“Our ability to achieve the results we truly desire is eroded by our feelings that:

• Our beliefs are the truth.
• The truth is obvious.
• Our beliefs are based on real data.
• The data we select are the real data.

[The] ‘ladder of inference’ [is] a common mental pathway of increasing abstraction, often leading to misguided beliefs.”

–Rick Ross, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (242, 243)

What are you inferring about your staff, colleagues, or clients?

Stuck on coming up with ideas? Take time out to do a warm-up brainstorm. Pick a simple “everyday use” item, like the Paper Clip. Brainstorm 50 uses of it. If you get to 50, brainstorm more. Hit a wall of silence? Perfect. Keep going. Your brain has dumped the most obvious ideas first. Relax. You’ll be surprised by the way you can get your brain to think creatively about something routine, mundane or simple. After the warm-up, engage in your next brainstorm. Suspend your certainty about the outcome of the brainstormed ideas. Allow the brain to do its thing. Be open to all of the possibilities.

What are you stuck on right now?

How might you encourage discovery in your organization?