CREATING A CULTURE OF “MEDICIEXITY”
Lorenzo “The Magnificent” de Medici
At The Enterprise Resilience Management Blog, EnterraSolutions founder Steve DeAngelis has an artful post, tied together a conceptual tapestry of cognitive tools. Before we get into the specifics of Steve’s post, some quick definitions of terms for newer readers (click links for extended discussions):
“Modern society is organized around Vertical thinking… [and is ] completely dependent upon highly specialized experts, spending their time working within relatively narrow domains…[ who] keep the system running and try to advance the knowledge base of their specialty.
“Lateral thinking enhances the effectiveness of vertical thinking by offering it more to select from” – Edward DeBono
“Horizontal thinking can get the expert out of that mental cul-de-sac by setting aside analysis in favor of synthesis, intuitive pattern recognition, suspension of judgment, reversing/challenging premises, counterfactual thought experiments and brainstorming alternatives.”
“Complex thinkers tend to be transdisciplinary – and may be so from the get-go (i.e. childhood). The reason for this may be that their thinking is more pattern-related and iterative rather than logically related in a casual chain…It’s these folks you turn to when big decisions need to be made under complex and uncertain conditions“.
” The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures, Frans Johansson talks about the value of creating a space in which people from diverse fields of expertise can get together to exchange ideas. “
Steve had a number of observations and comments in regard to these terms and points in my pervious post and those at the The Eide Neurolearning Blog that I would like to highlight:
“We normally think of creating a Medici Effect by bringing vertical thinkers together in a group to generate innovative solutions to a particular problem or to generate entirely new thinking. I would be willing to bet that individuals who successfully facilitate those gatherings are, more often than not, horizontal thinkers. Most successful analysts are pattern recognizers. They see similarities, use analogies, and draw from every corner of the human experience to make their points. As a result, they are interesting people to be around. People pay just to hear the connections they make — and they are worth every penny. Horizontal thinkers see and understand horizontal scenarios better than other people. What does this have to do with resiliency? A lot.
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