FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: THE SENSUIST MIND

[continued from the Last Post.]

The root of the word 'absurd' comes from the Latin surdus, ‘deaf or mute,’ a translation of the Arabic jadr asamm, a ‘deaf root.’ To hear, to listen, to pay attention; all valuable skills
in creative communication.

Our vision monopolises our senses. Our eyes are emblems of our status as predators. Prey have eyes at the sides of their heads, for increased peripheral vision and heightened alertness. Most predators have eyes set right on the front of their heads, like owls, and humans. This provides them with binocular vision that enables 3-D imagery to be recognised.

We are now steeped more than ever in a visual culture. The eyes however, are light gatherers; true seeing takes place in the brain. It is the mind’s eye, the sensuist eye, that allows us to picture real as well as imaginary events.

Learn with all your senses. Your memories then become remembrances. In this way, learning and creativity merge to form a union that is illuminated with constant novelty.

The synchrony of our senses helps us discover the beauty of our consciousness.

Synaesthesia is the secret of great artists and scientists. It is the synergy of all our senses. And our senses are the conduits of pleasure, of pain, and the ‘midwives of intelligence.’ We must cultivate our senses. They enable us to exhibit power of persuasion and clarity of expression.

Map your mind with Mind Maps, the brainchild of Tony Buzan. This is a creativity technique that twinkles with life.

Immerse yourself in its radiance.

Further Reading on Mind Maps:

'The Mind Map Book' by Tony Buzan, 'Superbrain', 'Brainfinity', and 'Braindancing' by Dilip Mukerjea, 'Thinking For a Change', by Michael Gelb.

Exercise:

Create a central image that represents an experience you have had, such as falling in love, debating about an issue, working on a project, climbing a mountain, water skiing, etc. Relive in your mind the diverse sensations that correspond to your five senses. Expand the Main Branches, one for each sense.


[Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knoweldge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual capital of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: THE SENSUIST MIND

[continued from the Last Post.]

In creativity, the active use of all our senses is invaluable. They have the power to detonate as memories, and more so, as remembrances. Ideas explode forth from such mental activity because emotion in thought leads to motion in ideation.

Smell is the most direct of all our senses; nothing stirs our memories quicker than this sense. As Edwin T. Morris points out in Fragrance, ‘there is almost no short-term memory with odours.’ Just long-term memories. This is a major reason why smell stimulates learning and retention.

Morris goes on to state: “When children were given olfactory information along with a word list, the list was recalled much more easily and better retained in memory than when given without olfactory cues. Perfumes could be considered as liquid memory.”

Touch is a sensory system with unique functions and qualities; most importantly, it is the oldest sense and the most urgent. It can affect entire organisms, shape cultures, and the individuals that experience it.

As Saul Schanberg states: “Those animals who did more touching instinctively produced offspring which survived, and their genes were passed on and the tendency to touch became even stronger. We forget that touch is not only basic to our species, but the key to it.”

Taste is closely connected to smell, yet it is unique, and intensely personal. The word originates from tasten, Middle English for ‘to examine by touch, test, or sample,’ and further back, its roots spring from the Latin taxare, ‘to touch sharply.’ From a trial or a test, we are able to experience good taste and bad taste.

We can lose track of the logic of our lives when our sense of hearing is lost. In fact, the Arabic, ‘not being able to hear’ equates with absurdity. In mathematics, a ‘surd’ is an impossibility, and it is embedded in the word ‘absurd.’

"The five senses are the ministers of the soul.… Yet, the average human ‘looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fragrance, and talks without thinking.’"

~ Leonardo da Vinci;

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knoweldge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual capital of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: THE SENSUIST MIND

PURPOSE:

To stimulate the use of your senses when thinking, recalling, and in the process of generating ideas. Formidable in product design, process control, and human interaction.

"Most people think of the mind as being located in the head, but the latest findings in physiology suggest that the mind doesn’t really dwell in the brain but travels the whole body on caravans of hormone and enzyme, busily making sense of the compound wonders we catalogue as touch, taste, smell, hearing, vision."

~ Diane Ackerman

We are the product of sexual union, the primal act of creative coupling.

Creativity propagates creativity, ultimately giving birth to our minds. It has enabled us to become sentient beings, every individual as spectacularly unique as a snowflake.

The word ‘sentient’ comes from the Latin sentire, ‘to feel,’ and also from the Indo-European sent-, ‘to head for,’ ‘go;’ we thus ‘go mentally’ in order to acquire consciousness.

The sensuist is someone who rejoices in sensory experiences. This should not be confused with the sensualist, who is concerned with the gratification of sexual appetites. Our lives pulse along on a fever of consciousness.

Uniqueness emerges from infinite shards of information that travel along the pathways of our senses. The jigsawing of information creates a fluid tapestry that is our identity at any moment.

A true sensuist will have a tapestry that changes dynamically, in real time.

Look at the drawing below. It will help you remember the different senses.

V = Visual (sight)
O = Olfactory or Odile (smell)
T = Tactile (for touch and taste)
A = Auditory (hearing)

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: STORYBOARDING, THE DISNEY METHODOLOGY

[continued from the Last Post.]

Storyboarding Points to Note & Actions to be Taken

Points to Consider:

■ Storyboarding is vital for nurturing creative and critical thinking.

■ Storyboards can be used to formalise various types of communication.

■ Individuals and teams of all sizes can use storyboards to translate what they visualise into hard copy imagery concerning their: challenges, goals, constraints, problems, strategies, solutions, project work, and even their random idea generation.

■ Meetings can deliver real value in real time with storyboarding techniques.

■ All employees, regardless of their position in the hierarchy, should be encouraged to develop their storyboarding skills. The anonymity guaranteed by this technique serves to dissolve any barriers due to organisational hierarchies.

■ The storyboarding techniques, because of their inherently democratic nature, should be actively used within the marketplace as well as in the webbed ‘marketspace.’ This should enable the participants to include customers, suppliers, vendors, and even members of the general public. The technique can be put into effect either in ‘real’ or in ‘virtual’ space.

Suggested Actions to be Taken:

■ Train all employees in at least a few versions of storyboarding.

■ Ensure easy accessibility of storyboards for individuals and groups or teams, so that they can
be updated.

■ Use storyboarding in planning and strategising to develop and depict sequences, timelines, and project assignments. At no time must the storyboard be considered as a rigid device; one should feel free to modify, amplify, revise, update, as required.

■ Provide a ‘safe’ environment for storyboarding sessions. This enables anyone and everyone involved, to actively participate in the exercises without having to identify themselves if they choose to remain anonymous. This is relevant when dealing with sensitive issues.

■ Use storyboarding sessions to highlight the who, what, when, where, and how aspects of a situation. This exercise leads to immensely improved communication and a chain reaction of improvements. The visibility of the storyboarding technique lends itself to rapid idea generation, even in trying circumstances.

Modified and Adapted from Source: Capodagli & Jackson

[Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: STORYBOARDING, THE DISNEY METHODOLOGY

[continued from the Last Post.]


[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: STORYBOARDING, THE DISNEY METHODOLOGY

[continued from the Last Post.]


[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: STORYBOARDING, THE DISNEY METHODOLOGY

[continued from the Last Post.]

The Dot Voting Method of Storyboarding

The structure of this storyboard is a little different from the ones shown earlier. The logic replicates that of a Mind Map, and the procedure is as follows:

1. Assemble the group of people acting as problembusters.

2. Write the challenge, issue, situation, or problem on a large board, card, or sheet of paper. This is called ‘The Topic Card’ (equivalent to the central image on a Mind Map).

3. Address the challenge with one brief but concise observation per storyboard panel. You can complete as many panels as you wish. Remember the Laws of Brainstorming: particularly, suspend judgment, until the very end.

4. Eventually, after say, a fixed time limit, sort out all the panels that have been completed. From this outpouring of ideas, determine a set of major categories ~ these panels are called ‘Header Cards’ for each category (equivalent to the main branches of a Mind Map).

5. All the remaining cards are to be arranged under their respective categories ~ these cards are called ‘Categorised Detail Cards’ (equivalent to levels that expand beyond the main branches of Mind Maps).

6. Give each participant an equal amount of Priority Voting Dots; they could be of two colours, red and blue, for example. The red ones are fixed to the ‘Header Cards.’

The ‘Detail Cards’ receive the blue ones.

Voting is purely democratic and no pressure must be applied to anyone about having to lean one way or another. (If the Voting Dots are too expensive, simply use coloured markers, and draw red or blue circles ~ once again, the quota is fixed for everyone.)

7. The panels with the most dots should stand out as the ones where greatest emphasis is being placed. We would need to pay particular attention in these areas.

This ‘idea landscape’ or ‘mindscape’ is like building a house, entailing a logical progression.

The technique works because of the high level of participation, the guarantee of anonymity, and the speed of idea generation.

The internal workings of an organisation can be dramatically improved when this technique is incorporated into its routine procedures. The integration of storyboarding into activities such as planning, communication, idea generation, and organisational development leads to operational excellence.

No matter what the application, the role of this technique is vital in nurturing creative, as well as critical, thinking.

The next post summarises the various applications of this methodology.

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: STORYBOARDING, THE DISNEY METHODOLOGY

[continued from the Last Post.]



[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: STORYBOARDING, THE DISNEY METHODOLOGY

[continued from the Last Post.]


In the single panel type of storyboard, imagery and text can be included in the same panel. The sequence is determined after generating ideas, then sorting them out in order of importance.

For sake of convenience and publishing quality, I have crafted this exercise on the computer.

However, in real life, it is best to do the exercise at speed, and by hand. Later on, if you wish, you can apply cosmetic effects.

The manual version of this exercise is described in this author’s previous book, Braindancing.

It is often a good idea to set a time limit for such an exercise, say 15 minutes. Several people can do the exercise individually, and then come together to finally sort out the best options.

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images inthis post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: STORYBOARDING, THE DISNEY METHODOLOGY

[continued from the Last Post.]


The concept of Storyboarding emerged from the fertile brain of Walt Disney. There are several ways to storyboard.

This example demonstrates a double-panel method, where a one-to-one relationship is established between imagery and text. Each individual double-panel can be used to sequentially build up a story or theme. The applications are manifold, some of which include:

■ creating cartoons;

■ crafting documentary films;

■ designing full-length feature films;

■ outlining the theme of a novel;

■ creative problem solving in business or in personal life;

■ education: learning subject matter in a memorable manner;

■ command-and-control communication scenarios, e.g. in the armed forces;

There can be as many panels as you wish, each custommade for an individual or an organisation.

Sizes can vary with application requirements and imagery should be in colour, if possible. This enhances idea-generation, and makes the panels look attractive.

The numbering of the panels is done only after the final sorting process has been completed.

The advantage of loose panels is the freedom to change sequences; such independence unleashes creativity, with ideas often emerging serendipitously.

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: STORYBOARDING, THE DISNEY METHODOLOGY

PURPOSE:

To help you imagistically integrate an entire scenario of ideas and plans. One view gives a complete overview; you see the sequence as well as the gestalt of your ideas.

There is a story about Walt Disney that I came across in the writings of Mike Vance and Diane Deacon.

Disney was in St. Joseph’s Hospital at Burbank, California. A journalist, knowing that these were Walt’s final days, had been persistent about interviewing the great man.

Unfortunately, the hospital’s nursing staff had repeatedly thwarted his efforts.

Eventually, the night before Walt passed away in late 1966, the reporter finally gained entry into the room. Walt was naturally very weak, and could barely speak above a whisper. He thus requested the man to lie down on the bed beside him, so that he could whisper into his ear.

Lying beside one another, the next thirty minutes were spent with Walt referring to an imaginary map of Walt Disney World on the ceiling above his bed.

As Vance and Deacon state: “Walt pointed out where he planned to place various attractions and buildings. He talked about transportation, hotels, restaurants and many other parts of his vision for a property that wouldn’t open to the public for another six years.”

What a way to live, fuelled by a powerful vision. Death was just a formality, because Walt would live on in his magnificent legacy.

The 10 Beliefs at the Heart of The Disney Methodology

1. Every member within an organisation must be encouraged to dream. Dreams are the reservoirs of creativity, and everyone should feel free to tap into them at any time.

2. Be resolute about your beliefs and principles.

3. Treat your customers like guests.

4. All employees should receive appreciation through various means: support, empowerment, and rewards. You can then never pay them enough, for they will give of themselves freely.

5. Cultivate long-term relationships with key suppliers and partners.

6. Innovative ideas need to be nurtured, and brought to fruition; dare to take calculated risks.

7. Keep learning, incorporating new knowledge in your work; remain in alignment with the company culture.

8. Match long-term vision with short-term execution.

9. Use the storyboarding technique to solve planning and communication problems.

10. Pay close attention to detail.

Adapted from: Capodagli & Jackson, 'The Disney Way';

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: THE ACTIONS GRID

[continued from the Last Post.]

[Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capiital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: THE ACTIONS GRID

[continued from the Last Post.]

PURPOSE:

To swiftly and clearly establish your priorities from a list of options. Once completed, you are on your way: Thoughts can now be transformed into action!

Please refer to the Actions Grid appended below. State your objective clearly so that you have a clear idea as to what you are specifically going to address. Then,

Step 1:

Write down your initial list of options for the task under consideration. This should be done regardless of the order of importance, in the centre column with the header ‘Initial Options.’

Step 2:

Once you have completed your list of options, starting from the top two options, choose one at a time, till you reach the last pair. This means:

Your first choice is between options A and B, which we can write as A/B; the choice is written in the box along Row B.

Your next choices are between options A/C and B/C, written in the boxes along Row C.

We then have A/D, B/D, and C/D, written in the boxes along Row D.

Followed by A/E, B/E, C/E, and D/E, written in the boxes along Row E.

And lastly, A/F, B/F, C/F, D/F, and E/F, written in the boxes along Row F.

As can be seen, columns A, B, C, D, and E, intersect with rows A, B, C, D, E, and F.

However, please note that there could be a greater or lesser number of options listed; this is simply an example providing for six options.

Step 3:

Now determine the level of importance you wish to give to your choice of options in Step 2 above. You will need to select a value from the Options Rating Scale, thus, 1, 2, or 3, depending on your preference in each case.

For example, when deciding between A/B, if we opt for B, and decide that it is ‘much more important’ than A, we fill in the appropriate box (along Row B, under column A) the selection B3.

In the next case, that is, along Row C, and under Columns A and B, we might fill in A2 and C1.

Similarly, we carry on until all the boxes have been completed. In our example, with provision made for a total of six options, we have 15 boxes to fill in.

Step 4:

Upon completion of the previous steps, find all the boxes marked ‘A’ and total the scores identifying each ‘A’ ~ thus, you might have an A3, A1, and an A1, which gives us an ‘A’ total of 3 + 1 + 1 = 5. This value is to be written to the left of ‘A’ under the column labelled ‘Sum of Scores.’

Similarly, write down the totals for all the other letters.

Step 5:

Finally, the options have become prioritised with the mostimportant having the highest score, down to the least important. They can be written in the bottom section titled ‘Final Analysis.’

Thus, say Option ‘C’ had the highest score; we would write this option alongside “My No.1 Option is ___________.”

If Option ‘F’ had the next highest score, we would write it alongside “My No.2 Option is ___________,” and so on.

We now have a method for us to make decisions and an effective Action Plan.

Notes

■ It is possible for two or more options to emerge with identical total scores in the left-hand column labelled ‘Sum of Scores.’

If this is the case, and say they are A and D with identical total scores: Simply check along Row D moving right, to the cluster of boxes labelled ‘Choices Between Options’ where these options for A & D intersect at the extreme left box (from the three boxes in that row, in our case), and see which option emerged dominant. Say it was A; then, even though A and D have identical total scores, A must precede D in the final listing.

■ It is also possible for neither of two options being compared to emerge dominant. Example, if C and E were being matched against one another, and it was not possible for you to choose between them, simply place an em dash (–) in the appropriate box (in our case, the one that is third from left in Row E).



[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: ATTRIBUTES GRID

[continued from the Last Post.]

Exercise:

Using the weighted rankings technique, determine which of the following personalities, dead or alive, are ideal role models for confronting the challenges of the new century:

Bill Clinton (USA), Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Hellen Keller, Jack Welch (General Electric), and Mother Teresa.

Your criteria could perhaps be: leadership qualities, innovative abilities, global empathy, impact on humankind, high moral standards, and passion for living.

Whenever you complete such an exercise, perform what is known as a ‘sanity check’ before making any decisions.

If necessary, re-do the exercise.

Your intuition is a powerful force within you. Coupled with analysis, the cocktail can be formidable. Intuitive ranking invites catastrophe. You should determine your rankings using the weighted rankings procedure.

There is one exception: Where the outcome is of minimal consequence to you.

It is always rather intriguing to observe how the initial and subsequent rankings compare with each other. The outcome could make you feel uncomfortable, because our default mode is to be instinctive. Once we have got used to doing this technique, it will be almost instinctive.

Your intuition, as superlogic, will have merged with your analytical logic. In time, your level of intuitive accuracy will rise dramatically.

The next technique is called The Actions Grid. You can use it to follow up The Attributes Grid.

The format is different in appearance, but the logic flows along similar lines, giving you a quick and convenient way to sort out your priorities and get you moving along a correctly sorted list
of options.

[To be continued in the Next Post: The Actions Grid. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: ATTRIBUTES GRID

[continued from the Last Post.]

Exercise:

Pair rank the following list of leisure activities for your workforce:

picnic, movies, beach bar-b-q, dinner & dance, and group vacation

Percentile Weighting

When we addressed weighted ranking earlier, it was based on intuition. True weighted ranking, in its arithmetically correct form, is the distribution of percentile values amongst selected items (criteria, attributes, features, etc).

Their sum must equal 1.0. For example, let us consider the following criteria (list of attributes) that we would like to apply when ranking the leisure activities in the preceding exercise:

setting, bonding, relaxation, fun, and savings

We now pair rank these criteria (total votes = 10), and say, our rankings are:

fun, bonding, relaxation, setting, and savings, in descending order of importance. From this prioritised arrangement, we can make a shortlist for weighting; let us take the top three criteria, and give them percentile weights as follows:

fun 0.5
bonding 0.4
relaxation 0.1

TOTAL 1.0

We now construct a grid or matrix that allows us to tabulate our weighted rankings for the leisure activities.

Using one criterion at a time, pair rank the leisure activities. Let us say the outcome was as follows:


We now multiply each category score by its weight, total the scores, and then establish the final ranking, as shown below:


[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: ATTRIBUTES GRID

[continued from the Last Post.]

Precision Weights for Accurate Decision Making

The Weighted Ranking Technique

Our species has a builtin preference for seeking preferences. We compare, match, liken, analogise, and compete, constantly. In the end, our decisions are based on preferring one option to another.

However, this is most often an instinctive response triggered by some primal software deep within us. We have a built-in tendency to categorise and rank options under scrutiny.

The Attributes Grid as described, permits us to come to a quick decision, even when applying ‘weightage’ in our calculations. This ‘weightage’ has been instinctive until now.

For example, if we had to spontaneously make a ranking of say, the top five cities in the world, out of the following options:

New York, London, Tokyo, New Delhi, Baghdad

we would all arrive at different arrangements in prioritising this list.

This is because we have not considered a range of criteria. Moreover, these criteria would also need to be prioritised, and given weights. The principal defect in our instinctive method for making choices lies in our tendency to view problems one-dimensionally.

When ranking diverse items, we are inclined to apply different criteria to the different items being ranked ~ it is not an apple for an apple situation, so to speak. We also tend to view all our criteria as being equally important.

Furthermore, we frequently tend not to rank every item individually against every other item in a listing.

Therefore, in order to be immensely more accurate, say, when deciding on some high priority issues, we must go deeper into the process.

The basic procedure is a simple choice between two items at a time. For example, say, we have to make a selection from the following alternatives:

Alternative 1, Alternative 2, Alternative 3, Alternative 4

Having listed down the alternatives as a first step, we now do a ‘round robin’ exercise. We ask ourselves, which alternative is better, 1 or 2?

If it is ‘1’, we place a tick against that alternative. We then match 1 against 3; if alternative 3 is better, we place a tick against that one.

In like manner, each alternative is matched against every other alternative, pair by pair by pair, until the process is complete.

In order to be certain that you have ranked every alternative against every other alternative on the list, use the following formula:

[N x (N-1)] divide by 2

(Where N is the number of alternatives or items on a list)

If you fail to arrive at the correct total number of votes, re-check your working.

Thus, in our example, we have four alternatives, so the total number of votes that must be assigned to all the alternatives when they have all been ranked against every other alternative, is:

[4 x (4-1)] divide by 2 = [4 x 3] divide by 2 = 6

We can check our accuracy. Let us say the outcome was as follows:

Alternative 1 ✔ ✔
Alternative 2 ✔
Alternative 3 ✔ ✔ ✔
Alternative 4

We could thus pair rank the outcome, based on votes, as:

Alternative 3 (three votes)
Alternative 1 (two votes)
Alternative 2 (one vote)
Alternative 4 (no votes)

The instinctive outcome may have been very different. You can do this with any number of items. You could sometimes have two or more items end up with the same number of votes. This could occur when the analysis is inconsistent.

Simply pit them head to head to break the tie.

Instinctive ranking is propelled by intuition, and is a hit or-miss method. It provides a ‘guesstimate’ whereas paired rankings give us assurance that we are as close to certain as we can be.

[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: THE ATTRIBUTES GRID

[continued from the Last Post]



[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: THE ATTRIBUTES GRID

PURPOSE:

Decision-making can be greatly clarified with the use of the Attributes Grid.

This can be used whenever there are several options under consideration, and they are
being matched against a list of attributes or criteria. What emerges is a prioritised list of options.

PROCEDURE:

1 Write the options in the first column of the grid provided on page 100. Use as many or as few as you need; the number varies from situation to situation.

2 Write the attributes down in the top row of boxes; in this example, there are five boxes, located between the “options” and “totals” columns.

3 Score each option against each attribute, using a Rating Scale ranging from 1 to 5.

To remain impartial, it is essential that you complete each column sequentially, i.e. complete the first column first, then the second, and so on. Thus, all the options arematched against an attribute, before proceeding on to the next column.

This way, you remain impartial in your scoring, and the results possess integrity.

The syntax for the attributes must remain in the same form.

‘Increased productivity’, for example, does not match ‘a decrease in employee complaints’ ~ it should read instead ‘an increase in employee satisfaction.’

Change all the negative statements into their positive components.

What finally emerges is a prioritised list of options, out of which the BEST OPTION is generally the one with the highest score.

In our example, the maximum total score for each option is 5 x 5 = 25, so it is very simple to work out the percentage values. However, you are free to use any other rating scale if you feel more comfortable doing so.

The highest scoring option may NOT always be the BEST option! It depends upon the attributes you consider to be the most important.

For example, when selecting the best candidate for a corporate position, the highest scoring individual may have a very poor rating for ‘loyalty’ ~ thus, despite the high score, the person’s value to the organisation is still questionable. Each attribute can have an identical ‘weightage,’ or you could vary the ‘weightage.’

"All decision-making tools are meant to be our guides, not our masters!"


[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowldge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: MAGIC MANDALA

[continued from the Last Post.]



[Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual capital of Dilip Mukerjea.]

FROM DILIP MUKERJEA'S ITINERANT TOOLBOX: MAGIC MANDALA

[continued from the Last Post.]

History

I created this technique recently when my daughter asked me about inventing a helicoptering rubber duck! So I started off in the centre of a square and took off from there; two minutes later, we had not only an aerial rubber duck, but also other delightful ideas. The example given on the next page shows our thought processing.

NOTE:

This technique has no limits and one can keep on making combinations with newly emerging ideas. The examples are simply that, to show the process, but on a large sheet of paper, we could add innumerable ideas to those that have already emerged.

The arrangement of options in the four triangles (1,2,3,4) that enclose the central starting square, can be swapped around to give several options, e.g. the order of options could be 1,2,3,4 or 1,3,2,4 or 4,1,3,2, etc.

Each arrangement will give different outcomes from their unique combinations. This means that in one instance, 1 & 2 combine, as do 3 & 4. Alternatively, we could have 1 & 3, and 4 & 1, as the initial combinations.

From each of these outcomes, we can have numerous subsequent outcomes. Thus, several mandalas with identical starting themes, and identical initial (triangular) options, can have multiple possibilities when we have diverse permutations and combinations with 1, 2, 3, & 4.


[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]