Working with Intuition - The 2016 Odyssey Program Exercise

In the first part of my thinking backwards exercise I figured out what will make for a successful TOC Odyssey training. So the next step should be to keep working backwards and highlight the actions that need to be taken for these results to unfold.Logical, right?

Well, yes and no.

If you recall, I left the plan hanging at:

My first inclination was to go backwards to:

Then I got thinking.

It seems trivial. In TOC TP we call such trivialities "Oxygen". Since oxygen is always needed for human activity it is not necessary to state it in the logic diagram. Everybody knows it and it does not add information for our analysis. Oxygen statements should be handled with care. The mere fact something came up as an idea should be an indication that a double-check is in order, as one would rarely consider the need for oxygen under normal circumstances. In other words, the fact we have been thinking of the need for oxygen may point out that the conditions are not standard and this should be accounted for,

OK, so the fact that everybody should be in the room for the session to start could be an oxygen fact. It seems very logical, everybody should know this without me telling them, clearly there will be earlier steps that will take care of attendance. I should skip this step, it is redundant.

Or is it? I was stuck in a loop for some time, pondering this, wondering what is going on - why am I still thinking about this point after I figured it out? 

Well, turns out it was my intuition guiding me to a spot I missed. It is not enough to have a full enrollment. Life happens and we will surely have a few last minute cancellations. I know all our registrants will loath missing the session, but sometimes you just can't help it. So, if I want the session to be a real hit and create real value for all, I need to take care of this point and this is just the right place in my plan to inject a place holder for the results of those actions. Makes sense?

Here is what I came up with - In order to have a good kick of we need:

Which will happen if these prior steps happen (remember, we are in reverse order, the top box will happen after the bottom):

All graphics were done using Flying Logic

Well, I actually reached a task. It is going to be located very far into the future of this "project", of course and I expect to find it has some predecessors, but it is still exiting to move to that practical part. 

Next step will be to keep working from the definition of success back to the tasks that need to be done. I am expecting this will no longer be linear and I will be working on parallel tracks soon. Stay tuned and let me know if you have any ideas for making the Odyssey a hit.

Building The Clear Thinking Skill

After my presentation on the 6 Questions of Technology (yes, I will share more on this) at the TOCICO Conference, one of the people in the audience came up to me and said how happy he was with the work model we suggested, until the trees came out. They are so hard to construct, he said. I could hear the despair. I could also understand it and relate to it. The TOC TP are a set of highly potent tools, of course but they are very hard for many (present company totally included) to use.

This week I started testing out a new point of view I had been thinking of since my trip to S. Africa - problems are just opportunities in the rough (and yes, I will share more on this as well, you really have a lot of great things to come back to this blog for). As a result I had given my self several mind games and exercises to work on. Then it dawned on me - just like we wouldn't expect anyone to run a marathon before the have run several shorter distances in the weeks and months leading to the race, why should we expect people to take on TP without first building up to them through mind clearing workouts?

You wouldn't be doing this the first day of your workout program, would you? (Source - Wikipedia)

My point is that many of us are not used to thinking about things the way that is required by the TP. While we spend our lives thinking, we are still not trained to the level TP requires. It is very similar in yoga where although you have breathed all your life, you are not trained to breath the way yoga demands and you have to learn and practice it. So, it may be that before we venture into logic trees we have to build our brain muscles with easier exercises to prepare us for it.

Now, this is just a theory and I don't have a progression of exercises mapped out, just a few preliminary ideas. So I really need you help and inputs.

Here are the exercises ideas I already have and have been practicing:

1. Beginner - learn to ignore all or nothing thinking by creating a 100 list - think of a block that you feel is in your way to achieve something then create a list with 100 things you can do to achieve it despite the block (so if you feel you can't get a good job because you don't have enough experience in your resume, then think of 100 ways to make you noticeable to recruiters in and out of your resume). I managed about 30 ideas in the first 24 hours and got to 44 on the second day. Once you are at 50, I suggest you start acting while keeping the list going until you get to the 100 mark, don't use it as an excuse.
2. Intermediate - clear your thinking from emotions by putting yourself in places where you are uncomfortable, like not reacting to a question by your spouse when that question is "illegal" - e.g. asking you what your kid's preferences are when said child is present. The idea is not to to stop you from feeling but to help you separate your thoughts about what needs to be done from your emotions about a situation.
3. Advanced - practice result oriented thinking by mapping a process backwards - think of an interaction you are planning to have and then map it from the desired end state back to the beginning. So first you must figure out how you want that interaction to end at a level you can visualize it. This means you have to take your goal or desired outcome and turn it into a concrete result (say I want my adult kid to move out, my end state visual would be of her saying "You know what, mom, I'll get my own place within the month"). Now figure out and visualize what had to happen just prior to that (perhaps she said "Staying with you and Dad isn't good for me, it doesn't help me become a capable adult"). Credit to this exercise goes to Jeff "SKI" Kinsey and his book "Purple Curve Effect" I covered in this review.

I'll update you if I get new workout ideas. 

Let me know what you think - will it make any difference if we address the TP tools more gradually? What else can and should we try?

Dominoes and Root Causes

Have you ever asked yourself how can it be that the small changes TOC calls for can create such a significant reaction, I think I found the answer.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know those changes are extremely hard, but how can you call a change that costs no money and can be done in less than a week, such as changing priorities on the shop floor, anything but a small change? All the TOC solutions are based on these small changes - hold inventory at a different point in the supply chain, start doing things at a different time, change the way you plan, measure different things. These are not technology based solutions (as in "Buy this technology and all your problems will be solved", which we all know doesn't work out like that, ever) but solutions that sometimes need technological support. So the solution isn't based on investment, although it might sometimes be required. OK, I think you get my drift.

So how do they do it? Well, TOC talk and the TP talk are all about causality and using this causality to find the root cause of things. this means they are full of chains and chain reactions. This always remind me of dominoes and that's what led me to this clip:

At first I did not see any connection between this and the TOC chain reactions but then I realized this holds a very basic truth - it takes very little effort to start the chain reaction going and once started, each step releases all the energy stored in it, amplifying the effect. The amplification can sum up FAST. It also confirms what we all know, intuitively,that it's much harder to fix the big things at the end of the chain and much easier to fix the small things at the beginning, which is why TP has you looking for the root cause - the smallest domino. The only main difference from this dominoes example is that real life seems to recharge on it's own, at least partially. You do not have to pick up each and every domino in order to start a new chain reaction.

Do you think the physical explanation hold true for real life situations? please share your thoughts.

"Elementary, My Dear Watson" - My First Logical Thinking Class

It's been ages since I've blogged here, I got caught up by a wicked current in the stream of life.... I'm hoping for a smoother sail in the coming future. Still, I had to share this with the people I knew would understand the most, my faithful readers.

I've started teaching a class about the Thinking Processes in my boys' school. It is a democratic school and the children choose which classes to attend. I have around 7 elementary school boys in my class, including my younger son. They are all, it seems to me, in 4th and 5th grades. Last Friday was our 3rd lesson and for the first time I could say it was a good one. Yep, I had a few false starts until I got the feel for my "customers". I have learnt the hard way that with this group I can't, at least at this time, teach them. I have to let them learn. If I stand there and talk to them, explaining my head off, they just get board. Since this is a democratic school they will then choose to stop attending the class, and I wouldn't fault them. Instead I have to create an environment or situation where they generate the learning and enjoy it.

Well, this last lesson was their first introduction to logic. I had planned to use this small section of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Dancing Men" Sherlock Holmes mystery.

Initially I was going to read the section with them and then analyze it. After 2 sessions with the group it was clear to me that a new approach was needed. I created a detective game. I took the facts Holmes presents and created 'clue cards'. Each boy got a clue card and they had to figure out which clue was related to which. I stood at the board and wrote the tree as they figured out the logic. I knew I got it right when they started asking questions, trying to understand where all of this fits into "real life".

I gave them homework to try and find causal (If...Then) relationships in their everyday life.

Check here how things turned out

Beware of the Circular Logic Trap

Theory of constraints is based heavily, if not completely, on the premises of logical thinking. The generic solutions are the result of logical thinking done by thought leaders with regard to wide spread phenomena. The Thinking Process is a toolkit designed to help users apply the same logic to specific cases and to new situations. 

Logical thinking, and specifically sufficient cause thinking which deals with cause and effect situations, contains loops. In sufficient cause logic a cause generates an effect, that effect in turn becomes a cause and generates a new effect. A loop is a situation where the effect of one cause is also the cause of that safe effect, directly or indirectly. OK, that's confusing, so let's put a construct to it. If A causes B and B causes A, that's a loop and a direct loop at that. Most loops I can think of are indirect loops, in which A cases B, B causes C and C causes A. It's important to note that loops exist within a context, meaning there are other things happening in the system creating the results, no just a loop, and that they have a starting point, something that happens first to initiate the loop. 

Loops reinforce or amplify the effects being caused. A loop constructed of undesirable effects will create a negative feedback loop, meaning things will get worse much faster. A loop constructed of desirable effects will create a positive feedback loop, meaning things will keep on improving as if on autopilot. The bigger the loop, that is, the more steps needed before getting back to the starting cause, the stronger the effects of that loop will be.

There is another type of loop. This is a stand alone, closed loop and it lacks vital logic clarity. These loops, called tautologies, are circular logic where the result is used to explain the cause, not fortify it. These loops have no start and no end. Here's a great example of tautology, a circular logic: 

(from the great site http://www.phdcomics.com, if you are in higher education as a student, staff or faculty I think you'll love their stuff)

Looking at it, seems to me that's there is something missing and that's causality. While the initial, intuitive, thought is that A is the reason for B and B is the reason for A, a through, logical consideration shows they are not connected. This is a logic mirage (jeez, I'm heavy into fantasy these days - sirens, mirages, the works).

Now, we all can succumb to tautology unintentionally, so we better be intentional.

If you have good examples of tautology, please share!

Sugar bag logic - teaching children to think

My younger son, who is eight, and I sat in a coffee shop for breakfast today. As we were waiting for our food, I figured I might as well make some use of the time we had together. I had wanted to start working on logical thinking with him for quite some time but I never got around to it. My plan, of course, was to do something structured, maybe use the children's' workbooks I got at the Goldratt House. Well, I know that if you fail to plan you plan to fail. There's another part that's always left out. That is that even if you plan you may fail, but fail to execute, and you will absolutely, no doubt about it, get nothing done.

So back to the coffee shop. I decided to wing it. I told him that I know he'd like to be a scientist (he actually means inventor, but I won't be petty), so I'd like to present to him the most important tools for such a vocation. The tools are experiments and logic. Happy to make conversation with me, he told me right away that logic is an important part of his life, since whenever something doesn't make sense he works to fix it. That threw me off a bit so I inquired into it and, as he was finding it hard to explain himself, I requested an example. That was easy. He told me how one of the characters in his computer game seemed to have more than the fare share of something, so he investigated until he found out the details he was unaware of and realized the rules were adhered to.

That was not quite what I had in mind, but you do not want to go around putting your kid down, so I kept my thoughts to myself as much as I could. There is a more basic tool in logic, I told him, and that's the understanding of what causes what. That drew quite a blank stare from him.Good start. So I took a few bags of sugar from the dispenser and I put one down saying: "If you vex your older brother then...", I put the next one after it and he jumped in and said "I get punished". "Not quite, we aren't there yet, though it could lead to that" I say, "this process is like a ladder, you can't skip steps and you want to take small steps to feel secure". I go back to the small bags of sugar "If you vex your older brother then", the second bag of sugar goes down, "your brother gets annoyed, and if your brother gets annoyed then...", another sugar bag is added to our trail, "your brother retaliates, and if your brother retaliates then", another bag, "you get upset, and if you get upset then", another bag and he picks up, "I beat him up". Now we are working as a team, "If you beat him up then?", I put another bag down and he finishes up "I get punished".

"It's like your dominos, Mom", he says. Whenever their quarrels heat up and require parental intervention I use the domino effect to explain why I think they are both to blame. You each had multiple chances to stop this from escalating, I tell them, all you had to do was take 1 domino out. So, he was right, my trail of sugar bags did resemble the domino effect. Ah, the glory of true understanding. We managed to do a couple of AND conditions ("If we quarrel" AND "Grandma finds out" THEN "Grandma is not happy with us" - his example) and then the food was ready.

So, here's what I found out this morning, while waiting for breakfast at a coffee shop: That learning doesn't need a classroom, a format or even much time, that children can grasp logic very easily, that logic is pretty simple to start off with and that small bags of sugar make great entities in a logic diagram.

Have you ever tried to get your kids to think logically? well, that's probably the worst time to teach them. Take 10 minutes when everything is calm to set the stage and plant the seeds for the future.

If you liked this post, please share it with other parents and comment with your own experience.