Logic and Intuition, Creativity and Empathy

An entertaining book by Daniel Pink - “A Whole new Mind” – suggests that a new kind of thinking is required for the future. The primacy of logical thinking is over; we need to usher in a period of intuitive thought to create new ideas about work and life. The qualities we need to use – and if possible to develop in people – are Creativity and Empathy.

This is interesting to us because we have for many years been engaged in studying the nature and measurement of potential at work and have identified these two qualities among a very small number of fundamental attributes that define ‘learning capacity’ – a synonym for potential. Over the years we have appraised the potential of around 15 000 people in major companies and governments on five continents. Sure enough, we find that Creativity and Empathy are the least represented qualities in people’s profiles, especially in the West. Left-brain directed, logical, rational thinking is still the more appreciated process in developed-world businesses. But there are many signs that this is changing, or rather that people are becoming aware that something better is needed.

Pink’s view is that the two qualities, which are generally associated with right-brain directed thinking, need to replace the analytical and logical way of thinking. People are logical or they are creative. Potentia’s research and experience says that the 2 qualities need to become relatively more important in managers’ thinking, but that they must complement and balance other qualities – not replace them.

Some examples of what we mean:

Analysis is a process of looking backwards to see how a current issue fits into known patterns and experience; to determine why something has occurred and understand what is going on; to choose the best way of solving a problem. One of the things good analysis should do therefore is to recognise when something different has happened that cannot be solved by doing the same things as before but needs a novel approach. Creativity is then needed to decide what that approach should be; where the new alternatives and opportunities lie. So we see that Analysis on its own is of limited use. If it is not complemented by Creativity it

leads to ‘paralysis’, stalemate, or making the same mistake again. Similarly, Creativity is not useful in isolation. Wild ideas unrelated to current realities are just daydreams: the discipline of Analysis is necessary to establish a logic for realising a creative idea from where we are today.
It is the same with Empathy. Merely understanding where others are coming from, or what are the political sensitivities in the situation, is not particularly useful. But when it is added to a Task Focus that requires doing something in the context of the wider social setting, it becomes highly important. And, of course, Task orientation without the balancing ability to take account of the needs and wishes of others is the territory of Vlad the Impaler and his ilk.

So our belief is that all the qualities are relevant all the time but that the balance between them can and should vary with the context in which you have to think. What is needed to face the challenges of the future therefore is not the development of some of these basic qualities in isolation, but paying attention to the balance of thinking when important decisions are being made. This is what Brevis has developed under the heading of Compleat Thinking. It is a technique for ensuring that leaders take the full picture into account before committing to a decision. Compleat Thinking means thinking…

Not only about the present, but also different stages into the future;
Not only about the task or goal, but also its socio-political context;
Not only about what to do, but also how to do it.