Why on earth would anyone need a course on thinking?

You can imagine the response of my wife when I said I was going to Paris for six days to learn how to think! It didn't help when I clarified that it wasn't just thinking, it was about a Logical Thinking Process! "The last thing you need Ian is more bl***y logic!", was the gist of her comments. Photos like the one below didn't help make my case either.

I'm now back from those six days, and can confirm that it was a fantastic investment, both from a personal development perspective, and in helping me to move forward with a significant business project that I am working on. And that was the same for the other attendees too.

It is not everyday that you get to learn from a Grand Master, but that is what we had the opportunity to do in Paris last week, in a training workshop run by Bill Dettmer and organised by Marris Consulting. 

I first came across Bill Dettmer nearly 20 years ago when I bought his first book "Goldratt's Theory of Constraints". I always thought the title was a bit of a misnomer, in that it didn't really cover the whole of this broad subject. But what it did do, in a step-by-step way, was to demonstrate how to use the generic thinking and problem finding/solving tools that are a key part of the Theory of Constraints (TOC). Over the years using this book, along others from experts like Lisa Scheinkopf, coaching from Martin Powell, and reading many articles and case studies, I slowly got the hang of a few of these powerful tools. But I also felt that there was probably much I could do to improve my skill and fluency in using them. And last week I got the chance to prove myself right on this!

Bill Dettmer, debriefing one of the exercises

The workshop was based on Bill's most recent book "The Logical Thinking Process" (the LTP). This is much less of a misnomer - it "does what it says on tin" - but I also think the title really undersells the value you can get from this methodology. The book's subtitle - A Systems Approach to Complex Problem Solving - is again accurate, but hardly hints at what you can do once you master these methods.

We can all think, and most of us think we are logical - or at least can be when we want to be. So why would we need training to think? Surely it's like eating, drinking and breathing. We might need to keep practicing, but most of us wouldn't bother with a course on "how to eat".

But 'just thinking' isn't at all what the method is about at all. 

The LTP is an extremely powerful business, and personal, improvement process. 

Mastering the basic elements of the LTP can turn most of us into great team facilitators. Bill gave an example of how he used the textbook process to guide the leadership team of a multi-billion dollar service company to develop its long-term strategic plan. Now obviously the leaders of such a company are not inexperienced muppets - far from it. They didn't deliberately manage their company so it was #4 in the US market. But of course, finding the right lever to pull from the hundreds available in a large organisation is not easy, and it is sometimes safer (at least to our careers) not to pull any, or pull the same ones our competitors pull. But then, that is unlikely to get you to ~1 in your market, which is what this firm wanted to be. During a few days with the executive team, Bill armed with the same process we learned, helped the company to develop a new strategic plan. One they implemented over the coming years, and which did achieve the goal of becoming the #1 company in their market. (1)

For most of us, focusing on what is important becomes more difficult the more experienced you are.  You know so much about the situation, what works and what doesn't, that you have no problem listing all the problems in the business, and there are lots of problems.  The key is finding the critical 1% to focus on.

Focus is what the LTP process brings. 

• Focus on the small number of critical success factors that your business needs to master. 
• Focus on the small number of critical root causes that hold you back today.
• Focus on the few chronic dilemmas that are why these root causes have not been identified and removed earlier.
• Focus on the key changes that you should make to your system that will allow you to make a step change in your performance.
• Focus on the potential obstacles that can derail your plans, and put in place plans to overcome them.

It is easy to poo-poo methods like Dettmer's LTP, and shrug if off as 'just common sense'. But of course

"Common sense is not all that common."

Or you could say that "logic is all well and good, but humans are not robots, and we make decisions for a range of reasons.

We decide emotionally, and then justify it logically...

and what I liked about the LTP is that it embraced the need to blend logic and a range of human factors to develop real-world strategies and plans - it isn't logic OR emotion OR intuition, it helps us to harness the power of logic AND emotion AND intuition.

This workshop isn't all lecture and generic exercises, most of the time you work on your own live organisation or strategic problem. That meant that we all left with the promised "actionable plans that will take your organisation to a higher level". This by itself is something that few of us could develop to this level of quality by ourselves. If you went to one of the strategy consulting houses for their help, that would cost many times the course fee, and demand at least as much of your time. And you probably wouldn't get the personal support of a globally-recognised thought leader like Bill, to say nothing about the higher quality of strategy and lower risks that come from using this process! And of course you also get experience with a repeatable method that you can use by yourself next time.

Much, much more than simply learning to think!

Bill is back in Europe in June 2017 running this workshop again (details here).  I thoroughly recommend this workshop, to anyone involved in finding and implementing improvement opportunities, and I wish I had taken the plunge and learned this process properly sooner! Its applications range from global multi-nationals, to small businesses, from defining major projects to our personal lives. The methods have even been used, in a simplified form, in education and social work.

There is also a 2-day LTP Alumni Workshop (following the above workshop, details here). Although the alumni session is designed for those who have done Bill's LTP training, I am sure it would be of value to any TOC practitioner who has experience in using the thinking tools in general. Because not many people know about and use these tools, it can be a lonely existence, and the alumni workshop will be a great chance to share experiences and further develop our expertise with like-minded people.

Thanks Bill for a great workshop, and to Philip Marris, and team at Marris Consulting getting Bill over to our side of The Pond.