A taster of what is in The Smart Thinking Book, and how it works in training. thesmartthinkingbook.com

1. SMART THINKING
60 BURSTS OF BUSINESS BRILLIANCE

2. SMART THINKING
Some examples. There are 60 in the book.

4. GROWTH ~ COMMUNICATION
INNOVATION ~ CREATIVITY
RELATIONSHIPS ~ THINKING

5. 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

6. STIMULUS

7. LET’S DO SOME SMART THINKING

8. GROWTH

9. 1. PLANNING
• Do you have a plan?
• How long should it take to
design one?
• Do you need one at all?

10. 2. MODELS
• What can a model tell us?
• Are your models reliable?
• How should they be used?

11. 3. TARGETS
• Why have a target?
• Numerical or thematic?
• Absolute or relative?

12. COMMUNICATION

13. 1. TOPICALITY
• What is your point?
• What is your point of view?
• Are you prepared to say “I
don’t know”?

14. 2. ATTITUDE
• Should you change the
nature of your meetings?
• Could you adopt assertive
inquiry as a discussion
style?
• Are colleagues respected?

15. 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?

16. INNOVATION

17. 1. APPROACH
• How curious are you?
• What do you use as
stimulus?
• What habits could you
change or introduce?

18. 2. OPPORTUNITY
• What is the nearest
Adjacent Possible?
• What is the simplest thing
to do?
• What next single step can
you take?

19. 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’?

20. CREATIVITY

21. 1. ENVIRONMENT
• How stimulating is your
office?
• What could be changed
cheaply?
• Where should we generate
our ideas?

22. 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?

23. 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?

24. RELATIONSHIPS

25. 1. ATTITUDE
• Is your business far too
serious?
• Are you?
• What can be done to
lighten things up, without
losing professionalism?

26. 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?

27. 3. HUMILITY
• How can you bring modesty
to your work?
• How can you help your
team?
• How can you help your
clients or customers?

28. THINKING

29. 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?

30. 2. ACTION
• Could you earmark a Think,
Do day or time period?
• Could the whole team?
• Could the whole business?

31. 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?

32. BREVITY EQUALS INTELLIGENCE

33. thesmartthinkingbook.com
theideasbook.net
thediagramsbook.com
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