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"About Think
Tanks...
When Does an Organization Need a Think Tank?"
By Hank Moore
Think Tanks are creative ways of addressing stifling business issues and
effecting pro-active organizational improvements. They take companies to new
plateaus and create new opportunities.
Often, outside forces and mitigating marketplace lead organizations to change
courses. Such circumstances might include:
The Big Picture. The organization is not now what it started out to be. There
seems to be a need to change the direction of the organization. No Vision was
actually created...the organization just rolled with the flow. Management is
concerned that resources are not concentrated on important things. Management of
the organization seems tired or complacent.
Growth. Management is cautious and uncertain about the company's future. The
company has grown too rapidly. No-growth or slow-growth has occurred. There is a
need to step up growth and improve profitability.
People-Productivity. Apathy, low productivity and discord are exhibited.
Management seeks perspective and needs to be recharged. There is a need to
develop better information to help management make better decisions. Individuals
are more concerned about their own areas than for the overall organization.
Processes. There is a sense that company operations are out of control.
Management expresses a need for better internal coordination of company
activities.
External-Marketplace. External forces threaten the status quo...and open up
new opportunities. The environment in which the organization competes is rapidly
changing.
7 Levels of Think Tanks
- Information Sharing. What's new in the marketplace. What the competition is doing.
New ways of looking at the core business.
- Reacting to a Crisis or Emergency. Responding to crises is a good way to get in
the research-planning habit. Preparing for crises helps avert 85% of them.
- Niche Review. Some phase of the business requires re-evaluation.
- Growth Strategies. How and where to grow. Concepts of orderly growth. Dynamics of
growth, in relation to other organizational factors.
- Planning for the Future. Planning, vision and strategic direction account for 15%
of an organization's full picture...constituting the trunk and roots of The Business
Tree . The company that does not plan will not achieve staying power.
- Visioning. Determining what the organization will become.
- Change, Growth. Determine how the organization will get where it needs to go. Creative
thinking about new approaches. Develop a true corporate culture.
What Is a Think Tank:
- Source of new ideas from outside speaker-presenter (as opposed to a facilitator).
- Common sense reminders of things people already know.
- Inspiration to try new things and be successful.
- Injects Big Picture thinking into each part of the organization...macro into micro.
- Helps develop organizational Vision.
- Realistic views or company strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
- Study of external forces that can hamper your ability to do business.
- Mentorship and leadership development.
- Outside-the-box approaches to old problems.
- Creative learning that helps executives think new ways.
- Ways to understand the organization's people (its best resource) better.
- Common sense updating of old principles, with Futuristic viewpoints.
- Puts the demands of the moment into perspective.
- Takes Futurism out of the esoteric and into cohesive applicability.
- Converts learning to knowledge...and knowledge to wisdom.
What a Think Tank is NOT:
- Training.
- Political fund raising.
- Sales or marketing support.
- Facilitated gripe session.
- Bean counter approaches to processes.
- Ivory Tower academic exercise.
- Internally conducted goal-setting workshop.
- Intellectual elitism.
- Brokering of ideologies and hidden agendas.
- Research.
Current forces that stifle creativity:
- Mergers and acquisitions.
- After-effects of old-style managerial control.
- Short-range thinking.
- Analyzing ideas to death.
- Failure to develop and trust gut instincts.
- Rigid power structures.
- Emphasis upon winning the war, rather than each battle at a time.
- Market-driven planning.
- Pressure to do more with less.
- Innovative processes not clear.
- Perceptions that creativity is not for everybody.
Situations that must exist for innovation to transpire:
- Risk taking.
- Autonomy.
- Performance-reward accountabilities.
- Tolerance of differences.
- Support by top management.
- System which encourages new ideas.
- Positive responses to innovations.
Subjects that can be covered in think tanks:
- Judicious risk taking.
- Generation of new ideas, concepts, philosophies and applicabilities.
- Balanced evaluations of ideas...old and new.
- Giving innovation time to work.
- Inter-departmental and cross-company interaction.
Stages in the concept known as Creative Problem Solving:
- Objective finding.
- Fact finding.
- Problem finding.
- Idea finding.
- Solution finding.
- Acceptance finding.
This process is widely utilized and has been found to
work when existing or conventional solutions do not. To use CPS appropriately:
- Solve the correct problem.
- Take the most efficient approach.
- Evaluate the type of problem.
CPS rules of brainstorming:
- Quantity breeds quality.
- Defer judgment.
- The wilder, the better.
- Seek combination and improvement.
7 Levels of What Companies Do with Think Tanks
- Don't understand the concept (confuse it with selling or training).
- Hold when the company is at a crossroads.
- Realize value and merit.
- Want to know and learn more. Eager to hold.
- Do something with it. Put findings to good use.
- Want to do more and evolve the business to higher plateaus.
- Change-Growth. Achieve advantages via knowledge. Make impacts.
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