Mysteries, Heuristics & Algorithms, Oh My!

I had a great opportunity last night to be a small part of a business book club meeting in Minneapolis. Before I go too much into this, how genius was this idea anyway!? I mean, we all have a stack of business books that we have been putting off reading and if you think about it, the purpose of such books is to spread ideas. So, what better way to knock off some of those books and be able to talk about the ideas presented in them with people who actually cared enough to read the book and show up? Like I said, genius. 

Now, on the to book: The Design of Business - Why Design Thinking Is The Next Competitive Advantage, by Roger Martin. The big idea is that there exists a natural tension between the analytical and intuitive approaches to value-creation. As a leader - whether in the role of a CEO or as an individual - your job is to reconcile the two approaches. Simple, right!? Not so much, but Roger doesn't leave us hanging, he gives us some hope with the Knowledge Funnel tool (that is much more fully explained in the book than I will get into).

The Knowledge Funnel has 3 primary stages. At the beginning, we have the Mystery stage! This is the funnel at it's widest point - the Mystery can be anything from what do people in Minneapolis want to eat to what the next genre of book 13 year-olds will fall in love with this year. The next stage is the Heuristics stage - don't worry, I didn't know what a Heuristic was at first either.  A Heuristic is a rule of thumb (be it common sense, intuition or an educated guess) that helps provide a a simplified understanding of the Mystery.  As these Heuristics are put into practice, you meet up with the Algorithm stage - where you turn your understanding into processes that actually do something. 

I really recommend picking up the book. It's a little dense because it seems to be written by a left-brain dominant person who has realized the power of combining left-brain realism with right-brain intuition and creativity, but still describes the phenomenon in a left-brain manner. Just my two cents there. 

Finally, one of my "ah-ha" moments from the book: The book discusses how, for centuries, people have hoarded the Heuristics as personal value levers to drive their own compensation and power.  These days, more and more, people are coming to expect the Heuristics will be FREE. I don't know whether that should be the case or will be the case in the future, but it sure seems to be true now. Read it and let me know what you think!