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    The Second Road of Thought Tony Golby Smith

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    Rafael Pastor
    Logica

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    The Second Road of Thought Tony Golby Smith

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    Rafael Pastor
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    Logica

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    Logica

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    Download as pdf
    151 views5 pages

    The Second Road of Thought Tony Golby Smith

    Uploaded by

    Rafael Pastor
    Logica

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Ray pny Koka hata THE SEC ROAD OF THOUGH APRIEND OF ARNE WITH A BACKGROUND AY MEDIA cecently found hime in the role of CRO of a major goverament department ‘One of the frst things he soticed is how abused the word “strategy is: everything has tobe a strategy in arder ea get noticed LHe was sure someone woul have a strategy fo visiting the rest rooms. hut the second thing he noticed was that no-one was sccualy sinking strategically: the more the word was used, the Tess meaningfil i became Te should not be ike thi, Strategy shoul be che process that enables organizations to creste new Futures ad engage their peo- ple in exciting casks, Inseead, i mosely weighs an ozpanization down with more data and inputs Arguably the stategy pracessis one af the weakest processesin mont organizations: They are fa better equinped with the tool for tperational management ara 'defenving the status que than they ate for inventing and shaping new fatutes, and there is & good reason for thie modets organizations exis tthe ‘delivery end’ of the inking lifecycle, nota the discovery end ‘Once an organization becomes mature and viable, it stabilizes ney” becomes its overiing goal Bur serategy is not about livery and efficiency itis about discow ideas ito structures, and ‘ffi ering alternative possibilities. Inherenty this will challenge the hypotheses on which the organization is built: Seen in this light strategy wll ehreaten che organization’ stablityso the ongeniztion ill immunize iselfagaine it. The budget process i a practical cxample of how this immune system’ srorks: it hardwvires yesterday's assumptions about inputs and outputs into plans and commitments, andso habicuates organizatonsinto preserving the status quo. ‘We need a new approach to strategy that can uniock feesh energy and make ie more innovative and less data driven. This i ‘what design thinking can offer he Tao Reads Story The heart of the Foo Roads story is that the western world bought the wrong thinking system from Aristotle, This ranks as fone ofthe worst iavestment decisions our civilization has made, and it has fed us into using the wrong toolkits For ovr entesprises| ever since, T n was Aristotle's thinking system we invested analytes’, and we made the choice around the era of the Enlightenment which ushered in what we tay cll the Scientific ‘Age. That decision as proven x sweeping that it none monopolizes what aost people characterize as'hinking’ Thinking procestes are rulyou get no beter evi dence ofthis than or universities, che home a thinking, where any subject must position itself asa science toe taken seriously, “Taditional approaches ta strategy st fsly and squarely at this able of lagi ad Sionce Anais by che culture ofthe sciences, Whac few people realize ie chat Aristotle conceived ewe think ingaystems, not one. We made the big mistake of just buying one, and allowing it to monopolize the whole territory of thought. We should have ough them both an used them as partners Instead ‘we have only one thinking tool in our hands and we ate wsingit for all Uae wrong purposes, Here thon it happened -Asistotle was the frst person to codify thinking into a system, He li thie for reason: he lived in pechaps the most dramatic social experiment of human history the invention of democracy by the Greek leader Klesthenes around 450 BC. This poiticalsystem dic whae no other bad tried eo do: it delivered decision makinginto the hands of human beings. Priae to that, regimes were governed bythe king or the gods. "That meant that ao matter how sophist- cated they might have been in terms of Enginecring or Mathematics, they were not sophisticated abouthuran reasoning, especially where decision making was concerned. Clesely Kleisthenes’politial reforms created a great nel to codify the processes by which humans think and can arrive at ‘truths ever there was a do-iv-youtsef manual, chis was i Oxdinary humans ‘were paying godin Aristo Grevee The Logic Road Inanswerto this demand, Asistotle invented the great‘euth making ‘machine of logic, and he brilianty described it in his books o the Anafjtic, Tae heart of the machine was the ‘syllogism’ adit dominates the works: fb, an bee, then a. This formula col tke ipputs and compute them into teuth elaims that were uni- ‘erally trae and incontrovertible Ave has on ic Aoi ae nope brillant essay Asistote laid down the path for deductive seasoning cat hae dominated the western mind for the last 300 yeas. Wat ie have bl what I cll he logic road andi artes pretty much allofur intellectual traffic these days. The reason for its appeal isnot so much the method but what it offers contiol and certaney If [ean pall apace any system into its working pate in cause-andeffecc relations, surely willbe ly kooue the truth abent this sysesn, Thc knowledge wil anid then explain ateto fv ive me conte there willbe no sucprises, and Iwill be in the box seat. And with control [wll alo get certainty T ean predict ove comas and guarantee eslts ogi road convinced us more than it convinced Adisttle Fe was alvays uneasy about the iopsts into the system. He was confident that his inference-making engine worked well ht what ‘fe coull nos trust che puss? He never ansvered that qoestion tohissatistacton (considerthe asttwo pages of hisndtisnwhere ie confronts this worry); but centuries later, two great minds comspitet 29 apparently cleanup the its question cetly Galileo pionceced che wie of mimbers to represent elite Rather tan represent the data ofthe universe as fable or story he sornedallits mystery inca rumbers cold hard, concrete numbers “Then Descartes, who hated uncertainsy and ambiguity elevated Mathematics to che head of the table asthe only true Science Deseartes famously hated the ‘sof’ humanities ancl declared that only numbers were wnarnbiguous and cue. With this they conspited to pazeh up the inputs question snd thus logic’ became apparently eter tight "he logic road ndespinned he ena Sctence, which delivered uuctechnolngies and made tive Industrial Revoktion possible. The Revolution deliveredsst tole wealthanveapitalism, andsittingat the end of this benelicia esl lye modern management and its strategic processes, deeply indebted to the opie road. But the logic «oad has tun imo all sors of eouble, mainly because has filed to {deliver on ts main promise of contol ith, "We never acl so mock information avaiable tows as we have toy, so often say to management groups that I woe who Fels we have never been mare in control of ear orld a on destiny? Nobody das. So-what has gone wrong? ho Senomd Roast For the answer, we can begin by going back to Aristotle, He was smarter than we were in rising i and over investing in his logic ly limited the application of his analytics prodhict He sgntien ‘opine toa certain domain of tnt: he called this domi where ‘hingeeannot be other than they are By thie he meant the realm af [Natural Science. you have a uth question concerning the real of natuce cr any rea here things de ot change, by all means wse ‘helogic ros, But he said tha: this domain was no the only domain fo eroth making, There was a sccand demain which be character ined in the memorable phrate, ‘where things can be other than they are! By this he ean che whole domainof harman decision making, For this seonad domain, Aristotle conceived an ently different thioking pathway chat combined invention, judgment and decision weapped up ins socal process of debate He ealled this process Jecti’, and I callie the Second Road to trot ‘where we in Fet‘play go! andletermine alternative fata hetorie’ or iste deseibed it just as filly as bis analptic engine books including the Retric and the Tipice. The eriteal difference Ibecween the cwo soads is always best understond by the diferent domains of question that they address rhetoric was the road by rive Furues; analytes was the oad bbywhich we diagnosed what aleeadyexist. ‘As Richaed Buchanan of Cacnegie-Mell rdmarkessay,designis the which humans designed alten Univesity has brilliant denonstratedinasecies of modern shetove, The significance ofthis cannot be overstated: iF strategy isin fee a design process it has been using an incomplete toolkit ta date “Humanbeings do not svalyze their way into the hitre Tn fac, ‘we cannot analyze our way ont inch into the forute, forthe simple reason that the future does not exist yet, so itis not there to analyze. Let me demonstrate thie to yon quite simply At the heart ofthe logics iesthe desc proof and empixicaleasoning This is hard ited into our culture by the comnnchallenge,"Prove it TF cannot ‘prose’ a hypothesis then Tam undone, Suppose I propose a dream For our oxganization in which T imagine an alternative situation, different feom and swuch roore desirable chan the present situation, When management challenges me to "prove it I cannot do this, fr the simple reason that my dream lies in the future and thus is beyond! proof. Ye if armsochallengedand repl,“Sorry I eannot proveit..but I believe Ix? Twould fel seek and defensive in most organiationalevttores The reasoa f would feel so defensive ie that our whole paradigm is dominaced by the analytic system — anil itis out ofthis dominant ‘inking system thatthe challenge to prove it lows, I we cannot analyze our way into the Rite, how do we move ahead? The answer is ‘by arguinemts and it #8 che art of We je fist the future doe cannot analyze our way ONG inch into. for the sir ree yet, so itis not s not exis' angunentation chat esa the heartof the Second Road. Arpuments ate ti engines by whichnransereataterrative Fines The great Roman leader, Cicero, was an aid follower of ‘Keatore and quite possibly the greatest shetorcin of alm, He ramed chee al human evilization was bile on che pathway of spares and memorably imagined wncilized bes arguing their ‘Mapout of caves and ntrvilages, Picture che ist natives to sat the argucent “We don’t have to keep sheltering high up in these caves Forever I reckon we can ive happict ives way down by he river close tothe water and our hunting grounds” Soho do we do that, peaytel without freezing to death in thewinter months?” God question, bu Thave tis ilea Lee’ clit atu = which wwe could make oot ofthe timber fra ok trees. You ae always dreaming you foo. vat the idea of buts has some attraction. .akeit farther for ne” In that dynaanie of argument ies the whole momentum of progress, according t Cicero: if Cicero's cave dwvelers used are mnles logie road to improve theit lies, chey would sell be aaaaa iy analyringthe vock straccures of caves. Buc they are Ho8, becmase the hurnan genius for argomentation enables ts to eaft nteenative destinies Trery stacey is an argorent, every plan an agumene 20d vey dong isan argoment, The concept of exgument ePENS 2

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