Whenever there is an aircraft accident, there is an investigation into its cause. The aim is to prevent it from happening again. Sometimes there are genuine mechanical failures, and these often lead to industry-wide changes in manufacturing requirements.

There are occasions when aeroplanes crash because the pilot or other crew members made mistakes. The Concorde disaster is often held up as an example of this.  Why had the cockpit flight engineer shut down one of its engines when its thrust and power was needed to save the aircraft? Why did the pilot take off before the plane had reached rotation; and why was it allowed to fly at all since it was overweight?

There’s another type of pilot error, however, that seems almost unimaginable, and that is that the crew was so busy doing other things that they forgot to fly the plane. This is what happened on Eastern Air Lines Flight (EAL) 401 in 1972.

The big picture

The entire flight had been uneventful. The aircraft was prepared for arrival, but as it made its final approach that evening, no indicator light appeared to confirm that the front wheels had been deployed. Since there was no way to do this manually, the tower cleared them to 2,000 feet where they went into a holding pattern. During this time, the crew disassembled the light. The second officer also went to the avionics bay where he could visually check that the gear was down.

At some point, the aircraft was put on autopilot; but because everyone on the flight deck was focusing on the light, no one noticed when this was inadvertently switched to “control wheel steering” – which probably occurred when someone bumped up against it. From then on, any change was followed automatically.

 Investigators suspect that the captain probably leaned against the stick at some point causing the aircraft to begin a slow descent. For four crucial minutes, the aircrew weren’t paying any attention to the instruments, and so by the time they got back to their seats to resume their approach they were much closer to the ground than they realized. It was only because they were over the Florida Everglades that more than half of the 173 passengers and crew survived.

This story illustrates the need to keep your eye on the big picture; to remain cognizant of what’s important. It’s all too easy to get caught up in things that are less serious.

The question then is how do you do this? How do you keep your finger on the pulse of the business; and how do you stay up to date on the day-to-day stuff without losing sight of what really matters?

The answer is that you have to think about it, and you have to build in the time to do so as a part of your regular activities. If you don’t then just like the EAL crew you won’t realize how close you are to impending disaster until it’s too late.

Some people look down on those who think. There are a couple of reasons for this. One stems from the antiquated idea that only a few people in organizations should think, while the rest should do what they’re told. That leads to the second reason which is that thinking leads to talking and, from their perspective anyway, there’s too much talking as it is and not enough doing. But in order to know what you should be doing, you have to think about it first, and no one can do that for you.

Thinking for ideas

Elmer Gates was a genius at thinking. By the time he died in 1923, he had invented new products in more than 30 fields. The range and variation was enormous. His innovations included the foam-filled fire extinguisher, the means for measuring the effectiveness of aircraft propellers, and how to turn sunshine into electricity.

For each of his inventions, Gates used the same process – one which Napoleon Hill referred to as thinking for ideas. The inventor would go into a room that had a light, a table, a chair, paper, and a pencil. There were no windows. The rest of the room was empty.

The first thing he did was to become familiar with everything that could be known about the problem by systematically evaluating each piece of data through his five senses.

Next, he would organize all of those “parcels” of information in his mind so that he could “see” them in a logical pattern.

From that he was able to do the third thing, which was to review, rapidly, the images, concepts, ideas, thoughts, and interconnections that he now knew existed.

This process never failed to work. Every one of his inventions was created through this way.

Let’s see how this method could work for you.

A room with no windows, a light, desk, chair, paper and pencil may seem a bit austere, but it proves that Gates experienced the same problems almost 100 years ago that we face today: Distractions. They are a barrier to thinking.

Nowadays, you may substitute a laptop or tablet for a paper and pencil; but you’ll still have to turn off your phone (and that doesn’t just mean the ringer), get off the Internet, and lock your mouse pad or unplug your mouse if you don’t have one.

How to plan thinking time

Your brain consumes something like 80% of your daily calories; and so that means that you must prepare it for your thinking time. You can’t just decide suddenly to grab 30 minutes in the company cafeteria after a hard morning. You may get a few ideas, but serious thinking requires serious planning. Gates would sometime spend weeks pondering the problems that he was trying to solve.

You will certainly need to be well rested in the days before one of your thinking sessions. You may want to read books, journals, reports and so on in advance so that you will already have that information in your head.

You also need to have a clear idea about what you’re going to think about. You may not know the specifics, but you would be wasting your time if you didn’t know what you were going to think about.

Here are some possible questions to get you started.

·         What are three ways that I would like my company (division, department, section, unit and / or office, depending upon where you work) to improve the lives of people in the next 12 months?

·         What is the one thing that I can do in the next 90 days to help me do this?

Or

·         What are three ways that I would like to improve the organizations (or customers at whatever level they work) that I consult to in the next 12 months?

·         What is the one thing I can do in the next 90 days to help me do this?

Or

·         What are three ways that I would like to improve my community in the next 12 months?

·         What is the one thing I can do in the next 90 days to help me do this?

You also need to think about the answers you’re looking for before you even start. On a scale of one to ten, for example, one to three would be the sort of thing that your average eight-year old would give you, and four to seven what your average to above average employees would suggest. For your thinking sessions, you should aim for answers that are as close to ten as possible, but not settle for anything less than eight or even nine. Like Gates, it could take many sessions over several weeks to discover the answers.

Thinking for ideas is hard, but necessary work. It’s not something that you can put off until you have time, nor is it an activity to be ignored. You must plan to do it, and plan how to do it. Make sure that you do both.

Want to be more effective at thinking for ideas in your business? Get in touch with us today.