well chosen symbol or representation has the effect of a truth serum, lie detector and judge and jury all in one.

Drawing Distinctions - for the avoidance of doubt!

Grasping Imagination and agreement through visualisation of the truth!

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Not solving the wrong problem really well!

A lot of people understand what we mean by that immediately. Others take a little longer. 

It's probably a fact that no-one deliberately sets out with the express intention of disregarding the big picture. People don't deliberately aim to fix something brilliantly, that is pointless or not broken. Sadly though they do.

We've seen many cases now where teams have been sent off to solve a small part of a 'system.' We all hope it's not intentional but we know it's darned expensive frustrating and - well - wrong. Well meaning folk go off and do stuff with little or no relationship to the other moving parts only to find that the other moving parts fail as a direct result.

The reasons are quite clear but the antidote is a little more subtle. 

We solve the wrong problems because the enterprise lacks the big picture. People say its too complex. Not my problem – not my remit. The context is set very narrowly. That is often deliberate too. And/or we bring in experts with knowledge in a set field. Because, by design these fields are siloed. 

The solution requires a completely different approach to thinking. It requires imagination, passion for the bigger picture. This sometimes means bigger/different teams, exploring the wider implications, being prepared for the tougher challenges. It means (initially anyway) potentially more complex programs – bringing with it the concern of larger cost. We don't like that idea so the real work gets derailed before it has a chance to happen.

But it doesn't have to be that way. 

By looking at the bigger picture sooner there is often a more creative way. This actually saves massive cost and time later. More creative thinking, earlier can find the more ingenious solutions. Additionally the team are often more inspired to work towards solving the bigger challenge. It's all suddenly more meaningful.

Solving the wrong problem is always way more expensive. In the short as well as the long run. Frustration with a fast new fix that is wrong - is immediate as the whole system breaks down. The resulting re-engineering required to undo and then solve the initial issues properly is clearly an un-budgeted item and the double whammy requires the business to fix the real problem. 

We might call this learning. But perhaps we should avoid some of this 'learning' in the first place. We could call that prevention. I call that smart.

The 8 hard earned lessons that created our principles. The 21st Century demands a philosophy that embraces 'systems and integrative thinking' across the entire enterprise.

1. Framework thinking ensures that a structure emerges that contains and aligns all of the moving parts.
2. 'Framing' and agreeing the real question – the one that is driving change or transformation - is crucial to a successful outcome.
3. Answering the whole of the question properly requires that the right people are fully involved throughout the development of the 'frameworks'.
4. Decision Quality criteria must be defined at every step and used to parse every single decision – consistently for the correct decisions to be made.
5. Aligned (possibly new) and shared meaning of all the key terms is vital. Language has to be agreed. Communication can only then be coherent to drive change through everyone.
6. Visualisation is critical to create agreement over the intangible concepts such as vision, mission and operation.
7. Impartiality of thinking, especially in the early stages of innovative/creative re-thinking is vital.
8. Co-creation and collaboration is the only way to create ownership, understanding and sustainability.
9. Behavioural change is only possible with deeply felt inspiration and motivation at both individual and enterprise level. 

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Wrestling with your lizard at the last supper?.

Nope, everything is not going to be okay. Sorry.

Us humans face competing signals at several blind and globally crack-pot crossroads right now. Red? Green? Both? A last supper anybody? Have you looked around at the way the world is lately? 

We have some 'prittee' big choices to make. We hear some people say that they don’t believe we can figure it all, decide what to do and then change in time. We hear other people asking what's the problem anyway. Aaaargh!

Some of us are not going to make it. 

Humans reassure other humans. It's just the way we are.

I'm now not talking about a few global issues like terrorism, famine, poverty, natural disasters or the political and financial systems. I'm talking about work - in every business. We often just say - "It’s all going to work out fine." - I now don’t think that that is that the right thing to do? We should tell people the truth - that no one actually knows whats going on, no one knows what's actually going to happen and  'yes' it probably will all be a total disaster – a very good chance it will be in fact. OK? 

That’s the surest context for the world we have now created and probably the best baseline to work from. It would surely wake a few people up and we could begin to plan properly. A safe distance away from our pre-conceptions and prejudices.

Our lizard brain keeps us wanting that safe place – so this is tough. You probably stopped reading this way up there anyway. Holy Amygdala Batman. Check these emotions – sound familiar? http://bit.ly/hk5XWm

Most of us want to believe that the choices we make will work out, that everything will be okay. We seek decisions that are low risk and there's avery chance it will all just be fine. Well forget simplicity and low risk unless you are prepared to work hard at the sheer complexity of what low risk calculations demand. Everyone in business wants to be sure, they want the low risk strategy – the simple solution, the fast ride. 

How on Earth can we proceed knowing that there's a good chance that our actions will fail! How can we operate knowing that things might get worse, that everything won't end up okay? In search of solace, we seek reassurance. We get it. The decisions become worse. The sycophants around us don’t give a damn. The whole thing falls down. The alternative? Plan for a world that works the other way around.

“So people lie to us. So we lie to ourselves...”

No, everything is not going to be okay. It never is. It isn't okay now. Change, by definition, changes things. It makes some things better and some things worse. But everything is never okay. Finding the courage to avoid constant, often empty, reassurance is a critical step in vital transformation. Once you free yourself from the need for approval, and recognise that stuff is likely to come with increasing risk of failure - it's a lot easier to do the critical stuff.

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Thinking. Change.

"We don't know what 96% of the universe is made of – we don't understand something fundamental" - Professor Brian Cox

I would observe that this fact is true about almost everything. I'm constantly staggered by how little many people know about their own field or chosen path. I made notes on Professor Brian Cox's first program last week on the The Wonders Of The Solar System. Here they are - 

The 'Arrow of Time' says the future will always be different from the past. We should know that and hold onto the profound idea of irreversibility. Add to this the second law of thermodynamics - which is basically that - everything tends from order to disorder - thus 'entropy' always increases. Entropy is also a measure of how many combinations are possible to rearrange the constituents of anything. Anything with structure has low entropy. Oh and don't get shipwrecked on he skeleton coast – it is the gates of hell. 

A lot of ideas to get your head around. To me it just makes me feel very very small and wanting to make the most of my tiny time here.

Whilst the program probably doesn’t fit everyone's idea of science or experts what struck me was profound. Also that the ideas he expressed were likely to mean a lot to people and sadly not much to many more. Meaningful to those who were ready to find ways of applying the insights to their every-day thinking. This may be remarkably few people. Possibly including me. 

But the power of the program did stay with me and made me think.

"Evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. Facts and theories are not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in midair pending the outcome." - Stephen Jay Gould

We often get confused and dazzled by our choices when confronted with a challenge to our ego - to our opinions and positions. We defend too much. Surely we are humans - we own our own destiny - rubbish! Whether to say we don't understand – or we would like more explanation – or we should just admit our life is going to be a very short journey of appreciation – a small passage for each of us that we should try and celebrate in some positive way.

So it is with our ability to think.

Last year, when some marginal scientists warned that the Large Hadron Collider at Cern – the £5 billion particle accelerator for which Cox works – could conjure up a black hole that could suck in the entire planet, he told reporters: “Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat.”

How do people think? Where do their prejudices come from?

There is something obvious and yet vital to appreciate about how or whether we each think. Think about that. Having an opinion which defies the receipt of new or better knowledge is just ignorance.The evolution of our ability to think is what life is all about. To reach a mastery in anything takes time and effort. You can see, touch and read and talk and ponder about stuff all you like. Are you processing? Are you discerning? 

Are you synthesising Are you doing anything with the data you are getting? 

If not. 

Stuff – the world and your place in it just won't just click for you – you wont move on. You begin to think only when asked to, told to and when you know you should – this is not thinking - you won't move on. It just won't stick. Your thinking will appear to be very superficial. The obscurity of your lack of thinking will hold you back and drag you down. Your appearance and projection of your thinking will frustrate everyone around you enormously.

But you just don't really get it fully until you are rightly ready. 

When that final chunk of awakening to the whole beauty of it dawns. When you are ready and the understanding washes over you - it can take your breath away. Speculate. Accumulate. Formulate. Appreciate.

"Without speculation there is no good and original thinking." - Charles Darwin

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