Creating a Thinking Organization: Groundrules for Success

Rating:
Summary: lacks depth, but still useful for first-time managers!
Review: I was attracted by the book's cover title, and also by the fact that Tony Buzan had a part in it.

Although it was refreshing to follow the author's career path and some of his strategic decision-making processes, using a host of tools including mind-mapping and de Bono's stuff, I end up quite disappointed with the book. In fairness to the author, there are some small parts I really enjoyed.

Let me start with the good points:

The use of a "natural landscape" by the author to put de Bono's Six Thinking Hats in a total perspective is a very innovative and visually appealing approach. For example, this is how he illustrates de Bono's concept:

Sun, to represent 'Yellow Hat' - for positives; Open Field to represent 'Green Hat' - for creative ideas; Blue Sky, to represent 'Blue Hat" - for overview; White Clouds, to represent 'White Hat" - for facts; Black Clouds, to represent 'Black Hat' - for negatives; Earth Fire, to represent 'Red Hat' - for fee!lings & emotions;


This reinforces the argument that man has a natural proclivity towards visual metaphors. Kudos to the author!

On page 115 of the book, the author shows a flow chart of how to use a combination of his own favourite thinking tools - mind-mapping, forced field analysis, cluster, brainstorming, 6 Thinking Hats - to solve a problem. The surrounding pages describe the step-by-step process in detail. Another kudos!

Now, the not-so-good points:

The 'leadership and change management' part in the book lacks strategic depth. The author was too perfunctory in these important aspects. A bit more research by the author would have made it more palatable for serious readers.

It was good that the author lists out a good number of other thinking tools under the Appendix to Chapter 7. Unfortunately, I feel he does not do justice to those tools by adding sweeping personal statements of one or two-liners to each tool. Worst of all, he even a!dds that mind-mapping does it better, without a proper explanation (or compare & contrast). This to me reflects the author's vague understanding of the tools. e.g. cognitive mapping, flow chart and rich pictures. Even his one or two-liner description of 'scenario planning' is somewhat faulty.

A quick browse of the author's scanty bibliography tells me that the author has not done enough homework and research.

There were a lot of glaring mistakes in the book, Let me highlight a few.

On page 80, under 'Some Facts about the brain' which reads 'The brain contains approx. 1 billion cells i.e. equivalent to 150 times the population of the planet.'

Any 7-year-old internet-savvy kid can easily tell you that the numbers don't match!!!

Also, on page 207 to 208, under 'Final review by Tony Buzan:

'Leif Edmunsen' is a wrong name. The correct name is 'Leif Edvinsson,' who at one time was the Chief Intellectual Officer of Skandia, mentioned in t!he paragraph.

The Prime Minister of Singapore is not Mr Ton. He is Mr Goh Chok Tong.

Such silly mistakes reflect very poor editing work on the part of the author and the publishers.

On the whole, I can only sum up that this book is still useful to any first-time manager, looking for a systematic approach to organisational decision making, with a hands-on feel.

This book reminds me of another book, John O'Keeffe's Business Beyond the Box: Applying Your Mind for Breakthrough Results, from which I can draw a parallel here. In quite a similar vein, the author had built a successful career path through Procter & Gamble in Europe when he wrote the book. Likewise, the book offers a field-proven set of 8 thinking strategies, including mind-mapping.

For serious readers, looking for solid leadership and change management strategies with an entrepreneurial perspective, it will be worthwhile for them to pursue 'The Individualised Corporation' by Sumantra! Ghosal & Chris Bartlett as well as 'First, Break All the Rules' by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman.