What's in YOUR Logic?

“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers.” ~ Colin Powell ~
Deductive? Inductive? Abductive? Last month we looked at introverted or directional thinking and compared it with extroverted or intersectional thinking - which can vault companies and whole markets forward with great leaps of breakthrough innovation.

I recently came across a related article in Bloomberg Businessweek (January 25, 2010) titled "Innovation’s Accidental Enemies" by Roger Martin & Jennifer Riel. I have to share it.

Martin & Riel argue that most ideas provoke an impulse to demand proof of viability through deductive or inductive reasoning. In deductive reasoning, an idea is stacked up against a widely held rule. In inductive reasoning a new rule is developed from a base of accepted data. Great breakthrough innovations, however, often correlate to no established set of rules - nor can they draw on any font of data to derive a “certainty of success”. What to do? Toss it all to luck? Move forward on NO logical basis? The authors propose a third form of reasoning: ABDUCTIVE logic - the logic of what could be. Abductive logic can be used to make an inference – a leap in logic. I love this because it resonates so well with intersectional thinking.

To illustrate, here’s a paraphrased excerpt; “At Research In Motion (RIM), maker of the Blackberry, abductive logic is embedded in the culture. RIM’s founder encourages his people to explore big ideas and apparent paradoxes to push beyond what they can prove to be true in order to see what might be true. In the mid 1990s RIM was a modestly successful pager company but its founder wanted to get into portable email devices. He imagined something much smaller than a laptop but easier to type on than a cell phone. A super miniaturized QWERTY format keyboard had feasibility limitations (remember the Palm Stylus?) - UNTIL - he achieved a leap of logic: What if we typed using only our thumbs? A prototype quickly proved the logic and the Blackberry was born! Asking what could be true and jumping into the unknown is critical to innovation. Nurturing such ideas versus killing them is the tricky part. Once this hurdle is cleared the “proofs” can be developed and a vision of the future can be turned into fact.”

“When something is unsustainable – it stops.” ~ Anonymous ~
The “MOD QUAD”
Modified “Quad-Charts” can be used to reduce projects to their significant talking points and help succinctly visualize new opportunities (new product vectors). Quad Charts are great for provocative brainstorming because they force simplicity and keep cross functional management teams focused. They can be made a part of a strategic business plan for sustainable market relevance. Quad Charts are ONE page by design and deliberately succinct. Could you do one for your new development? Here’s a template:

How do you know when a change initiative has been successful? Just because you have concocted a plan and launched it does not mean that your execution has been successful. Initial employee enthusiasm from the CEO’s announcement, the big pizza party, the new incentive program, mugs and ball caps will fade and with it will evaporate your hopes of residual impact. Sustainable change is usually marked by four key indicators. These indicators will be observed from your employees.
• Declarations and testimonials are heard.
• There is appetite for more.
• Value adjustments are observed – culture shift is evident - change and productivity related peer pressure is evident at the shop floor level.
• Members become evangelists and the initiative has legs of its own without management prodding.


“Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.” ~Warren Buffet ~
Zen and the Art of Raking (If you don’t have trees – you can skip this piece.)
It amazes me how much garbage falls out of the sky (or trees actually). Every year, as the seasons cycle, I’m constantly raking. My lawn is perpetually littered. I’m raking in the Fall of course, but I’m raking well into Winter. I rake in the Spring and all through the Summer too. It is truly incredible how much “stuff” trees shed in the course of the year. Leaves – sure, but bark, old branches, major limbs, the husks and fluff from spring buds. Pulled from the ground, converted into biomass and deposited on my lawn. Nature, self-pruning, making way for new growth. I partially heat my home with a wood stove and I never have a lack of kindling. I just walk outside and scavenge twigs and branches right off the ground. Fabulous!

Many large branches also fall in the dead of winter that were probably wounded by some big wind long ago. Unattended, those limbs eventually dried up, lost their leaves and stood naked until their brittleness succumbed to gravity. I often look up expectantly at the “not yet fallen”, out of reach – destined to fall and stoke my stove.

I think about people who, in their youth and strength, flail at life and receive for all their efforts wounds they often don’t even feel until much later in life. I know I’ve been wounded and I’ve wounded myself. I’ve wounded others. Someone once told me “we’re all victims of victims”. But I can tend to my wounds and those I’ve inflicted if I recognize them. It’s never too late. I don’t have to lose any limbs.

And then there’s the ground itself – the substrate of my raking. Freezing and thawing the ground seems to push things out onto the surface or gobble them up. I think it’s a function of mass. The winter loosens up the dirt like no cultivator ever could. When I recall how concrete hard the ground can get in the dry heat of August it’s amazing the see how frost-heave, soaking rain and time can so effectively loosen it up again. So patient, so efficient. I think about hardened people and how time works on them and softens them physically and emotionally. Most become fertile and more open with time. Some resist and stay hardened – and barren of new growth.

As I rake through the seasons I find meaning in Proverbs 20:29; “The glory of young men is their strength and the splendor of old men is their gray head.” I’d personally like to think that the author also meant “bald” head. Spring is upon us! Maybe the Winter has loosened us up a little (I think the recession surely has). Maybe we’ve reconciled some old wounds, healed them, done some spiritual pruning and readied ourselves for new growth. I’ll probably be raking this weekend … weather and soggy ground permitting.

All the Best!
Bill