The Leader's Edge - 5 Skills of Breakthrough Thinking

By Guy Hale

Notes by Jason Shen (jashen@stanford.edu)

Guy Hale developed these thinking skills while working at Motorola's training program. They were so successful that he founded his own training and consulting company based on these ideas. There are 5 skills:

Situational Review

Used on monday morning when you have a million things on your plate

• Identify, clarify and separate concerns
• Analyze priorities for action
  • Create a chart that shows each concern with a number for:
  • Impact (pos or neg), Urgency (how fast do we need to address it), Trend (will it get worse as time goes on)
  • Sum the 3 columns and make a decision based on your day, how long each will take, etc
• Determine the best technique to address the high priority issues.
  • Decide whether you need cause analysis, plan analysis, decision making, or innovation

Cause Analysis

Use this when you have a problem that you can't fix because you aren't sure what is causing the problem.

• State the Problem or Opportunity clearly and succintly.
  • Look beyond the symptoms of the problem - what is the real issue?
• Describe the Facts: What? Who? Where? When? How Much?
• Identify Unique Features and Events
  • Figure out what is different about this situation
  • Compare to similar processes/events that had positive outcomes
• Generate and Test Likely Causes
  • There will likely be many differences - figure out which ones matter
  • See if adjusting one of these differences helps
• Select Most Likely Cause's

Story - new computer chips aren't working. Why?

Surface of many chips are scratched. Why?

Same product, same materials, new factory.

What is new about the factory?

Same machinery, same training for employees, new location -desert

Hypothesis - sand is getting in to the chips - seal up machinese - problem solved

Plan Analysis

After a decision is made, you need to make a plan to implement the decision. Perhaps something has been drafted - here's what to do next.

• Focus on the specific objective of the plan/project
• Define necessary tasks, responsibilities, and timing
  • What needs to get done for this project to succeed?
  • Who are the right people to accomplish each task?
  • When do the tasks need to be done by?
• Identify potential problems and opportunities
  • What could go wrong with this plan? List issues at every stage of the plan
  • What could go really well or better than expected?
• Develop actions for timely response to the problems and opportunities
  • This is critical - making sure you have a backup plan for good and bad events allows you to recover faster, and capitalize on new opportunities rapidly

     

Decision Making

Used when you have a number of options and need to chart a course forwards

• Clearly define the Decision Purpose
  • Why does this decision need to be made?
  • Are you the right person to be making it
  • When does it have to be made by?
• Describe Criteria for a successful outcome
  • What would the ideal solution be?
  • How important is each of the different criteria?
  • What's essential? What's "nice to have"?
• Analyze Alternatives comparatively against the criteria
• Preview Potential Problems and how they can be managed

Innovation

Use this skill when you need to create a new product, service, plan. Weakest part of book

• Opportunity identification
• Defining the innovation
• Develop design criteria
• Generating and combining ideas
  • typical brainstorm tips - "more ideas', "no criticism" "
• Evaluating and selecting innovative solutions