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Thought Process

How to … Get into a Creative Mindset

October 3, 2024 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Rangaswamy Srinivasan: Pioneering Advances in Laser Surgery Techniques In 1981, Rangaswamy Srinivasan, a chemist at IBM Research, and his colleagues embarked on a mission to identify an organic substance suitable for testing an ultraviolet excimer laser—an innovative tool capable of etching intricate designs into polymers for computer chips.

On November 27, in a moment of inspiration, Srinivasan brought some leftover Thanksgiving turkey into his laboratory for laser experimentation. After a series of trials and adjustments, he successfully produced clean, precise incisions in the turkey’s cartilage without causing any thermal damage to the surrounding tissue.

This serendipitous discovery of ablative photodecomposition paved the way for LASIK eye surgery, a procedure that requires precise alterations to the cornea’s shape to correct various vision problems. This groundbreaking technique has since transformed the lives of millions, providing a painless solution for myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism.

Idea for Impact: The more you plunge into exploration and nurture that curious spark, the more you turn curiosity into a regular habit. To up your odds of those delightful “aha!” moments, don’t shy away from a bit of uncertainty and experimentation every now and then. Embrace the art of intelligent floundering—give new ideas a whirl and toss around a few “what if” questions. Frame your thoughts with a touch of experimentation by musing, “What if I tried it this way?” or “Why wouldn’t that work better?” You never know; your next big breakthrough might just be lurking in the leftovers, waiting for you to discover it!

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  5. Overcoming Personal Constraints is a Key to Success

Filed Under: Business Stories, Sharpening Your Skills, The Great Innovators Tagged With: Creativity, Entrepreneurs, Innovation, Parables, Problem Solving, Thought Process

Why Group Brainstorming Falls Short on Creativity and How to Improve It

July 18, 2024 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Why Group Brainstorming Falls Short on Creativity and How to Improve It Seventy years ago, American advertising executive Alex Osborn impacted the field of management with his book Applied Imagination (1953.) This groundbreaking work introduced the concept of brainstorming, marking the beginning of a more collaborative and inclusive approach to leadership. At that time, the prevailing style of leadership was characterized by command-and-control, emphasizing silos and solitary decision-making. Executives relied on traditional chalkboard to-do lists to guide their actions.

Psychologists investigating the “illusion of group productivity” quickly discovered a significant flaw in brainstorming. Despite its intention to boost creativity and generate numerous ideas through collaboration, group brainstorming proved less effective than individual brainstorming, followed by the pooling of ideas.

Here’s an enhanced version of the group brainstorming practice that can foster better and more daring ideas. Begin by providing individuals or pairs with personal space for separate contemplation, allowing their thoughts to wander freely. Then, encourage them to share their ideas, including the unconventional and impractical ones, to ignite the group brainstorming session. This approach eliminates the awkwardness of everyone staring at each other in silence. Instead, it creates an environment conducive to fruitful discussions. It prevents anyone from monopolizing the conversation, attempting to prove others wrong, impressing superiors, or simply rambling for personal amusement. Furthermore, this approach effectively guards against premature judgment, which stifles creativity.

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Filed Under: Effective Communication, Leading Teams, Mental Models Tagged With: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Meetings, Presentations, Social Dynamics, Teams, Thinking Tools, Thought Process

The Arrogance of Success

May 22, 2024 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Arrogance of Success: Contentment Often Leads to Stagnation Don’t look in the rearview mirror and expect that what led to past success can lead to new success. Human nature is such that we don’t like to contemplate letting go of the skills and behaviors that “got us here.” The arrogance of success is to assume that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow. Contentment often leads to stagnation.

Have a learning mindset. After every win, be critical—even faultfinding—and try to understand what made you successful in each case with brutal self-honesty. Was it luck? Was it skill?

Idea for Impact: Let success be a brilliant teacher in the areas where weaknesses must be addressed.

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  1. Turning a Minus Into a Plus … Constraints are Catalysts for Innovation
  2. Overcoming Personal Constraints is a Key to Success
  3. Van Gogh Didn’t Just Copy—He Reinvented
  4. Question the Now, Imagine the Next
  5. Restless Dissatisfaction = Purposeful Innovation

Filed Under: Business Stories, Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Assertiveness, Critical Thinking, Discipline, Innovation, Introspection, Luck, Mental Models, Parables, Thinking Tools, Thought Process, Toyota

Pretotype It: Fail Fast, Learn Faster

May 20, 2024 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

'The Right It' by Alberto Savoia (ISBN 0062884654) Inundated with promising ideas but craving a quick method to distinguish the gems from the duds? Consider Pretotyping, an idea validation technique, championed by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Alberto Savoia.

Think mockups, landing pages, conjectures, or role-playing. Unlike prototyping, where you build functional or semi-functional versions of your product- or service-idea, pretotyping keeps it cheap and low-fidelity. It’s all about figuring out who your idea’s really for and getting their take on it pronto.

Idea for Impact: Try pretotyping—it’s the quickest way to learn how not-so-good your ideas really are.

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  5. Creativity & Innovation: The Opportunities in Customer Pain Points

Filed Under: MBA in a Nutshell, Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills, The Great Innovators Tagged With: Creativity, Customer Service, Innovation, Problem Solving, Thinking Tools, Thought Process

Defect Seeding: Strengthen Systems, Boost Confidence

April 15, 2024 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Defect Seeding: Strengthen Systems, Boost Confidence Ever wondered how industries where safety and quality are paramount conduct vulnerability assessments to ensure their systems are always up to the task in critical situations? “Defect Seeding” is a method that intentionally plants faults to test system integrity and reliability of protocols, technology, and personnel.

Planting defects isn’t about causing trouble; rather, it’s a proactive assessment to ensure readiness under real-world conditions and guarantee reliable detection and rejection of faulty items. For instance, aviation security agencies conduct covert testing by planting security scenarios to assess personnel, procedures, and equipment effectiveness in spotting and handling threats.

Idea for Impact: Try Defect Seeding to furtively spot vulnerabilities, ensure everything’s up to par, and inform adjustments to protocols. It’s a great way to boost confidence in your systems.

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Filed Under: Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills, The Great Innovators Tagged With: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Decision-Making, Innovation, Problem Solving, Quality, Risk, Thinking Tools, Thought Process

What Isn’t Matters Too

March 27, 2024 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

What Isn't Matters Too Science is a fair and square game, distinguished by its unique approach, which prompts practitioners to delineate both the known and unknown boundaries.

Scientists are encouraged to publish failed experiments as a practice that promotes transparency, prevents the repetition of unsuccessful work, and upholds the integrity of the scientific process. This approach allows for learning from mistakes, mitigates biases, and contributes to a more complete and accurate body of scientific know-how.

In the wider scope of philosophical exploration, problem-solving, and decision-making, whether in personal or professional arenas, it’s equally essential to take into account the notion of “what isn’t.” Realizing we don’t have all the answers, finding those missing pieces, and sparking new ideas—that’s diving deep into the heart of it all.

Embracing the unknown not only enhances critical thinking by avoiding assumptions but also encourages collaboration and the development of new perspectives. It promotes a nuanced and open-minded stance towards life, contributing to continuous personal and collective growth.

Idea for Impact: “What Isn’t” is just as important as “What Is.”

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  2. You Can’t Develop Solutions Unless You Realize You Got Problems: Problem Finding is an Undervalued Skill
  3. Turning a Minus Into a Plus … Constraints are Catalysts for Innovation
  4. Creativity by Imitation: How to Steal Others’ Ideas and Innovate
  5. Four Ideas for Business Improvement Ideas

Filed Under: Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Mental Models, Philosophy, Thinking Tools, Thought Process

Our 10 Most Popular Articles of 2023

December 28, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Top Blog Articles of 2023 Here are our most popular exclusive features of 2023. Pass this on to your friends; if they like these, they can sign up to receive our RSS feeds.

The Secret Weapon to Happiness. Happiness is tied to expectations—whether things exceed or fall short. Adjusting expectations, as suggested by Buddhism, can boost joy, without the need for constant striving or societal pressures.

Why It’s So Hard to Apologize. Non-apologizers find it challenging to set aside pride and concede imperfections, often as an effort to protect a fragile self-image. Apologies don’t have to prove a point.

The Two Best Employee Engagement Questions. How actively do you engage in enhancing your responsibilities, and does your workplace actively seek your input for improvements? To what extent do the processes you work with support your success in your role?

Listening Is Not Just Waiting to Talk. When we pretend to listen while internally rehearsing our response—crafting a counterargument,—we fail to genuinely grasp the speaker’s message, overlooking its nuances and subtleties.

A Daily Appointment with Your Worries. Schedule specific 15- to 30-minute “Worry Time” slots on your calendar to limit and make your worries more productive, encouraging active problem-solving and preventing constant rumination throughout the day.

The Shoichi Yokoi Fallacy. Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi hid in Guam for 28 years, clinging to his identity and principles, but ultimately sacrificed his life as unwavering adherence to ideals turned into a vice.

Why Your Partner May Be Lying. People may lie to partners when they feel unsafe telling the truth, fearing rejection or disapproval. The focus is often on short-term benefits, and if they believe they won’t get caught, they find it expedient to sidestep the truth.

Three Rules to Decide If You Should Automate a Task. Selecting processes for automation is challenging, but a thorough workflow analysis reveals the ideal path for automation. The process should be efficient, requiring minimal human interaction.

Much Said, Little Decided in Most Meetings. Gathering well-paid professionals for unproductive, costly interactions is unchecked. For better decisions, plan purposeful meetings that prioritize decision-making over information-sharing.

Under Pressure, the Narrowing Cognitive Map. Time pressure can lead to “narrowing of the cognitive map,” causing tunnel vision and errors in judgment. The case of Singapore Airlines Flight 6 exemplifies how this hinders decision-making.

And here are some articles of yesteryear that continue to be popular:

  • Lessons on adversity from Charlie Munger
  • If you’re looking for bad luck, you’ll soon find it
  • Don’t let small decisions destroy your productivity
  • Expressive writing can help you heal
  • To be more productive, try doing less.
  • Get good at things by being bad first.
  • The power of negative thinking
  • Accidents can happen when you least expect
  • How smart companies get smarter
  • Don’t be a prisoner of the hurt done to you.
  • The Fermi Rule & Guesstimation

We wish you all a healthy and prosperous 2024!

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Filed Under: Managing People, Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Critical Thinking, Decision-Making, Getting Along, Mindfulness, Thought Process

Innovation: Be as Eager to Stop Zombie Projects as You Are to Begin the New

October 26, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Be as Eager to Stop Zombie Projects as You are to Begin the New Innovation entails not only the disciplined creation and implementation of new ideas that add value but also the acumen to identify and cease zombie projects.

Has a project consistently failed to deliver expected outcomes despite substantial investments? Could the project’s objectives be achieved more efficiently through alternative means? Have shifts in strategic direction made the initial goals irrelevant?

Idea for Impact: Instead of pouring additional resources into a zombie project in the hope of eventual success and payback, consider the risk of squandering more funds. In an era of limited resources and unmet demands, making careful resource allocation is a crucial aspect of effective innovation.

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  5. Restless Dissatisfaction = Purposeful Innovation

Filed Under: Leading Teams, Mental Models, Project Management, The Great Innovators Tagged With: Creativity, Decision-Making, Innovation, Mental Models, Parables, Problem Solving, Thought Process

Build, Then Optimize

October 24, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Build, Then Optimize Startups often emphasize the importance of optimization, which can lead to significant gains, but only if your business is already functioning well.

Focusing on anything other than garnering interest for your product or service is pointless if no one is genuinely interested. Premature optimization wastes time and resources.

Idea for Impact: Get the basics right, then optimize. Prioritize getting the basics right before becoming fixated on optimization. In fact, avoid targeting incremental improvements when a step change is what you really need.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Creativity by Imitation: How to Steal Others’ Ideas and Innovate
  2. Overcoming Personal Constraints is a Key to Success
  3. You Can’t Develop Solutions Unless You Realize You Got Problems: Problem Finding is an Undervalued Skill
  4. Van Gogh Didn’t Just Copy—He Reinvented
  5. Four Ideas for Business Improvement Ideas

Filed Under: Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Entrepreneurs, Getting Things Done, Mental Models, Perfectionism, Thought Process

You Never Know What’ll Spark Your Imagination (and When)

August 31, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Children find all sorts of unexpected ways to nurture their imagination. With uninhibited curiosity and creativity for fantasy, they can create and connect concepts without inner judgment. What children discover with their active imagination often molds how they see the world and fuels their dreams, as the following cases will illuminate.

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) hardly spoke until he was three. His delayed verbal development made him curious about ordinary things that most grown-ups take for granted—such as the nature of space and time. When he was five and sick in bed, Einstein’s father brought him a contraption that stirred his mind no end. It was the first time he had seen a magnetic compass. Laying in bed, Einstein tried waving and turning the little gadget in vain to trick it into pointing off in a new direction. He later wrote, “A wonder … this experience made a deep and lasting impression upon me. Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was born into a notable aristocratic family. His parents were progressive thinkers and atheists. They chose philosopher John Stuart Mill as Russell’s secular godfather. When Russell’s parents died when he was four, they designated in their will that their progressive friends should look after young Russell and bring him up as an agnostic. But his grandparents intervened, abandoned the parents’ stipulation, and raised Russell and his brother Frank in a strict Christian household. As an adolescent, Russell kept a diary expressing his misgivings about God and concepts of free will. He kept his diary in Greek letters so that his grandparents couldn’t read it. When he went to Cambridge, he bumped into many people who thought the way he did. He actively engaged in debates and discussions. When Russell was eleven, Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid, which Russell described in his autobiography as “one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love. I had not imagined there was anything so delicious in the world. From that moment until I was thirty-eight, mathematics was my chief interest and my chief source of happiness.” Russell became the 20th century’s most important agnostic, philosopher, and mathematician.

Ansel Adams (1902–84) had a difficult time in school. An unruly boy, he was hyperactive and dyslexic. He was ousted from several schools. He later wrote, “Education without either meaning or excitement is impossible. I longed for the outdoors, leaving only a small part of my conscious self to pay attention to schoolwork.” His parents eventually gave up and began homeschooling him. When he was 14, they gave him two gifts: a Kodak #1 Box Brownie camera and a trip to Yosemite National Park (the National Parks Service had just been established.) On that family trip, Adams was so captivated by the charm of the mountains and the woods that he would revisit the park every summer for the rest of his life. Adams began experimenting with cameras, solidifying a lifelong connection between his two passions—photography and the natural world. He set the gold standard for art photography in the 20th century. His extraordinary photographs of Yosemite and other wilderness areas became familiar to millions worldwide.

Idea for Impact: You never knew what would spark the imagination. Build your creative muscle. Emphasize effort over the results of creative endeavors and enjoy new experiences. Play. Wander. Rebel. Experiment. Challenge. Indulge. Question. Absorb.

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  2. Four Ideas for Business Improvement Ideas
  3. Avoid Defining the Problem Based on a Proposed Solution
  4. Three Rules That Will Decide If You Should Automate a Task
  5. How to Solve a Problem By Standing It on Its Head

Filed Under: Business Stories, Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills, The Great Innovators Tagged With: Artists, Creativity, Mental Models, Problem Solving, Thinking Tools, Thought Process

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About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

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Unless otherwise stated in the individual document, the works above are © Nagesh Belludi under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. You may quote, copy and share them freely, as long as you link back to RightAttitudes.com, don't make money with them, and don't modify the content. Enjoy!