Critical thinking falls short. Why value creation, systems & design thinking are vital?

Most of us have heard of or applied critical thinking. It remains important yet what it takes to clarify your success roadmap requires far more than most traditional critical thinking efforts reveal.??

Sales, marketing, PR and HR along with leadership are suffering from mistrust. This changes that.

My career started with design thinking. This enables us to see what most miss, weigh its value and shape solutions that factor in both resistance and enabling factors. It also gave us a timely advantage and the key to greater relevance..

From there, working with Gautam Mahajan – a world leader in value creation – I saw how value?creation plays?a vital role. Too many brands and their companies fall short of true brand worthiness. For most, their brand is a logo and a value proposition with little to say and do. Value creation helped me to infuse greater relevance in anything I touched for a ten-year period at HP from 1990 through 2000. HP capitalized that relevance well back then. It was the most admired place to work, all employees trusted the company as did external stakeholders. By spotting and raising the bar on overlooked status quo actions, we continually raised the value and HP revenues peaked at $135B at a ten?year 32% growth rate. I feel sad that when I left in 2001, they failed to pay attention to the actions that defined value creation, design?and?systems thinking as even more relevant today.

I was unaware of systems thinking until Charles Prather – the founder of the?Dupont Center for Creativity and Innovation showed up in 1989 to test all 950 leaders and us as presenters with his new leadership test. Wow! He was so far ahead of the pack that then defined leadership. His test would help clarify what leadership means today. He pulled me aside to say that we needed to talk. I had no goals to compete with CEO’s back then or now, despite him telling me I posted the highest score in his ten years testing over 200,965 leaders.?

In that I was more concerned to hear his concern for me and being the only one with a deep design background taking the test, I now see why he was so concerned and why he said if I added and advanced systems thinking I would model the next breed of world class problem solvers. He was so right as my value to HP exploded upward between 1990 and 2001. I felt awful when I called to thank him, that he had recently passed away.?

Today, as we witness thousands of leaders in large firms, failing to?adjust, it concerns me so much. I am holding off on retirement to either help HP and?its spinoffs; HPE, Agilent and Keysight, or others who want to be on top of it all, whether?as employees?or?as leaders, to do so now. Their success will change the?game.

Too many leaders hold on to risk aversion, thus rejecting anything new, despite that?being the biggest risk of all time.?

So yes, critical thinking?is important when design and systems thinking with value creation are natural vital additions.?

Look at Artificial?Intelligence. It is advancing without proper?balancing to?job?creation. A systems thinking?approach would elimante jobs with repetiton while?creating jobs?with?greater attention to humanity as design,?systems thinking?and?value creation would offer.

About the author: Bill VanEron?held many demanding?jobs in NYC, then?in Denver before joining HP in 1978 with?shared insights that I?could increase?their brand relevance and revenues. Bill left when an entire division was laid off the same year Carly started as CEO. Management was indecisive. Bill then volunteered 8 years to help a local?startup?incubator?and to run a small agency Headwaters Marketing. He was credited?by?HP as their?all time?top market?strategist. He would have gladly returned to HP after seeing?how they failed to apply his principles as crucial to earned market regard. But they fell?into a pattern?of?management risk?aversion?so anything?new?was?rejected. Now Bill?is helping a few?accounts as an?outside in advisor. So?far, so?great. He hopes to pick up?a few?more as their success will pressure others?to follow.

Feel free to reach out?and connect as there?is no?charge for the initial call and my rates are modest despite the high value they establish. [email protected]??