Notice that both of Kahneman’s systems are ways of moving from information to decision. The aim of either system is to close down the number of choices to get to the “right” choice and voila there’s your right decision. This approach is not much different from the binary programming that runs computer algorithms. The process of Thinking Whole is considerably more robust. It provides an open structure and a safe space for the team to reach for higher levels of “enlightenment.” Thinking Whole is more expansive in scope. It is simultaneously more disciplined and flexible. It “aims” for very specific outcomes.
The first targeted outcome is Actionable Insighting. Making sense of information so as to distill and crystallize the issue being discussed. Once that issue is crystallized; that is to say articulated in its most distilled and concretized form (because we finally understand it well enough to be brief) the system shifts to a process for achieving Actionable Inciting. The word “inciting” gets a bad rap these days; but its original Latin meaning was the “hastening” of something. In our system, the thing we wish to hasten are actionability and execution.
Most importantly, the discipline of TW provides room for manifesting that which we did not know we did not know and/or the identification of a Central Operating Principle (aka – “COP”). A COP is that which tells you and guides the action which naturally flows from the big insight. The difference between an insight and a central operating principle is that the first is an end in itself while the second is the point of shifting from thinking to doing.
There are two additional targeted outcomes: 1. Completing the process in one working day; preferably, less. 2. Tapping into the collective native intelligence of the team and/or the individual. We will go into greater detail on all of this shortly. But let’s dwell a moment on the notion of the value and the importance of tapping into collective native intelligence (CNI). In a typical corporate or organizational meeting, the assumption is that each person will likely represent the point of view of their department or function.
That’s the convention. But that’s also shortchanging every individual’s potential contribution; because every person has a wealth of other experiences, perspectives, skills, and talents. Each of us would benefit from personal decisions make through the conscious inclusion of our individual CNI. Multiply that by a team, access it through Thinking Whole… and … well you can imagine the wonders that can manifest.
On a preceding page, there is a visual summarization of the way Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, and Thinking Whole “fit” together with a bit more detail about each.. The perspective of each system is different. Thinking Fast, grounded as it is in the natural response mechanisms of the brain has, as its primary function, the intention of precipitating rapid, decisive, solutioning. As Gladwell observed in blink, we would not have survived as a species without being able to think without thinking. All living things have this fundamental survival mechanism; humans simply have evolved it to the point where it is not limited to the physical reaction but also to the cerebral.
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