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1988-02-01
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What's wrong with spreadsheet styles of thinking?
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During World War II, a new form of mathematics for optimizing complex systems
appeared. This new math, called Operations Research (OR), promised to
revolutionize business by replacing "hunches" and "guesses" with superior
quantitative thinking.
In the 1950s, universities formed operations research departments and awarded
degrees. Not to be outdone, by the 1960s, nearly every business school and
MBA program had shifted its emphasis to the new quantitative approaches to
business decision making and problem solving. See <FILE21 QUANTITATIVE>.
As a result, "working the numbers" became the standard way of making better
decisions by the 1970s. But better decisions didn't always result from
the new quantitative methods.
In business, experienced managers, although they were totally lacking in
mathematical modeling skills, often outperformed the best and brightest
quantitative thinkers. Why?
The major reason is that the quantitative approach has one fundamental
flaw. Simply stated, you must first name things before you can measure
them. At best, numbers are a second-order abstraction. Numbers don't exist
in nature, and are only a relatively recent invention. <FILE75 LANGUAGE>
First-order abstractions are language. You use language to describe
reality <FILE55 REALITY>, then use numbers to verify or modify your language.
New ideas or insights do not come from number processes. Instead, new ideas
are boundary phenomena that best occur whenever you explore the boundaries of
existing ideas or language. For example, it is impossible to classify
information without slightly modifying one's vision of reality.
That's the real reason most people don't like to first outline their thinking.
By the third level, they invariably need to erase as they discover their
thinking has shifted. No one wants a process that always shows failures
in thinking, that is, unless the person actually desired clarity in thinking
or discovery of insights. <FILE46 PHILOSOPHY>
People who understand this concept, are free to purposely play with their
language in order to discover new ideas. They appreciate MaxThink as being
fundamental to this process.
The people who do not understand the importance of language in perception
and measurement tend to focus on measurement alone. Consequently, most of
their efforts tend to verify what they already know. <FILE54 THINKING>
That's the difference between spreadsheets for ideas (MaxThink <FILE26>),
spreadsheets for systems (HOUDINI), and spreadsheets for numbers (e.g.,
Lotus, Quatro, Excel). You don't find new ideas in building a number
spreadsheets. In fact, the idea for building each and every spreadsheet
does not originate from a spreadsheet process. <FILE55 SOURCE OF INSIGHTS>
While you're thinking, tell me why some people still think the world revolves
about numbers and spreadsheets. Then again, if GOD had wanted people to
think, he would have given them brains.
Neil Larson 1/16/88 FILE27
44 Rincon Rd., Kensington, CA 94707
Copyright MaxThink 1988 -- Call 415-428-0104 for permission to reprint