Change, progress and growth only truly happen when we challenge our thinking, and explore alternative options.
But, of course, the default is not all bad! It's actually really rather handy, most of the time. So before we proceed with our fancy future-focused, proactive, default-eschewing, strategic-progress-making magic, in chapter 1 we're going to pay a brief homage to default thinking and the wonderful things it brings. Things like systems, templates and other Established Ways of Doing Things. Such constructs save us from having to reinvent things or think too hard over every little task we do, which in turn liberates us from duplicated effort and wasted time – efficient, eh?
Naturally these constructs work fine for formulaic work with predictable outcomes (improving efficiencies within existing systems), but this unquestioning approach does not beget brilliant strategy or pioneering growth. In fact, this kind of thinking only leads to one thing: the Inevitable Kraken of Doom – a not-so-mythical beast that feeds upon irrelevance (introduced in chapter 3).
Despite outward appearances, this book is not about how to quest towards irrelevance. How ridiculous! It's quite the opposite. This is about ensuring that you, your enterprise business model and your modus operandi stay relevant and useful, and that your work continues to grow and prosper – now and into the future.
And so, before we embark upon any sort of quest, let's explore the current premise that we're operating from. What is informing and influencing your thinking right now? Where do your defaults come from?
1
The Anatomy of Default Thinking
The ‘default' is defined as an option that is selected automatically unless a viable alternative is specified.3 It's influenced by the sum of our experiences, and is usually the option that requires the least effort (or least angst/uncertainty/discomfort) for the most short-term gain.
‘But from whence does the default come? ' I hear you ask. Well, linguistically, ‘default' stems from the Old French word ‘defaut', which in turn stems from ‘defaillir' or ‘to fail' (from ‘fallere' – a Latin word meaning ‘disappoint' and ‘deceive').
Failure, disappointment or deception, eh? Fun. This connotation of default typically applies to not meeting a loan repayment – but there's an important message for leadership in this, too. Rely solely on default thinking, and you're going to encounter disappointment.
But, enough of that! Don't tempt me with further discussions of linguistics and semantics – I hold a doctorate in philosophy, which makes me quite inclined to engage in confusing and somewhat-irrelevant tangential pursuits of linguistic and philosophical whimsy. *sets cognac aside*
Now, in practical terms, the default comes from our ability to recognise, match and leverage patterns.
This is what Daniel Kahneman – Nobel Prize winner and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow – might describe as ‘system 1 thinking'.4 This type of thinking is fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic and subconscious. The opposite to default thinking would be what Kahneman might describe as ‘system 2 thinking'. This type of thinking happens consciously and is, by contrast, slow, effortful, infrequent, logical and calculating.
A lot of my work involves helping leadership teams engage in more ‘slow thinking'. It's critically important, and it's how we lead and progress worthy quests. But, in my experience, the framing of a dichotomy of ‘fast versus slow' does slow thinking a disservice. Thanks to the Curse of Efficiency (see chapter 2), selling the importance of slow thinking in a world that wants fast results is … tricky.
And so, I've replaced ‘slow' with ‘thorough'. Thus, our options are to think fast, and leverage our default thinking, or we can think more thoroughly – challenging our default assumptions by exploring diverse perspectives and generating alternative options. But the detail on that comes later.
First, let's return to the anatomy of our fast, default thinking.
PATTERNS
From the moment we are born, we start to recognise patterns – those discrete, discernible and repeatable experiences. Every such experience we observe is encoded to inform our model of how the world works.
Indeed, the linguistic roots of the word ‘pattern' come from the Old French word ‘patron' – the idea being that this patron serves as a model or example to be copied. I love linguistics.
The more frequently we experience or observe particular phenomena, the stronger this encoding becomes. It's why we train for sport, and practise mathematics, music and language. Without this incredible ability to recognise patterns, we would never learn anything. We wouldn't even know how to communicate. In fact, our ability to recognise and codify patterns to form our own model of the world could arguably be a cornerstone of our existence. #profound
And all this pattern recognition is automatic: by just observing and experiencing the world around you, you are codifying new patterns or reinforcing existing ones.
From a very young age, for example, we're picking up objects and then dropping them. We observe a repeatable pattern, learn it, and are eventually given a label for it – ‘gravity'. Likewise, we learn about our preferences through our experiences. I commonly order my default coffee preference at a cafe, without even thinking about it. Sure, some fancy new single origin may be on the menu, but I'd need to be aware and mindful to look for it first.
Many of us experience the phenomena of pattern recognition and default thinking when driving (or riding) home from work. If you've had a particularly tiring or busy day, or if you have a lot on your mind, the well-encoded pattern of your usual route could have you arriving home without you even truly realising it. Another example is musicians learning new music by studying patterns of input. It's clunky to start with, but with enough repetition (practice), the pattern becomes embedded, and the music can be played without having to actively think about it. Much like riding a bike.
Think about a software developer writing code for a program. If they have diverse experience, chances are, when confronted with new challenges, they can quickly call upon a rich database of potential solutions. On the other hand, a less experienced coder would need to invest more time to experiment with and explore the efficacy of new patterns, in order to find a solution.
Our memory is a database for such patterns. It stores patterns contextually, and is optimised for speed. This speed allows us to take the cognitive shortcuts that enable us to draw conclusions quickly. And the more experience we've had – the more patterns we have observed – the more cognitive shortcuts we have at hand.
But this speed comes at a cost – accuracy. Despite what we may think, our memory is often an inaccurate source of information, influenced as it is by myriad factors – such as our emotional (psychophysiological) state, time elapsed since we recognised the pattern and our current context.5 This means that many of the patterns we call upon to inform our default thinking may be inaccurate in any given context or moment – or even no longer valid or relevant in this new context. Thus, without challenging our own default thinking, we may be proceeding with flawed assumptions.
Default thinking is not the result of consideration or any form of reasoned, intuitive or active thought. It takes effort to draw awareness to the potential inaccuracies or inherent biases within our thinking. Such effort is confronting, and slows down the cognitive process and decision-making, running counter to the efficiency and productivity we need for most of our work.6
Of course, it would simply be infeasible to engage in slow, deep and thorough thinking for every facet of business – we'd get nothing done. It'd be silly to go back to the drawing board when attempting any new task.
And so systems are created to help us to manage increasingly complex patterns of work.
SYSTEMS
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