Think for Yourself

There are always gurus, elites, experts and false prophets who want to tell you what to think. Follow us and all you have to do is … Invest in Penny Stocks and make a fortune. The future is plastics. Real estate will go up forever.

History is full of Horrors - Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Hitler’s Nazi concentration camps, Leopold II of Belgium in Congo, Jozef Stalin Russian Gulags & Purges, Hideki Tojo Japan civilian deaths in WW2, Ismail Enver Ottoman cleansings, Pot Pol Cambodia and Kim Il Sung North Korea purges & concentration camps. These leaders each killed between 1.5 million to 20+ million people during their reigns.

Plenty of people will run your life if you let them. Even though am religious, history has churches, temples and mosques that advocated conquering neighbors.

The secret is to listen to everyone, then make up your own mind. Disagree with what makes you uncomfortable. Be nice, but make them defend their ideas. Try to improve their thinking as well as your own.

I read people who I disagree with. Paul Krugman comes to mind. It is not that he is not smart nor doesn’t make good points. There are many times I agree with Paul. It is my worldview does not believe central planning can control something as complicated as an economy. If anything excessive government regulations have reduced the US economy by 1 - 2% over the last two decades. Unlimited stimulus by the Fed has produced less and less economic improvements. But by reading Paul I find I have to think about my assumptions and ideas to see if they are correct.

The problem we all have Blind Spots and Confirmation Bias. We look for information that confirms what we believe, and ignore evidence we may be missing the mark.

My saving grace is if someone else has a better idea, or better combination of ideas, I give them credit and advocate the better ideas. Am smart, but we can always build better plans with small motivated groups. We can learn from everyone.

By the way you have permission to disagree with me, and tell me about it.

Good Thinking Everyone.

Do You Know Your Thinking?

The challenge we all have is we attempt to understand the world by looking for similar knowledge or events that we can build on. Words build on words you know. This works well for hunter-gathers who need to find food and avoid predators. However we have several weaknesses and biases in our thinking.

We interpret information in a way that confirms our pre-conceived notions. This is known as confirmation bias (us thinking how smart we are). If it doesn't fit or we don't understand we will ignore it. Needless to say we aren’t always that smart. Look at the low success rate of predictions.

“Thinking Fast and Slow” talks about how much energy it takes to think deeply. Our mind saves effort by learning rules of thumb and routines to make decisions automatically. Have you ever gotten to work and not remembered how you got there? Unless you had a close call or an emotional event most of the trip is ignored.

Emotions control our decisions. Ray Gery teaches ,“What we think about determines how we feel. How we feel determines what we say or don’t say and what we do or don’t do.” Often we make the decision and then think of way to justify our decision.

As humans we do not easily understand the very complex subjects like the Europe’s economy and how to fix it. We simplify, ignore what we don’t know, and come up with a few fixes that we hope will help. Heard we are probably wrong more than half the time, yet we really like to be right.

What is the first step to better thinking? Humility. Realize you need input from other people.

Second realize it is a thinking moment, and take your time to really understand as much as you can. Detail as much data as possible. Data driving decisions are more likely successful.

Keep learning every day. That way you are prepared when you really need to learn something important.

We can do better, we owe it to ourselves and the world.

Clearing Your Mindset

Reading about Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analyst work.  Why? Because in a world that is always changing you have to be able to adjust your thinking. Look at things from different perspectives. See what has been done before, and think about other ways to create something new or solve a problem.

Coming up with the same solutions is a path to being outdated, stuck and competing only on price. This is the path to irrelevance and obsolescence.

Seeing the World.

How we see the world is shaped by our assumptions and perceptions. This is an issue because we see only what we expect to see. This mindset is formed from our education, training, viewing, reading and experiences.

There is nothing wrong having a mindset. We all have mindsets. But they can limit what you learn, think about, and the answers you come up with. This is why we work in teams and workshops with people of different responsibilities, professions, and backgrounds. To build a bigger diversified pictures.

The other thing to realize is teams often are as limited as we personally are. Groupthink is a truth we must face and overcome.

Problem Solving Errors

Initial analysis, ideas, and solutions are anchors that can prevent us from going further. They are strong and it takes more information to overcome our snap judgments.

This is why you often see teams trying to solver the wrong problem. They don’t realize they have jumped to a conclusion based on their experience. Have often seen managers blame production people for quality issues and just change the worker.

My saving grace is blaming the system, not the people involved. Allows me to see a bigger picture before trying to define a problem. The problem may have be out of tolerance parts, worn out tooling, bad design, machine wear, chips in the fixture, weak clamping force, and insufficient training.

My weakness is being stuck on one solution, the ‘best’ one. Was especially true when I was young. Experienced co-workers would often want ‘plan B’s to follow. I was try this and adjust if it does not preform as expected. Did not explore options as well as needed. My mindset has changed from learning more about mitigation. 

Mind you often simple problems are often resolved with the first solution. Complicated issues having more risks and less predictable results require us to look deeply, create multiple ideas, and mitigate everything.

A tentative hypothesis is the enemy of new hypotheses. How long does it take you to change your mind?

This comes from our mindsets, and we need to get past our limits to the best of our ability. Especially when dealing with ambiguous situations.

How do We Clear Our Mindset?

Being disciplined and have a checklist is a great start. You want to have a method to follow to not skip steps.

Research the Issue

Who is complaining? Why? What are the consequences?  Costs? Who is affected? What will be the effect for the customer? Effect for their consumer? Collect as much information, data, view points and issues as possible to mitigate.

Use an Organized System to Collect Possible Solutions

Do not overlook anyone’s ideas. Often we can ignore people because they don’t have the credentials. One of the best cost savings involved with came from the material handler and floor sweeper. Great ideas come from anywhere and we can build on them to make them better.

Rank and Prioritize Solutions

Get as many solutions together. How much will it cost to enact them? How much time will it take? Which issues do these solutions solve? The best solution is usually a combination of ideas and methods beyond the initial proposal. Don’t forget the quick fix has to be followed by a permanent solution.

Follow up

Failed solutions are often incomplete implementations. Other issues come up. Orders and new tooling have delays. Project manage plans until they are complete. Save solving the same issue next year.

More reading: 

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis - online book on critical thinking, written by Richards J. Heuer of the CIA

Toyota’s Runaway Acceleration and Prius Brake Problems

All cars have design flaws and quirks. However think Toyota's ego got in the way of fixing these problems.

Am an engineer that understands technology. Toyoda builds high consistency and quality products, and I would buy one in the future.

Have sympathy with trying to find intermittent problems with runaway acceleration. It can take several examples of problem assemblies or complete vehicles to analyze. You need people who can look outside their specialty for other possible causes, and then follow each one to prove they are not the cause. It is also difficult when the rate of failure like this one is under 0.1 percent. Then it is only when multiple causes happen together. It is really tough to find these type problem sources. But this has been reported in various models for over 4 years, enough time to find causes and solutions unless your head is in the sand.

In the acceleration case there are three causes: Floor mats, mechanical sticking of accelerator pedal, and software/hardware programming problems with the drive by wire system. Steve Wozniak reports his Toyoda runs away intermittently on cruise control. I would take his report seriously since he tries to replicate the problem and analyze it. So far Toyota has not taken care of the hardware software problem beyond solving the accelerator pedal problem.

Each source gets blamed and says it can't be us. Then blames the other sources. In a large corporation you have to be determined and persistent looking for true causes in spite of pressure to settle the problem quietly. This is where ego about "we can't be wrong" gets in the way. Finding these causes is dangerous to your career if you are on the wrong side.

Sometimes you need outside consultants to take the heat and you need a willingness to admit problems. Toyota has lost the willingness to admit problems. It may be cultural as taking the blame in Japan is a cause for great shame leading to resigning or even committing suicide. If Toyota is smart they will honor the group that resolves these problems within the company. You have to want to always improve.

Thought Toyoda would have jumped on possible brake flaws with the Prius which are also in the news. Brakes not working are a major liability and would kill sales. This is a major flaw with the Prius have been hearing about for a couple years. Toyota will take another big hit if this is not resolved.

Mechanics tell me they think Toyota brakes calipers and pads are smaller than the competitors. They question stopping power because of this. You need extra stopping power when conditions are less than ideal due to weather, dirt, etc.

Toyota will take a hit on sales, and resale’s for about 2 years. Hear used Toyota's are now $3,000 cheaper wholesale than they were a few weeks ago. Think runaway acceleration will extend to more vehicles.

Remember if your company is involved in repetitive complaints, take the customer’s seriously if you want to keep them buying again.
Steve

A peek into the future

Good article about the near future of technology.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cover6-2009sep06,0,6494829.story
Copy and paste or just search "A peek into the future"

I love predictions. It is amazing how wrong we get them. Yet is it shows how we are trying to solve problems all the time.

Wireless electricity seems like a side effect failure, but there are great places to use it. Especially how difficult it is to run some wires. RUF seems too costly. There is a better chance for cars to use other software technologies which do not require the infrastructure.

N + 3 Aviation and Nanotechnology do seem like the future. There is a tremendous need for both of these technologies.

Just my guess about these technologies. What is yours?
Steve Amos

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Have been researching what to do about when business enters the recession cycle. Taking a longer than anticipated to consolidate the research into a useful article for you.

Today’s blog is about being grateful. There is so much we have to be grateful for. The country we live in, the people in our lives, and our businesses.

Be grateful for the customers and clients you already have. Be grateful for the work you do, the skills you have learned, and the benefits of working. You work with good people, benefit society, get self esteem from your business, get new challenges to stretch yourself, and your income pays for your family and life.

We waste a lot of our life on the annoyances. We focus on this has to be done, traffic was bad, this machine is broken, we have to meet on this product, the quality is bad, or other daily problems. Have you ever noticed 90 percent of business gets done without any supervision or special effort? Be grateful!

Our lives are getting better by new services and better products. Cars today are much better and safer than just 20 years ago and they continually improve. Homes use less energy. The internet is a group of great tools. Cell phones, VOIP, instant messages and email give us more freedom to travel and stay in touch. Clothes and furniture cost less. Be grateful for how much easier it is.

So enjoy your weekend, and think how much we have to be grateful for.

Ways to Make More Money

Looking at improving my career and earnings. To get a higher salary the clients need more value. So where can I learn more that will deliver more value to my customers? The answer is to solve their problems better. My clients need more profits, better margin, new product and services, reduced cost, and more productivity.

Came up with focused areas to help clients:

• Marketing / Branding
• Core Offerings
• New Product Ideas / Extensions / New Services
• Project Management

So to accomplish this I need to focus on education, but not necessarily a degree. You can learn from research, reading, and classes. I just completed a SolidWorks CAD course to update CAD skills. Did not become a CAD expert, it serves my purpose to be able to use CAD tools faster and better in Project Management.

• Marketing
• Website Development
• Selling Information
• How Rich People Think

This may not be the obvious answer for the top subjects, but based on my skills, talents, experience, and interests this is the focus for the this year minimum.

Now, what would improve your value? Write down some ideas. Think about service.