Don’t start a think tank without thinkers!

Think Tanks are all the rage!  Maybe it all started with Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit? 

Mr. Rudd asked 1,000 of Australia's top brains to map out strategies for the future at a '2020 Summit' in Canberra on 19-20 April 2008.  The results were published a year later.  962 ideas put forward resulted in nine proposals being given the green light by the Federal Government.  Was this value for money, and what can we learn from the experience? 

Proposals included a new ABC TV channel for children, research into a bionic eye, formation of a volunteer civilian force to deal with regional emergencies, a review of the tax system, a review of how the states and territories work together, a carbon pollution reduction scheme, a student scholarships award scheme, building an indigenous cultural centre and creating a white paper on homelessness.  Further initiatives include the broadband network, initiatives to help business and developing relationships with schools. 

But what if we had asked the same questions of group of people chosen at random?  Say the next ten people in a queue at the supermarket?  What proposal would they have put forward?  They may have missed out on the bionic eye, of course, that’s a bit specialized, but the rest?  My guess is they would have probably covered them all.  So was the think tank value for money?

 A more important question of course could be is there a better way to run a think tank in the future?  Surely we should expect much more from ‘the Country’s leading thinkers’?  So what might be possible? 

The Kevin Rudd experience in April 2008 can perhaps be seen as a giant version of a familiar scenario that happens in many organisations around Australia every day.  Groups of people gather together in the same room with an issue in mind and the intention of ‘brainstorming’ for the best solution. 

When the participants have been through some effective training in productive thinking the results are often spectacular.  Some great ideas have emerged and have produced amazing improvements in performance.  Delivery times cut in half, cost of production halved, huge slabs of time saved, and in the present economic climate, jobs and organisations could be saved too!

 But if the brainstormers haven’t been taught thinking skills, the results are typically disappointing.  They rely on one process and get limited results.  The outcomes are often a statement – and frequent re-statement – of opinion, and a reflection of ‘what we do around here’ married to vested interest.  Ideas re judged as soon as they appear, which suppresses any genuine creative thought.  Suggest anything radical and it’s put down as ‘too risky’. 

So why don’t we teach thinking skills?  Maybe because everyone thinks they can think?  And of course they can, but in how many different ways?  How many creative thinking strategies have you learned?  How about critical thinking?  But we know you can’t solve 21^st century problems with 20^th century thinking.  We know that the thinking that got us to where we are isn’t going to be the best thinking to get us into the future.  The thinking that created the current recession is certainly not going to be a suitable form of thinking for recovery!

 Perhaps one of the main reasons behind this lack of training in thinking skills is the view that ‘thinking’ is seen as a soft skill.  Soft skills are often considered as optional extras.  The hard skills like ‘knowing’ things take precedent.  But we didn’t ‘know’ the recession was coming.  And maybe we don’t ‘know’ how to recover?  Do we know how to cure poverty?  Do we know how to prevent terrorism?  Do we know how to maintain a healthy planet? 

So if knowing things is not enough, thinking becomes the only option; it’s not a luxury item any more.  And if that’s the case we MUST teach thinking skills at every opportunity; in schools, colleges, university, the workplace and the family. 

And as far as Think Tanks are concerned we really must teach the participants productive thinking skills, models, tools techniques and processes.  Then we have a much better chance of having a real ‘value for money’ think tank with the potential to come up with more options and better ideas.  And to extend the thinking beyond ‘what’ needs to happen, to include why it’s a good idea and how we might go about it. 

Let’s put the ‘think’ back into think tank.  Opinion tanks are a waste of time.