The Strategy of Better Thinking about Thinking

“The opposite of of knowing, is knowing better.”

The Los Angeles chapter of the Association for Strategic Planning had two great speakers from Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne, William Bellows and Michael C’deBaca.  Both talks were excellent. Dr. Bellows  spoke about a unique outlook, the concept of  modern management’s thinking.    He is an Associate Fellow at the In thinking Network at United Technologies. InThinking Network at United Technologies

He used several examples, where management thinking was reactive instead of proactive thus “waiting for a crises to occur.” In other words, “progressive management is not being surprised when things don’t go well.”

This type of thinking is the antithesis of “If it aint broken, don’t fix it.”  An example are manufacturers who manufacture parts to specifications that have variances.  So, if  parts manufactured could be withing 5 millimeters in length for example, each part can be between 1 and 4 millimeters different.  These variances can present a crises for the next stage of development.

The ultimate mantra of the Inthinking Network is to focus on the relationship of the manufacturing process, and not the part.”  In other words, “mind the gap, not the part.”  Companies today focus on the “quality” of the part, and not the relationships of the parts assembly.

This thinking does not have to be confined to manufacturing.  Services can have gaps, too, if their are multiple specialties within a company that have to work together to produce a result for a client.  One department may perform their service “adequately,” but fail to see the big picture, and how their “adequate” performance may not be adequate to another department.

Dr. Bellows also used an automobile’s gas gauge as an example of reactive management.  You don’t drive your car saying you are just fine when the gauge is pointing near empty.  “Good enough,” may not be “good enough” when the engine stops.  Therefore, proactive management would be to get gas before that happens.

This mindset fits well into strategy implementation.  Do you implement a strategy on the department level, or do implement it on the company-wide level and promote cascading to the  lower levels?  The “devil is certainly in the detail,” but even the devil can see the Titanic sinking without focusing on a glass that keeps rolling off a table.

This type of thinking is far deeper than this essay, but business owners should consider the direction it can take their companies.  Thinking, learning, and working together can not only affect a strategies implementation, but increase the probability of a company fulfilling its vision.