Speed Thinking: How to Thrive in a Time-Poor World

By Ken Hudson

Challenging the long-held belief that doing something quickly compromises quality, this is an invaluable guide to improving the efficiency of your thinking to create more time for yourself Every day business owners, managers, and leaders are expected to deliver more and more with fewer people, smaller budgets, and—crucially—less time. Lack of time to make decisions has become the most stressful part of life for many business people. A time-poor, fast-moving world needs a new approach. This breakthrough book explains how to achieve amazing results in time-pressure situations using speed thinking—a practical thinking system that will enable individuals or teams to perform effectively as deadlines hit. Practitioners of the system can create powerful new ideas, make better decisions faster, and solve problems in literally minutes. Applied readily to everyday problem-solving, idea generation or decision-making, this sytem can be used to better conduct meetings, manage projects, or service customers, and will appeal to anyone who is looking for a new way to do more with less.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen Unwin
• Release date: May 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781742690315

Book preview

Ken Hudson is the author of best-selling books The Idea Generator and The Idea Accelerator, which have been published in Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Italy and Brazil, and distributed in the United States and India.

Ken has formed a breakthrough business called The Speed Thinking Zone, which is at the forefront of helping people unlock amazing results and thrive in a time-poor world.

He has worked with organisations as diverse as DuPont, Heinz, Qantas, Roche Pharmaceuticals, Dell Computers, PayPal and The Benevolent Society.

Ken was formerly a marketing director at American Express and has a PhD in Organisational Creativity. He can be contacted at

www.thespeedthinkingzone.com

‘Speed Thinking is a great concept and Ken Hudson has made it accessible to everyone with simple practical tools that give us what we all need—the ability to do things faster without losing quality. Essential reading!’

Graham Winter, three-time Chief Psychologist for the

Australian Olympic Team and author of

High Performance Leadership and Think One Team

Praise for The Idea Generator

‘Sixty practical tools come to the rescue of those starved of inspiration.’

Boss Magazine

‘As an introduction to looking at your business in a new light, The Idea Generator will be hard to beat.’

Unlimited Magazine

‘If you get stuck for good ideas—then Ken Hudson’s new book The Idea Generator is for you.’

NZ Business

‘This is an extremely user-friendly text that breaks down concepts with the help of clear diagrams and simple, real-life examples.’

Virgin Blue Magazine

‘I have used Speed Thinking with my clients again and again. They love the idea that you can apply this to a consumer trend and quickly develop breakthrough brand and business-building concepts and opportunities.’

Paul Leinberger PhD, The Futures Company, and co-author

of The New Individualists

Speed

Thinking

HOW TO THRIVE IN A TIME-POOR WORLD

Ken Hudson

First published in 2010

Copyright © Ken Hudson 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: [phone]

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Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

from the National Library of Australia

www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74175 995 2

Internal design by Simon Paterson

Set in 11/13 pt Adobe Garamond Pro by Bookhouse, Sydney

Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Margot—my life-force

To Charlotte and Molly—my greatest joys

To Angela and Ian—thank you for believing in and supporting this book

Contents

INTRODUCTION What is Speed Thinking?

Part 1 The theory and structure of Speed Thinking

CHAPTER 1 It’s survival of the fastest thinker

CHAPTER 2 Unlock two minutes of magic Unlock two minutes of magic

CHAPTER 3 The Four-step Speed Thinking Cycle The Four-step Speed Thinking Cycle

Part 2 The practice of Speed Thinking: Speed Links

CHAPTER 4 Nine ways to use Speed Links to brainstorm ideas

CHAPTER 5 Nine ways to use Nine ways to use Speed Links Speed Links to make better, to make better, faster decisions (and stop procrastinating) faster decisions (and stop procrastinating)

CHAPTER 6 Nine ways to use Nine ways to use Speed Links Speed Links to solve a problem to solve a problem

CHAPTER 7 Nine ways to use Nine ways to use Speed Links Speed Links to fast-track to fast-track your success your success

CHAPTER 8 The most commonly asked questions about The most commonly asked questions about Speed Thinking Speed Thinking

NOTES

FURTHER READING

SPEED THINKING TEMPLATES

‘Our brains can often decide well in seconds or minutes, depending on the time frame we set as appropriate for the goal we want to achieve.’

Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error

INTRODUCTION

What is Speed Thinking?

Speed Thinking is a generative thinking system that enables any individual or team to deliberately and consciously accelerate the pace at which they normally think and act.

As this definition suggests, Speed Thinking aims to generate something of potential value quickly. It could be:

a big, new range of ideas or solutions

quicker decisions

more innovative products that can be introduced faster

a shorter, more productive meeting

a better work/life balance.

Speed Thinking can be applied readily to everyday problem-solving, idea generation or decision-making. Business leaders and small business owners have also applied this new approach to how they conduct meetings, manage projects, service customers, develop new products and conduct focus group research. Speed Thinking is a new way of looking at the world which challenges the long-held belief that doing something quickly compromises quality. In this book I will suggest that thinking and working at an accelerated pace can not only improve quality but make you more productive and efficient.

In my experience, thinking quickly comes naturally. Our education system views thinking as a serious, step-by-step process that cannot be rushed. It is an irony, however, that in mathematics, for example, my youngest daughter is forever showing me faster short cuts. While I battle with my longhand way of multiplying and dividing, she already has the correct answer and has moved on to the next question. In the same way, I believe Speed Thinking offers business people and students the potential to accelerate their results and not get caught in the slow lane.

This is not to say that traditional thinking does not have its place. There will always be a role for a more measured, critical approach, particularly for momentous, long-term decisions—although there is some evidence that suggests the more difficult the decision, the more you should rely on your unconscious.¹

Speed Thinking complements but does not replace the traditional thinking system. The ability to think either fast or slow, depending on the situation and time available, is priceless. Much like the Chinese concept of yin (slow) and yang (fast), the two thinking styles form a complete whole and are interdependent. For example, have you ever been struggling with a problem, then in an instant a new idea jumps into your head? Speed Thinking provides more energy, action and momentum than traditional thinking.

The central idea of Speed Thinking is that you can vary the pace at which you think depending on the situation, time available or your preference. This gives you more control at work and in general life.

Speed Thinking is a skill that can be learned by anyone and improved with practice. While some may be faster than others, in my workshops I have not found a person who cannot improve their ability to think more quickly and better given some practice, a new tool kit and encouragement.

Traditional thinking vs Speed Thinking

Speed Thinking offers the best of both worlds—it adds ‘structure’ to your intuition and ‘speed’ to your analysis. It builds on Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, in which he recounts stories of people making rapid-fire decisions based on their intuition honed after many years of experience in a particular area.² But Gladwell does not outline how this technique could be used by anyone, at any time. The process and tools of Speed Thinking, by contrast, can be learned by anyone of any age and used effectively almost immediately to help you and your team produce amazing results in time-pressure situations.

The insight behind Speed Thinking

After I completed a doctorate in organisational creativity, I established a creative thinking and innovation consulting business which I ran for five years. While working with managers from leading international brands, I noticed that they often produced outstanding work when I placed them under some time pressure.

Using this insight, I started reducing the amount of time I would give managers to solve a problem. There was little difference in output when I set a problem time limit at three

Reviews for Speed Thinking

[spbooks_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting innovative approach to making fast decisions and thinking fast about ideas and issues.