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Good Thinking

By John Canfield
Management Consultant
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Earlier this spring I was fortunate to attend a networking event at Lakeshore Advantage in Zeeland, where I met Rob Stam, who at this meeting announced that he had just completed writing and publishing a book, Almost Our Time — Generation X Takes on America’s Challenges.

So like any person who had ever wanted to actually, really, in fact, no excuses, just-got-to-get-this-thing-started-someday, wanted to write a real book (this is my 39th article starting way back in 2005), I inquired about how does one carry this off.

His answer: Greg Smith of Black Lake Studio. Greg is what the publishing industry calls a subsidy publisher. He helps write and publish books for the likes of Rob and me. So I am pleased to announce in this month’s Good Thinking article that Think or Sink — A Parable of Collaboration is now in print (Amazon-ISBN 978-0-9824446-5-8).

Greg’s first major contribution to improving my thinking was to suggest we make the ideas of this Good Thinking article series real for readers by telling a story that included the main concepts and recommendations.

Think or Sink sets a stage that may occur multiple times every day in companies and organizations around the world. The headquarters of a major corporation sends a request for proposal to three of its regional branch managers. The company has won a major contract, and one branch will get the new business, while the other two will be downsized. Each regional management team has six months to prepare a presentation that will determine the next chapter of their careers.

Think or Sink is a parable about collaboration, a cautionary tale about what can go wrong when people don’t work together effectively, and a hopeful one about what they can accomplish when they do. The teams in Phoenix, Atlanta and Indianapolis illustrate that the quality of the ideas we generate, and the buy-in we build for those ideas, is rooted in the way we think and work together. Teams that think well together come up with better ideas, and are better able to decide which is the right idea for the situation. Good thinking allows teams to communicate, support and implement effective solutions.

Most of us have heard the phrase “sink or swim,” but most us haven’t thought too much about it. Like “fly or die,” it implies that in a dangerous situation we either find a way to survive... or we don’t. That puts immense pressure on us, because it doesn’t tell us how to survive, and it suggests we will instinctively (like a young fish or bird) know what to do.

But surviving (much less thriving) in today’s business environment doesn’t depend on some instinct kicking in as we sink or fall. It’s the sum of many smaller choices, and those choices are not rooted in what we do, but in how we think. Our thinking frames our choices. It determines which options are available to us, how we pursue them, and whether we will pursue them alone, or with others.

Under pressure, most business people just react from instinct, emotion or peer pressure. Assumptions are left unexamined and conclusions unchallenged. We rarely understand (much less improve) how we get from our assumptions to our conclusions. Collaboration and decision-making is held hostage to personalities, power-structures and precedents. We rationalize this by saying that we’re too busy, or that we “trust our gut.” The result is ineffective workers, teams and organizations, and these are expensive embarrassments. They cost time and money, and they squander opportunities. Workers go home and complain to their spouses, and often move on to other jobs to avoid them. Suppliers and customers complain and get fed up having to interact with them, and find other people to do business with.

Unless we work alone, we must think about how we collaborate, and what we can — and must — do together. We don’t have to be captive to personalities or corporate dysfunction. Why do our meetings frustrate us? Why don’t our projects turn out like we expect? Why are our goals always just beyond our grasp? Why do our teams achieve less than the sum of the team members’ abilities? We must recognize unhealthy expectations, ineffective thought patterns and unproductive communication styles.

Dysfunction is an all-too-often used word to describe too many work situations. It means a thing not functioning properly, or not functioning in a way that would achieve its purpose. The point of my book, and the rest of my Good Thinking series to be completed by early 2011 is to help minimize the dysfunction in our workplaces. I am hoping it may serve as a call to action for many employees who really want to improve their workplaces. As this article series, and the Good Thinking series stresses, trying to change behavior alone is difficult and not enough. We must have the courage to change our thinking. Only then will our collaboration help us accomplish more together than we ever could have alone.

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