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QuotesBack to Top

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
— Herbert Simon

The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
— Thucydides

Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.
— Goya

When a task cannot be partitioned because of sequential constraints, the application of more effort has no effect on the schedule. The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.
— Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man-Month

Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals could believe them.
— George Orwell

Intelligence is like a four-wheel drive. It allows you to get stuck in more remote places.
— Garrison Keillor

Do one thing every day that scares you.
— Eleanor Roosevelt

My ability to keep cool in a crisis is based entirely on not knowing all the facts.
— Garrison Keillor

The one common experience of all humanity is the challenge of problems.
— R. Buckminster Fuller

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
— Albert Einstein

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
— Samuel Johnson

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
— Samuel Johnson

Iron rusts from disuse,
stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen;
so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind.
— Leonardo da Vinci

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.
— Henry Ford

In the field of observation, chance favors the prepared mind.
— Louis Pasteur

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
— T. S. Eliot

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.
...
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay “Self-Reliance”




Overall/General ResourcesBack to Top

Strategic ThinkingBack to Top
    Not everything that can be counted counts,
    and not everything that counts can be counted.
    — Albert Einstein

    Nine-tenths of tactics are certain and taught in the books; but, the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool. This is the test of generals. Success can only be ensured by instinct sharpened by thought. At the crisis, it is as natural as a reflex.
    — T. E. Lawrence, in The Science of Guerilla Warfare

    The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
    — Thucydides

  • See also critical thinking

  • See also strategic art

  • See also military theory page

  • See also strategic communication page at the Cyberspace & Information Operations Study Center

  • See also DoD and service leadership competency models at Strategic Leadership Studies for competencies to be addressed by military education

  • See also the strategic corporal and the three-block war regarding the need for strategic thinking at all levels in today's and tomorrow's conflicts
    • The lines separating the levels of war, and distinguishing combatant from "non-combatant," will blur, and adversaries, confounded by our "conventional" superiority, will resort to asymmetrical means to redress the imbalance. Further complicating the situation will be the ubiquitous media whose presence will mean that all future conflicts will be acted out before an international audience. [Krulak]

  • The perils of bad strategy, by Rumelt, in the McKinsey Quarterly, (2011, 1)
    • Another sign of bad strategy is fuzzy strategic objectives. One form this problem can take is a scrambled mess of things to accomplish—a dog’s dinner of goals. A long list of things to do, often mislabeled as strategies or objectives, is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do. Such lists usually grow out of planning meetings in which a wide variety of stakeholders suggest things they would like to see accomplished. Rather than focus on a few important items, the group sweeps the whole day’s collection into the strategic plan. Then, in recognition that it is a dog’s dinner, the label “long term” is added, implying that none of these things need be done today.
    • Bad strategy has many roots, but I’ll focus on two here: the inability to choose and template-style planning—filling in the blanks with “vision, mission, values, strategies.”

  • Developing Air Force Strategists: Change Culture, Reverse Careerism (local copy), by Bethel et al, Joint Force Quarterly, 3rd Quarter 2010
    • The Air Force should seek out those officers who have a balanced brain—those who can not only intuit well and rapidly, but who also understand when it may be necessary to look for theories that can be generalized. Instead, the Service teaches “people, processes, and products” that make up the Air Operations Center at its command and staff college.
    • There is no career path for strategists or strategic thinkers, and indeed there appears to be a trend away from intellectualism.
    • Rather than disdaining intellectualism, senior leaders should be encouraged to read recent scholarship on strategic decisionmaking and ask themselves if they can learn something there. In addition to the long list of histories of command and leadership, Air Force senior leaders should have to read Scott Page’s The Difference, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and Outliers, James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds, and most importantly, Alec Fisher’s The Logic of Real Arguments.
    • Inductive reasoning is only one attribute of successful strategists. They must also exhibit:
      • creativity
      • curiosity
      • confidence
      • high intelligence without subject fixation
      • ability to collate and make sense out of massive amounts of data
      • great and diverse intellect
      • thorough knowledge of the means
      • intuitive understanding of the ends.
    • We place creativity at the top because crafting strategies, like war itself, is an art. We posit that educating an officer to be a strategist is for naught if the first four traits are not present.
    • We must demand more of our officers—not in terms of time or energy (most give more than their fair share whether they have it or not), but in terms of how they think.

  • Growing Strategic Leaders for Future Conflict, by Salmoni et al, Parameters, Spring 2010

  • Schools for Strategy: Teaching Strategy for 21st Century Conflict (local copy), by Gray, SSI, Nov 2009

  • spiffy Research, Writing, and the Mind of the Strategist (local copy), by Foster, in Joint Force Quarterly, Spring 1996
    • Ideas and the ability to generate them seem increasingly likely, in fact, to be more important than weapons, economic potential, diplomatic acumen, or technological advantage in determining who exercises global leadership and enjoys superpower status. Thus it is imperative to develop, nurture, and engage strategic thinkers at all levels—critical, creative, broadgauged visionaries with the intellect to dissect the status quo, grasp the big picture, discern important relationships among events, generate imaginative possibilities for action, and operate easily in the conceptual realm.
    • Almost by definition, strategic thinkers are broadly educated, not narrowly trained. They seek not simply direction but to grapple with the underlying questions of whether, why, and what if.
    • A broad-based education expands—and fuels the self-guided growth of—one’s horizons. It develops the intellect and inculcates the spirit of inquiry for a lifelong pursuit of learning. The measure of education, far from being the level or even the sum of formal schooling, rests more in the degree of open-mindedness and active mental engagement it engenders.

  • spiffy Keeping the Strategic Flame (local copy), by Builder, in Joint Force Quarterly, Winter 1996-97
    • The current demand by the military for welldefined objectives is eloquent evidence of how far our thinking has drifted toward the tactical domain. The insistence on operationally planning based on enemy capabilities, while tactically prudent, is the antithesis of strategic thinking, which should concentrate on enemy vulnerabilities. Although defeating enemy forces may sometimes be necessary to achieve our objectives, it is not always the Nation’s or the military’s best option.

  • Charting the Course for Effective Professional Military Education - 10 Sep 09 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee - local copies of transcripts below
    • Lieutenant General Dave Barno, USA (ret.) - Director, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies
      • Given the notable shortcomings many ascribe to U.S. strategic thinking over the last decade -- some deeply involving senior military leaders -- we must seriously question whether our program of PME today is on the right track. In my estimation, we are drifting off course, and if uncorrected, our marked advantage in the intellectual capital of warfare, in the face of an increasingly uncertain future, is at risk.
      • Thus, for almost all senior officers -- all our generals and admirals -- the final fifteen to twenty years of their career is almost entirely largely lacking in extended developmental experiences. This fact becomes more troubling when correlated with the reality that decision-making and complexity at the senior levels -- especially regarding strategic and grand strategic issues -- is immensely more complex and uncertain than the relatively simpler worlds of tactics and operations. So-called "wicked problems" unresponsive to set-piece solutions abound.
    • Dr. Williamson Murray - Senior Fellow, Institute for Defense Analyses
      • The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that the United States can no longer afford an approach resting on the comfortable assumption that commanders can acquire skills on the fly to deal with the new and different complexities that each conflict will bring in its wake. As General James Mattis suggested in an email to a professor at National War College, “We have been fighting on this planet for 5,000 years and we should take advantage of that experience. ‘Winging it’ and filling body bags as we sort out what works reminds us of the moral dictates and the cost of competence in our profession.” The depressing story of our flawed efforts to handle a burgeoning insurgency during the post-invasion period in Iraq suggests that too many senior officers had never studied the lessons of Vietnam, much less the experiences of the British in their efforts to defeat the 1920 insurgency in Iraq.
    • Dr. John Allen Williams - President, Inter-University Seminar on the Armed Forces and Society
      • Given the complexity of the future threat environment and the importance of the issues involved – military threats and the proper relation between the military and the society it serves –the Skelton Report’s call for the development of strategists and the encouragement of strategic thinking is increasingly relevant. One should note that these are not quite the same thing. Only a small number of officers will develop into strategists of the first rank, but these are so important that the PME system must do as much as it can to encourage them to develop their talents to the maximum degree possible.

  • Developing Strategic Leaders for the 21st Century (local copy), by McCausland, SSI, Feb 2008

  • Strategy and the Strategic Way of Thinking (local copy), commentary by Owens, Naval War College Review, Autumn 2007

  • Educating for Strategic Thinking in the SOF Community: Considerations and a Proposal (local copy), by Yarger, JSOU Report 07-2, Jan 2007

  • Prospects for Strategic Thinking and Innovation: a Survey of War College Students (local copy), by Snow, Army War College, 15 Mar 2006
    • The survey reveals room for improvement in current levels of dialogue, critical, innovative and strategic thinking. Unless changed, the current time and resource constraints will likely frustrate deep thinkers, stifle the creative and hinder the process of organizational learning and adaptation. The goal of achieving advantage through transformational processes is at risk.

  • Learning from the Stones: a Go Approach to Mastering China's Strategic Concept, Shi (local copy), by Lai, Strategic Studies Institute, May 2004
    • The author introduces a new approach to learning about the different ways of strategic thinking and interaction in Chinese culture. It is through learning the Chinese board game called go. This game is a living reflection of Chinese philosophy, culture, strategic thinking, warfare, military tactics, and diplomatic bargaining. The author also sheds light on the remarkable connection between go and the strategic concepts in Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
    • A modest claim is made in this writing that a little knowledge of go will take U.S. leaders a long way in understanding the essence of the Chinese way of war and diplomacy.

  • Strategic Thinking chapter from Strategic Leadership and Decision Making, from National Defense University
    • A leader can develop more effective strategic thinking skills. This is done by exploiting any opportunity to better understand yourself, how you think about complex problems, and how to go about making decisions. This understanding of yourself is critical, since this information that forms the foundation for developing your strategic thinking capabilities necessary in the strategic environment. The more you understand yourself, the more control you have over both the process, and the products you produce.
    • Virtually all of you will be required to serve in strategic environments. This means there will be many opportunities for you to function as a strategic thinker or advisor. You must, therefore, continue to develop a new and broader set of thinking skills. The SLDM course, and the overall ICAF experience have been designed to help you understand and develop effective strategic thinking skills to solve the complex, fast changing, unstructured problems you will soon encounter.

  • Attack by Stratagem, from The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
    • Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
    • Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Creativity and InnovationBack to Top
    Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world.
    Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves.
    All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.
    — George Bernhard Shaw

    If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.
    — Yogi Berra

    A good hockey player plays where the puck is.
    A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
    — Wayne Gretzky

    Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.
    — Theodore Levitt

    The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military is getting an old one out.
    — Liddell Hart

    Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.
    — T. S. Eliot

    The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
    — James Russel Lowell

    As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.
    — Francis Bacon

    He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.
    — Francis Bacon

    In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
    — Eric Hoffer

    The world owes all of its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.
    — Nathaniel Hawthorne

    I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
    — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

    In the age of information sciences, the most valuable asset is knowledge, which is a creation of human imagination and creativity. We were among the last to comprehend this truth and we will be paying for this oversight for many years to come.
    — Mikhail Gorbachev, 1990

    Innovation by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires 'courageous patience'.
    — Warren Bennis

  • See John Boyd and the OODA loop - especially the articles and briefings by Osinga

  • See also intuition

  • See also Creative Problem-Solving (CPS) process

  • See also Innovation Adoption-Diffusion on Transformation of War page

  • See also Innovation Adoption-Diffusion on Future Studies page

  • The Innovation Paradox (local copy), by Hoffman, in NASA's ASK magazine, issue 41, Winter 2011 - "Sometimes organizational 'support' kills good new ideas."
    • Many organizations live and die by good new ideas. The challenge they face is to cultivate good ideas by giving innovators just the right blend of freedom and support. One simple approach that is not taken often enough is to let the innovators themselves decide how the organization can help them develop their ideas. A manager asking, “What do you need from me?” has a good chance of finding the sweet spot between no support (“Do what you want as long as I don’t know about it”) and idea-killing interference.

  • Expecting the Unexpected (local copy), by Frasqueri-Molina, in NASA's ASK magazine, issue 43, Summer 2011 - creating a mitigation plan to deal with unexpected risks
    • The author developed a risk-mitigation plan to reestablish order from chaos.
      1. Remain calm.
      2. Halt the entire project or just the affected work momentarily and let everyone take a break.
      3. Immediately gather the resolution team, which consists of the project manager and any of the people who can offer solutions; meet privately.
      4. Assess risk impact.
      5. Brainstorm solutions.
      6. Choose a solution.
      7. Obtain project sponsor approval.
      8. Communicate the solution to the entire team, resume project, resolve risk.

  • Why Wikis at NASA? (local copy), by Verville et al, in NASA's ASK magazine, issue 44, Fall 2011
    • Wikis are used across NASA for collaboration
    • Some of the critical practices and principles for successful wikis are listed below.
      • Wikis work best when they solve a problem that is evident to most of a group.
      • Wiki use needs to replace an existing work process, not add to work.
      • Wikis need advocates and advertising.
      • Seeding the wiki with valuable content helps jump-start the process; with a blank page, no one knows where to start.
      • Gradual growth is fine, and starting small helps a core group of users become accustomed to the wiki (think pilot study).
      • A wiki that serves a niche need is okay; it does not need to be all things to all people.

  • Defense Science Board (DSB) - check reports section for reports like the following

  • Innovation Versus Adaptability: Seizing the Initiative Through Creative Thinking Versus Reacting to the Enemy (local copy), by Grothe, SAMS paper, 2009
    • Leadership must be committed to learning, underwrite experimentation, and create an environment that generates creative thought and innovation. Doctrine must incorporate more aspects of innovation, creative and critical thinking and innovative leadership. The Army’s training constructs produce adaptive leaders, but must start to assess innovation as well, in order to generate this within the force as well. The most critical area the Army must focus change in is within Professional Military Education for field grade officers.

  • Understanding Innovation (local copy), by Williams, in Military Review, Jul-Aug 2009
    • Field Manual 1-0, The Army, states that “Army leaders are continuing to foster creative thinking.” They are “challenging inflexible ways of thinking, removing impediments to institutional innovation, and underwriting the risks associated with bold change.”
    • Perhaps this statement is true, but given the contemporary use of the word “innovation,” it is also meaningless. Claiming to be innovative carries about as much weight as declaring a love for puppies; it’s easy to say and unpopular to challenge. When words represent some indistinct idea, they are susceptible to reinvention or distortion with potentially significant unintended consequences.

  • Innovation Starvation, by Stephenson, in World Policy Journal, Fall 2011
    • Still, I worry that our inability to match the achievements of the 1960s space program might be symptomatic of a general failure of our society to get big things done.
    • Innovation can’t happen without accepting the risk that it might fail. The vast and radical innovations of the mid-20th century took place in a world that, in retrospect, looks insanely dangerous and unstable.
    • Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age. In this environment, the best an audacious manager can do is to develop small improvements to existing systems—climbing the hill, as it were, toward a local maximum, trimming fat, eking out the occasional tiny innovation—like city planners painting bicycle lanes on the streets as a gesture toward solving our energy problems. Any strategy that involves crossing a valley—accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance—will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

  • How We Think: Thinking Critically and Creatively and How Military Professionals Can Do it Better, by McConnell et al, in Small Wars Journal, 16 Sep 2011
    • This essay will summarize how cognitive theorists have described critical and creative thinking in general, and how some military practitioners have applied them. In doing so, this essay will propose principles of critical and creative thinking applicable to the military profession to provide a common vocabulary that describes the type of thinking we do. To expand and improve critical and creative thinking, military professionals need a common vocabulary that accurately describes the very thinking we are to expand and improve on.

  • Creative Thinking for Individuals and Teams: An essay on creative thinking for military professionals, by Allen, U.S. Army War College, 2009
    • quick overview (13 pages) of theories, theorists, processes, attributes, and more

  • spiffy Sir Ken Robinson

  • other TED.com videos - most are 6-15 minutes
    • Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from - a TED talk (you may need to watch it on YouTube if TED videos are blocked)
      • "People often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. His fascinating tour takes us from the "liquid networks" of London's coffee houses to Charles Darwin's long, slow hunch to today's high-velocity web." - he finishes with "chance favors the connected mind"
    • Edward Tenner: Unintended consequences - a TED talk (you may need to watch it on YouTube if TED videos are blocked)
      • "Every new invention changes the world -- in ways both intentional and unexpected. Historian Edward Tenner tells stories that illustrate the under-appreciated gap between our ability to innovate and our ability to foresee the consequences."
    • Charles Leadbeater on innovation - a TED talk (you may need to watch it on YouTube if TED videos are blocked)
      • "In this deceptively casual talk, Charles Leadbeater weaves a tight argument that innovation isn't just for professionals anymore. Passionate amateurs, using new tools, are creating products and paradigms that companies can't."
    • Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration - a TED talk (you may need to watch it on YouTube if TED videos are blocked)
      • "In this prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning."
    • Howard Rheingold on collaboration - a TED talk (you may need to watch it on YouTube if TED videos are blocked)
      • "Howard Rheingold talks about the coming world of collaboration, participatory media and collective action -- and how Wikipedia is really an outgrowth of our natural human instinct to work as a group."
    • Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite! - a TED talk (you may need to watch it on YouTube if TED videos are blocked)
      • "Studies show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension -- and our creative thinking. So why do we still feel embarrassed when we're caught doodling in a meeting? Sunni Brown says: Doodlers, unite! She makes the case for unlocking your brain via pad and pen."

  • 21st Century Enlightenment, RSAnimate talk by Matthew Taylor - how the idea of a new enlightenment can help us meet the challenges we now face

  • Office of Innovation - Office of Naval Research

  • Innovate or Die: Innovation and Technology for Special Operations (local copy), by Spulak, JSOU Report 10-7, Dec 2010

  • spiffy CreatingMinds.org - with principles, techniques, tools, etc.

  • spiffy Creativity Techniques - short descriptions of a whole passel of techniques

  • Roots of Innovation (local copy, 2.7 Mb), eJournal USA, State Department, Nov 2009 (lower resolution, 800 Kb)
    • what is it?
    • which cultures foster it?
    • the global geography of innovation
    • how do complementary skills help?
    • secrets of collaboration
    • 2009 innovation index by country ranking

  • Developing Creative and Critical Thinkers (local copy), by Allen and Gerras, in Military Review, Nov-Dec 2009

  • The Art of Design: a Design Methodology (local copy), by Banach, Military Review, Mar-Apr 2009

  • Predicting Military Innovation, by Isaacson et al, RAND, 1999
    • Although military technology is increasingly available and affordable, not all states have the capacity to improve military effectiveness by acquiring hardware. Integrative difficulties — in command structures, doctrine and tactics, training, and support — are common in the developing world, and many states will have to find some level of innovation to overcome such difficulties if they are to use military technologies effectively. This annotated briefing documents a research effort aimed at understanding and predicting how militaries may improve their battlefield effectiveness. The briefing first analyzes military innovation conceptually and then formulates a framework for predicting the likelihood of innovative success. The research synthesizes a broad literature on innovation and provides a useful tool for assessing future military developments.

  • Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California
    • The mission of the Brain and Creativity Institute is to gather new knowledge about the human emotions, decision-making, memory, and communication, from a neurological perspective, and to apply this knowledge to the solution of problems in the biomedical and sociocultural arenas.

  • From Stone to Silicon: A Brief Survey of Innovation, by Husick, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Oct 2008 - top 25 innovations of all time

  • Toward More Innovative Program Management (local copy), by Perino, in Defense Acquisition Review Journal, Feb-Mar 2005 - results of research into the science and psychology of innovation - using MBTI and FourSight assessment tools - includes formula for MBTI Creativity Index

  • Stimulating Innovation (local copy), by Kostoff, Office of Naval Research (DOC file)
  • Science and Technology Innovation (local copy), by Kostoff, Office of Naval Research - compares literature-based and workshop-based approaches for stimulating innovation (DOC file)

  • Communication, Management Benchmark Study (local copy), Dept of Energy -- includes chapters on networking, alliances, organizational culture, and innovation
    • spiffy Innovation, especially organizational, short chapter, covers a lot
    • spiffy Creativity, how to cultivate, short chapter, covers a lot

  • spiffy Leadership: Creativity and Innovation, by William Klemm, from AU-24, GOOD broad coverage of ideas
  • spiffy Innovation and the Military Mind, by Air Vice-Marshal R. A. Mason, from AU-24
  • spiffy The Creative Leader, by Kendall, from AU-24

  • Innovation: from Getting It to Getting It Done (local copy) - briefing by Kao, from OSD Transformation website

  • Leadership and Influence (local copy), self-study course from FEMA

  • Leadership: Strategies for Personal Success - Student Manual (local copy), FEMA
    • Managing Multiple Roles for the Company Officer
    • Creativity
    • Enhancing Your Personal Power Base
    • Ethics
  • Leadership: Strategies for Personal Success - Instructor Guide (local copy), FEMA

  • spiffy Creativity Web, resources for creativity and innovation
    • 10 Kick Starts to Your Creativity
    • Creativity Basics

  • The Serendipity Equations, by Figueiredo and Campos, posted by the Naval Research Lab
  • Searching the Unsearchable: Inducing Serendipitous Insights, by Campos and Figueiredo, posted by the Naval Research Lab

  • Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation, and Creativity, National Academies Press, 2003 - addresses issues such as "what makes people creative" and "how creative people work"

  • The International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College

  • Creativity in the Workplace, links to resources

  • Creativity for Life, living creatively

  • The Innovation Journal
  • American Creativity Association
  • European Association for Creativity and Innovation (EACI)

Emotional IntelligenceBack to Top BrainstormingBack to Top Memory SkillsBack to Top Concept MapsBack to Top Cognitive SkillsBack to Top Cognitive BiasBack to Top
  • See also fallacies in logic

  • Heuristics and Biases in Military Decision Making (local copy), by Williams, Military Review, Sep-Oct 2010
    • Fortunately, some have come to see the shortcomings of the classical MDMP process. It is illsuited for the analysis of problems exhibiting high volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
    • When combining hindsight bias and retrievability biases, we potentially fail to guard against an event popularized euphemistically as a black swan.
    • Instead of the usual striving toward a “best practices” methodology, which is also full of potential heuristic biases, reflective practice calls for “valuing the processes that challenge assimilative knowledge (i.e. continuous truth seeking) and by embracing the inevitable conflict associated with truth seeking.”

  • Ben Goldacre: Battling bad science, a talk from TED.com (but you may need to watch it on YouTube if the TED.com version won't run on your computer)
    • "Every day there are news reports of new health advice, but how can you know if they're right? Doctor and epidemiologist Ben Goldacre shows us, at high speed, the ways evidence can be distorted, from the blindingly obvious nutrition claims to the very subtle tricks of the pharmaceutical industry."

  • Criminal Investigation Failures: Avoiding the Pitfalls (Part One) (local copy), by Rossmo, in Law Enforcement Bulletin, Sep 2006 - discusses various types of cognitive bias

  • Cognitive Biases listed at Wikipedia

  • spiffy spiffy Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (local copy), by Heuer, 1999, for CIA
    -- very good examination of many elements of critical thinking, with examples (PDF version)
    • Check out Part III - Cognitive Biases

  • Countering Terrorism: Integration of Practice and Theory (local copy), overview of conference at FBI Academy, Feb 2002
    • from Appendix 8: Psychology of Bias
        These investigators found that there is a general bias, based on both innate predispositions and experience, in animals and humans, to give greater weight to negative events or attributes. This is evident in four ways:
          (a) negative potency (negative entities are stronger than the equivalent positive entities),
          (b) steeper negative gradients (the negativity of negative events grows more rapidly with approach to them in space or time than does the positivity of positive events),
          (c) negativity dominance (combinations of negative and positive entities yield evaluations that are more negative than the algebraic sum of individual subjective evaluations would predict), and
          (d) negative differentiation (negative entities are more varied, yield more complex conceptual representations, and engage a wider response repertoire).
        The authors review this taxonomy, with emphasis on negativity dominance, including literary, historical, religious, and cultural sources, as well as the psychological literatures on learning, attention, impression formation, contagion, moral judgment, development, and memory. They suggest that one feature of negative events that make them dominant is that negative entities are more “contagious” than positive entities.

SensemakingBack to Top Critical ThinkingBack to Top Science and ReasonBack to Top
    Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.
    — Werner Karl Heisenberg

  • spiffy How Science Works (local copy), by Goodstein, in Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Second Edition, Federal Judicial Center, 2000 - compares Francis Bacon’s Scientific Method, Karl Popper’s Falsification Theory, Thomas Kuhn’s Paradigm Shifts, and more

  • Steps of the scientific method (from CDC site)
    1. Name the problem or question
    2. Form an educated guess (hypothesis) of the cause of the problem and make predictions based upon the hypothesis
    3. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment or study (with proper controls)
    4. Check and interpret your results
    5. Report your results to the scientific community

  • Scientific Method Man, article in Wired, Sep 2004 - discussing "verifier approach" to problem solution, as used by Gordon Rugg
    • With the verifier approach, Rugg begins by asking experts to draw a mental map of their field. From there, he stitches together many maps to form an atlas of the universe of knowledge on the subject. "You look for an area of overlap that doesn't contain much detail," he says. "If it turns out there's an adjoining area which everyone thinks is someone else's territory, then that's a potential gap."
    • His approach is built on the observation, noted as far back as the 1970s, that experts tend to cut to the chase. In their zeal to get to an answer, they make many little mistakes. (A recent study of work published in Nature and British Medical Journal, for example, found that 11 percent of papers had serious statistical errors.) Experts unknowingly fudge logic to square data with their hypotheses. Or they develop blind spots after years of working in isolation. They lose their ability to take a broader view. If all this is true, he says, think of how much big science is based on flawed intuition.
    • spiffy The verifier method boils down to seven steps:
      • 1) amass knowledge of a discipline through interviews and reading;
      • 2) determine whether critical expertise has yet to be applied in the field;
      • 3) look for bias and mistakenly held assumptions in the research;
      • 4) analyze jargon to uncover differing definitions of key terms;
      • 5) check for classic mistakes using human-error tools;
      • 6) follow the errors as they ripple through underlying assumptions;
      • 7) suggest new avenues for research that emerge from steps one through six.

  • Additional resources on the Verifier Approach

Socratic Method & Asking QuestionsBack to Top Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century (AFSO21)Back to Top
  • AFSO21 Fact Sheet

  • For more AFSO21 guidance/handbooks/tools/reference/etc. go to the AF Portal and do a search for AFSO21

  • Air Force leaders emphasize AFSO21, by Bergquist, Air University Public Affairs, 28 Sep 2009

  • AFSO21 adopts 8-step problem solving model, by Todd, 14th Flying Training Wing Commander's Action Group, 10 Mar 2008
    • Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, or AFSO21, has adopted a new 8-Step Problem Solving Model to achieve continuous process improvement. This model is based on the OODA Loop and will make it easier for Air Force members to eliminate waste in the workplace.

  • Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century - Playbook, May 2008 - over 300 pages of tools for improvement, including the 8-step problem solving process
    • The eight steps are expanded starting on page B-1 (pdf page 15)
        (1) Clarify and Validate the Problem (Observe)
        (2) Break Down the Problem and Identify Performance Gaps (Observe)
        (3) Set Improvement Targets (Orient)
        (4) Determine Root Causes (Orient)
        (5) Develop Countermeasures (Decide)
        (6) See Countermeasures Through (Act)
        (7) Confirm Results and Process (Act)
        (8) Standardize Successful Processes (Act)

  • USAF 8-Step Problem Solving Process template (AFD-090716-101.doc) with expanded sub-steps and reference to additional tools

Process and DesignBack to Top Problem SolvingBack to Top Wicked ProblemsBack to Top
  • How to Think: Reflections from Dr Jack - Combined Arms Center Blog
    • How to Think: Wicked Problems, Reflections from Dr Jack, Combined Arms Center Blog, 11 Nov 2008
      • "The term “wicked problems” was coined by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in 1973 to describe problems in planning that defy analytical methods for solutions"
      • includes Rittle and Webber's 10 criteria for defining a "wicked problem" - with a brief description of each
      • "There are a number of key implications from the concept of “wicked problems.” One issue is that there must be constant framing and reframing of a wicked problem to identify the second and third order effects of a plan or operation. A great plan may be only treating a symptom and not the underlying causes of the problem – potentially making the situation worse. Constant reframing and assessment are necessary to identify this throughout planning and operations."
      • "Another issue with “wicked problems” is that there are frequently multiple problems and issues within a problem set. The tendency to identify a problem as a familiar and simple problem – looking for simple cause and effect relationship – may mask multiple problems and lead to wrong solutions."

  • Wicked problem, entry in Wikipedia - includes descriptions of several strategies to cope witih wicked problems

  • Sandia research team studies best way to solve wicked problems, Sandia National Labs, 29 Nov 2007
    • What’s the best way to solve a wicked problem — by working in a large group sharing ideas via the intranet or as individuals? That’s the question George S. Davidson and his research team at Sandia National Laboratories attempted to resolve this summer.
    • ...
    • “We were amazed at the length and quality of the responses, both from the people working as a group and those working individually,” Dornburg says. “People were very engaged, often writing long, detailed responses.”
    • She adds that what was most interesting is that the quality of ideas from the people responding as individuals was “significantly better across all three quality ratings.”
    • Dornburg says the finding that individuals are more successful than groups in computer-mediated brainstorming suggests a time- and cost-saving potential for companies. Generally, when electronic group brainstorming is compared to face-to-face brainstorming, it is touted as having the advantages of shorter meetings, increased participation by remote team members, better documentation via electronic recording, and cash savings. But the Sandia research suggests that people working to solve problems on their own might involve less time and, thus less expenses, than electronic group brainstorming.
    • While individuals working alone nominally faired better in this study, Davidson says, the research also indicates that group on-line brainstorming can be effective when ideas are needed from large numbers of people.

  • Pakistan’s FATA – A Wicked Problem (local copy), by McMahon, U.S. Army War College, 17 Mar 2009 - explores a wicked problem through the lens of the 10 characteristics of a wicked problem (from Rittel and Webber)
Analysis of Competing HypothesesBack to Top Root Cause AnalysisBack to Top Decision Making and AnalysisBack to Top Assumption-Based PlanningBack to Top Game TheoryBack to Top UncertaintyBack to Top Complex SystemsBack to Top Abductive, Deductive, and Inductive ReasoningBack to Top
  • See Holmes' comments above

  • Peirce, Pragmatism, and The Right Way of Thinking (local copy), by Campbell, Sandia National Labs, Aug 2011
    • Peirce is known as the founder of the philosophy of pragmatism and these lectures, given near the end of his life, represent his mature thoughts on the philosophy. Peirce’s decomposition of thinking into abduction, deduction, and induction is among the important points in the lectures.

  • Adaptive Peircean Decision Aid Project Summary Assessments (local copy), by Senglaub, Sandia National Laboratories, Dec 2006
    • Abstract - This effort's objective was to identify and hybridize a suite of technologies enabling the development of predictive decision aids for use principally in combat environments but also in any complex information terrain. The technologies required included formal concept analysis for knowledge representation and information operations, Peircean reasoning to support hypothesis generation, Mill’s canons to begin defining information operators that support the first two technologies and co-evolutionary game theory to provide the environment / domain to assess predictions from the reasoning engines. The intended application domain is the IED problem because of its inherent evolutionary nature. While a fully functioning integrated algorithm was not achieved the hybridization and demonstration of the technologies was accomplished and demonstration of utility provided for a number of ancillary queries.
    • Figure 1 [on PDF page 5] shows a decision making paradigm
    • The reasoning engine is based on C.S. Peirce’s model of scientific inquiry. This philosophical construct provides the foundation for how we as humans reason about situations new to us. This model consists of three reasoning capabilities; Abduction, deduction and induction. A crude way of looking at this suite of logic is abduction provides plausible hypotheses to explain an observation, deduction provides a basis for selecting from that set of hypotheses, and induction is the means to validate the hypothesis selected.

  • Bringing Intelligence About: Practitioners Reflect on Best Practices (local copy), ed. by Swenson, Joint Military Intelligence College, 2003
    • Reasoning: The ability to reason is what permits humans to process information and formulate explanations, to assign meaning to observed phenomena. It is by reasoning that analysts transform information into intelligence, in these three ways:
      • 1. Induction: Inductive reasoning combines separate fragments of information, or specific answers to problems, to form general rules or conclusions. For example, using induction, a child learns to associate the color red with heat and heat with pain, and then to generalize these associations to new situations. Rigorous induction depends upon demonstrating the validity of causal relationships between observed phenomena, not merely associating them with each other.
      • 2. Deduction: Deductive reasoning applies general rules to specific problems to arrive at conclusions. Analysts begin with a set of rules and use them as a basis for interpreting information. For example, an analyst who follows the nuclear weapons program of a country might notice that a characteristic series of events preceded the last nuclear weapons test. Upon seeing evidence that those same events are occurring again, the analyst might deduce that a second nuclear test is imminent. However, this conclusion would be made cautiously, since deduction works best in closed systems such as mathematics, making it of limited use in forecasting human behavior.
      • 3. Abduction: Abductive reasoning describes the thought process that accompanies “insight” or intuition. When the information does not match that expected, the analyst asks “why?,” thereby generating novel hypotheses to explain given evidence that does not readily suggest a familiar explanation. For example, given two shipping manifests, one showing oranges and lemons being shipped from Venezuela to Florida, and the other showing carnations being shipped from Delaware to Colombia, abductive reasoning is what enables the analyst to take an analytic leap and ask, “Why is citrus fruit being sent to the worldwide capital of citrus farming, while carnations are being sent to the world’s primary exporter of that product? What is really going on here?” Thus, abduction relies on the analyst’s preparation and experience to suggest possible explanations that must then be tested. Abduction generates new research questions rather than solutions

  • Essays and Arguments: A Handbook on Writing Argumentative and Interpretative Essays, by Johnston, May 2000, in public domain
    • spiffy Section Five, Deduction and Induction

  • spiffy Manual of Job-Related Thinking Skills (local copy), Department of Homeland Security - including deductive reasoning, reasoning with sets, inductive reasoning about real-world events, and statistical reasoning - includes quizzes throughout

  • spiffy Statistics and Trace Evidence: The Tyranny of Numbers (local copy), by Houck, in Forensic Science Communications, FBI - discusses induction and deduction and their application in establishing evidence - see especially the section "How Do We Know All Ravens Are Black?"

  • quick definitions at an NIH site listing desired job skills
    • Deductive Reasoning - Able to apply general rules to specific problems to come up with logical answers, including deciding whether an answer makes sense.
    • Inductive Reasoning - Able to combine separate pieces of information, or specific answers to problems, to form general rules or conclusions. This includes coming up with a logical explanation for why seemingly unrelated events occur together.

  • Janusian Thinking and Acting (local copy), by Paparone and Crupi, in Military Review, Jan-Feb 2002
    • The authors maintain that the current U.S. approach to military operations-strategic, operational, and tactical-is too linear for today's contemporary operating environment. They argue that future warfighters must move beyond linear thought and action to a realm of thinking and acting that recognizes and accepts paired yet opposite ideas and actions
    • "Instead of ruling out alternative hypotheses, Janusian thinking calls on us to embrace contradictions as naturally occurring phenomena. When we create insights for thinking and acting from the Janusian framework, we achieve remarkable explanatory power over the nature of human information processing."

  • The seats of reason? An imaging study of deductive and inductive reasoning, by Goel et al, Dept of Psychology, York U., North York, Ontario, CA -- abstract posted by National Library of Medicine

      We carried out a neuroimaging study to test the neurophysiological predictions made by different cognitive models of reasoning. Ten normal volunteers performed deductive and inductive reasoning tasks while their regional cerebral blood flow pattern was recorded using [15O]H2O PET imaging. In the control condition subjects semantically comprehended sets of three sentences. In the deductive reasoning condition subjects determined whether the third sentence was entailed by the first two sentences. In the inductive reasoning condition subjects reported whether the third sentence was plausible given the first two sentences. The deduction condition resulted in activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus (Brodmann areas 45, 47). The induction condition resulted in activation of a large area comprised of the left medial frontal gyrus, the left cingulate gyrus, and the left superior frontal gyrus (Brodmann areas 8, 9, 24, 32). Induction was distinguished from deduction by the involvement of the medial aspect of the left superior frontal gyrus (Brodmann areas 8, 9). These results are consistent with cognitive models of reasoning that postulate different mechanisms for inductive and deductive reasoning and view deduction as a formal rule-based process.
      PMID: 9175134 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

  • Deductive Logic, by St. George Stock, posted by Project Gutenberg

Counterfactual ReasoningBack to Top
  • Counterfactual Reasoning: A Basic Guide for Analysts, Strategists, and Decision Makers (local copy), by Hendrickson, The Proteus Monograph Series, Oct 2008
    • Counterfactual reasoning is the process of evaluating conditional claims about alternate possibilities and their consequences (i.e., “What If” statements). These alternatives can be either past possibilities (e.g., “If the United States had not abolished the Iraqi army in 2003, then the Iraqi insurgency would have been significantly smaller in 2005”) or future possibilities (e.g., “If Iran had nuclear weapons, then it would provide this technology to Hezbollah”). Counterfactuals are essential to intelligence analysis because they are implicit in all strategic assessments.
    • Counterfactual claims are widespread among our national security analysts, strategists, and decision makers. Unfortunately, this is not widely recognized. Furthermore, there is no comprehensive model of counterfactual reasoning to which anyone may turn if they do become aware of the ubiquitous nature of counterfactuals within intelligence and national security. Instead, there are several fragmented approaches in philosophy, logic, history, political science, and psychology. To make matters worse, none of these approaches has been applied to the unique challenges of intelligence and security. In response, this work seeks to demonstrate both the structure and the significance of counterfactual reasoning. It offers not only the first complete system of counterfactual reasoning (of which this author is aware), but the first one specifically designed to address the domain of intelligence analysis and national security. Furthermore, this work proposes three major claims about the place of counterfactual reasoning in analysis and strategy. Therefore, this work is not only intended to serve as an education in counterfactual reasoning, but also as an exhortation to counterfactual reasoning.
    • First Major Proposal (The Strategic Presumption of Counterfactuals): All strategies (and analyses of them) are grounded in a series of counterfactual claims about alternate possibilities, their consequences, and the relationships between them.
    • Second Major Proposal (The Systematic Potential of Counterfactuals): Major extant methods for assessing alternate possibilities, their consequences, and the relationships between them may be viewed as ultimately not distinct, but as aspects of a single process—counterfactual reasoning.
    • Third Major Proposal (The Structural Priority of Counterfactuals): All assessment of alternate possibilities, their consequences, and the relationships between them should ultimately be conditional (as it is in counterfactual reasoning).

Dialectical ReasoningBack to Top

IntuitionBack to Top
    The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
    We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
    — Albert Einstein

  • See also creativity and innovation

  • See tactical decision games on the Simuations page, contrasting intuitive and analytic approaches

  • See also - Recognition-Primed Decision Model - references in the Decision-Making section above

  • See also situation awareness

  • Developing Intuitive Decision-Making In Modern Military Leadership (local copy), by McCown, Naval War College, 27 Oct 2010

  • Strategic Decision Games: Improving Strategic Intuition (local copy), by DeFoor, Joint Advanced Warfighting School, 23 Apr 2007

  • Reforming Pentagon Strategic Decisionmaking (local copy), by Lamb and Lachow, INSS, Strategic Forum No. 221, July 2006

  • Lee’s Mistake: Learning from the Decision to Order Pickett’s Charge (local copy), by Gompert and Kugler, Defense Horizons number 54, Aug 2006

  • Custer in Cyberspace (local copy), by Gompert and Kugler, Defense Horizons number 51, Feb 2006
    • When conditions are complex and dynamic, time is short, and critical information is available, the key to making good decisions is to blend intuition with reasoning—more specifically, reliable intuition with timely reasoning.

  • From "The Personal Relevance of Great Campaigns" - by Bird, 22 Feb 2001, Command and General Staff Officer's Course
    • Carl Von Clausewitz explains that events in warfare are surrounded by uncertainty, and that there are few universal truths. Because of this, leaders must sort through this “fog” to find the truth, often a daunting endeavor that’s permeated by chance. The commander must sift through this information and decide what pieces are relevant and require action. Clausewitz specifically refers to the capability of the mind to discriminate information allowing quick, correct decisions. He describes this ability as coup d’oeil, “the quick recognition of a truth that the mind would ordinarily miss or would perceive only after long study and reflection.”2 Napoleon faced such a scenario in the battles of Jena-Auerstadt. With limited information, he turned an entire field army in place to seek decisive battle with the Prussians and won the day. [2Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 100-102. ]

  • Coup D'Oeil: Strategic Intuition in Army Planning (local copy), by Duggan, Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), Nov 2005

  • Command Decision-Making: Experience Counts (local copy), by Wolgast, Army War College paper, 2005

  • Intuition: an Imperative of Command (local copy), by Rogers, in Military Review - examines relevance of intuition to decision making in the context of warfighting on the modern battlefield

  • Tactical Intuition (local copy), by Reinwald, in Military Review, Sep-Oct 2000

  • Intuition: An Instantaneous Backup System?, by Mrazek, in Air University Review

  • Decisionmaking Theory (local copy), Marine Corps Doctrine Publication 6
    • "the intuitive approach is more appropriate for the vast majority of typical tactical or operational decisions-decisions made in the fluid, rapidly changing conditions of war when time and uncertainty are critical factors, and creativity is a desirable trait"

    • Note 18. Intuitive decisionmaking more appropriate for the vast majority of tactical/operational decisions: A 1989 study by Gary A. Klein (based on 1985 observations) estimated that decision makers in a variety of disciplines use intuitive methods 87 percent of the time and analytical methods 13 percent of the time. Evidence now suggests that this study was actually biased in favor of analysis. More recent studies estimate the breakdown at more nearly 95 percent intuitive to 5 percent analytical. G. A. Klein, "Recognition-Primed Decisions" in William B. Rouse (ed.), Advances in Man-Machine System Research (Greenwich, CT: Jai Press, 1989); G. L. Kaempf, S. Wolf, M. L. Thordsen, and G. Klein, Decision Making in the Aegis Combat Information Center (Fairborn, OH: Klein Associates, 1992); R. Pascual and S. Henderson, "Evidence of Naturalistic Decision Making in Command and Control" in C. Zsambok and G. Klein (eds.), Naturalistic Decision Making, forthcoming publication (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates); Kathleen Louise Mosier, Decision Making in the Air Transport Flight Deck: Process and Product, unpublished dissertation (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1990).

  • Decision Making Theory (local copy), Naval Doctrine Publication 6, Naval Command and Control
    • "The intuitive approach is clearly more appropriate for the fluid, rapidly changing environment of combat, when time and uncertainty are critical factors."

  • The Warning Process and the Role of Intuition (local copy), course module from NOAA

  • Intuitive Policing - Emotional/Rational Decision Making in Law Enforcement (local copy), by Pinizzotto et al, in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, February 2004

  • Cultivating Intuitive Decisionmaking (local copy), by Krulak, in Marine Corps Gazette, May 1999, as posted on the USMC Commandant's Page

  • War in the Pits: Marine-Futures Traders Wargame (local copy), NDU Strategic Forum 61, by West
    • Marine generals and colonels vs futures traders in decisionmaking wargame
    • "The traders' OODA loop, executed at much higher speed, is ISAA: Information, Sort by Priority, Act, Assess"
  • Virtual Stress (local copy), in Marines Online, senior Marines vs futures traders in decision making wargame

  • Intuitive people worse at detecting lies, by Young, NewScientist.com, 18 Mar 2002
    • People who think of themselves as being intuitive make worse lie detectors than those who do not trust in a "gut instinct", according to new research.
    • One possible explanation is that intuitives in fact rely on common misconceptions about how to spot a liar, he says.

Situation Awareness, Situational AwarenessBack to Top Ye Olde Brain, and Its WorkingsBack to Top MiscellaneousBack to Top


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