LETS KEEP THINGS SIMPLE

Yes but - and it’s a big BUT - be very careful. Our very human mind finds it appealing to create stories or conspiracy theories where none actually exist. It constantly tries to simplify and find neat patterns and answers.

 It does not appreciate the idea of things happening at “random” but likes to discover patterns and use simplifying devices like runes and rhymes. Here’s one about my book:-

“Just read this book and have no fear, it’ll help you think and change your career“

It’s strange but expressed like that it conveys a possibility of truth that the blunt “read this and get on” will not. The latter sells assertively, the former wraps up the thought in a kind of irrefutable, pseudo-biblical parcel.

Myers Brigg, a system strongly advocated by many does just that too. For those who don’t know about it it’s the Personality Checking System beloved of HR people. If you haven’t been Myers Brigged then you probably haven’t got a personality in the accepted sense of the word. Ironically it identifies around the same number of types of personality as the number of behaviours performed by the Mexican Green Lizard that have been identified by Californian PHD students. That’s 27.

Well I may be perverse but I think there are more than twenty seven personality types. I think it’s the diversity of people and their attitudes and behaviour that makes humanity so fascinating. So, yes, I am very cautious about oversimplification.

The more one studies the brain and the process of thinking the more inappropriate it seems to dumb down and pigeon hole the issues. The brain is so complex, so magical and so surprising that a bit of messiness in describing it seems not only right; it seems to capture the ability and indeed the need of the brain to juggle and dance in a bizarre way.

In fact Martin Sorrell who runs the advertising giant WPP nailed it when he said:- “The 21st Century is not for tidy minds.”

And now to demonstrate how untidy I can be I’m going off slightly, at a tangent, to advocate a principle about sticking to the obvious whilst not oversimplifying.

There are two so-called laws of psychology worth bearing in mind here.  “Occam’s Razor” which espouses simplification (in an acceptable way) in suggesting that it’s the simplest cause of an event that is likeliest to be the true one. Experience would tend to confirm this is generally the case, but with the proviso that the second law of “Occam’s Broom” doesn’t also apply which is the urge to sweep inconvenient evidence under the carpet that seems to disprove “Occam’s Razor”.

How to solve problems and make brilliant decisions. (Business Thinking Skills that really work) published by Pearson is coming out on November 12th 2014