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TODD SILER

Think Like a Genius

Realizing Human Potential Through the Purposeful Play of Metaphorming

You can’t teach people anything. You can only help them discover it within themselves.

—Galileo Galilei

Building Wild-Looking Symbolic Models

One of history’s greatest inventors, Thomas Edison, once said, “There’s a better way. Find it.” He meant this in the broadest context of life and not just the visionary acts of every inventor.

One snowy morning at a village mountain retreat in Beaver Creek, 22 veteran venture capitalists, CEOs, and CFOs from Colorado rolled up their sleeves and started building these wild-looking symbolic models that represented their multi-billion-dollar ideas for a whole new telecommunications industry. They didn’t just want to be the first to invest in it. They wanted to create it from scratch. In effect, they resounded the noted historians and coauthors of Civilizations, Will and Ariel Durant, who said, “The future didn’t just happen. It was created.”

The focal question posed for this half-day strategic planning session prompted them to reach for their ideals, “Identify the boldest vision of a Shared Network that Centennial Strategic Partners (CSP) can create together which delivers interactive, broadband access faster and better.” To rev the creative engines of their collective imagination, the facilitator first told the group, “Define some of the most ingenious models of shared networks that you know exist today. They can be either human-made or nature-made systems.” As they percolated on that catalytic assignment, the group was reminded to consider ways they could incorporate this information into their collaborative models.

Over the course of three hours, the four teams were engaged in several interrelated activities that involved: (1) collaboratively creating these imaginative symbolic models; (2) showing and telling the meanings and implications of their models, in order to mine them for fresh insights, discoveries, and innovations; (3) distilling and prioritizing their ideas, as they searched for the big innovations illuminated by their models; and (4) putting together an initial road map to establish a collective goal and identify some practical ways of accomplishing it.

Their models cast the big picture of what this new Shared Network might look like, and how it would work. They also showed what the rich financial benefits would be to each partner, having first identified what each partner in this alliance could potentially contribute, and what the results from their contribution might be under the best circumstances.

As it turned out, it was a profitable day. By morning’s end, the group scoped out their initial multipart, multiphase plan that would lead to a multi-billion-dollar payout. Their calculations were based on a myriad of opportunities they envisioned that would advance communications technology.

The expressive, physical models demonstrated that “genuine understanding comes from hands-on experience,” to quote Seymour Papert, the twentieth-century mathematician and pioneer of Artificial Intelligence who noted this fact from a lifetime of research on human communication. The models also made evident that genius thinking is easier done than said. They also drove home this one inspiring realization: Genius is everywhere, every day, in everyone, in every way imaginable!

That’s the hallmark of our Think Like a Genius® (TLG) work: Helping people experience the blissful rapture of discovery and innovation.

Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT IS IT?

The Think Like a Genius process provides a better way:

• to brainstorm and express ideas;

• to invent and innovate;

• to create and share new knowledge;

• to solve urgent problems;

• to set and achieve goals;

• and to discover and apply people’s creative genius, which enables us all to realize our potential.

The TLG process helps people “give form to” their thoughts, feelings, ideas, knowledge, and experiences by creating symbolic models in response to an important or urgent issue they want to work on. When you make a model, you show what is on your mind and make your intangible thoughts as tangible, touchable, and real as possible to help communicate them.

The symbolic models provide the key information and knowledge you need in order to “mine” them for ideas and insights by asking basic, insight-provoking questions. That’s how inventions and innovations grow out of these unconscious artifacts of our unbounded creativity and creative inquiry.

Using various common building materials, people are guided to make and explore the meanings of their models in-depth (figure 1). This symbolic modeling activity has been proven to bridge our world of ideas and cultures, engaging people in a whole new type of creative “group think”—one that builds on the diversity of the participants’ unique approach to learning, inventing, and innovating. Indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words, and a symbolic model is worth a thousand pictures with expressive forms that communicate what words alone cannot.

Figure 1. Metaphorming: The Next Generation of Brainstorming Tools

Artists and architects use aspects of Metaphorming (figure 2). when they play with symbolism, signs, stories, visual metaphors, and physical analogies to show their ideas, knowledge, and experiences. Likewise, when scientists and engineers show-and-tell their theories and research, they’re using symbolic models of sorts to help themselves and others see the unseen, and explain what they’re seeing.

As personal as the symbolic models are, they closely link our humanity through their universality. Anyone can freely relate his or her life to any given model, which is one reason why they’ve proven to serve as a kind of global common language in bridging people’s worlds, passions, and personal interests.

Figure 2. Metaphorming from 1-D to 5-D

There are NO value judgments or aesthetic criteria with which to evaluate the “beauty,” “importance,” “relevance,” or “elegance” of your models. Those value-based criticisms merely inhibit a person’s prescience, or forethought, and spontaneity.

What is more, there are NO set rules or ways for making a model. There’s just your way.

In a nutshell, here’s the simplest description of the flow and steps of Metaphorming (figure 2):

1. Choose a question you want to model and explore in-depth.

2. Make a symbolic model that expresses and symbolizes your thoughts on the question you’ve chosen to respond to.

3. Show-and-tell what your model means to you and your team or group.

4. Share it with others, inviting their creative inquiries and interpretations. Then, begin the process all over again entertaining a new question.

How can a bunch of common materials dashed together or carefully constructed into symbolic models possibly change people’s lives—even save lives? How can these oddly shaped, forceful objects that grow in the gardens, jungles, and wilderness of our minds hold so much medicinal and curative powers?

The simple fact is: They do. The act of creating and exploring symbolic models have brought families together; helped build communities; enriched cultural and educational programs; increased the wealth and success of companies; and helped envision advanced technology from alternative energy systems to new telecommunications services.

As we see in figure 1, the rapturous faces and body language of Metaphormers (lifelong learners, creators, innovators) suggest that symbolic modeling stimulates the emotional Fun Centers of our whole brains! In those borderless centers, there are no boundaries or limits to experiencing the simple joys of discovery and self-expression. The neuropsychology behind these deep interactions indicates that the intuitive and rational parts of our minds are more entwined than we ever suspected—a fact that’s been described by the distinguished neurologist, Antonio R. Damasio, in his path-breaking book, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (1994).

The Think Like a Genius process builds on the long history of model making. It shows how Metaphorming is connected to creativity, learning, discovering, inventing, and innovating. The History of Civilization, like the History of Creativity, reveals how we are symbol-making creatures. This creative critical thinking process is a natural part of the central nervous system, genes, and communicative powers of every human being.

Table of Uses

About the Author

Todd Siler ([email protected]) is a visual artist, author, inventor, and consultant, who received his Ph.D. in interdisciplinary studies in psychology and art from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1986, he became the first visual artist to receive a doctorate from the institute. He was also a Forum Fellow at the 1999 and 2001 Annual Meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Dr. Siler’s books include Think Like a Genius (Bantam, 1997) and Breaking the Mind Barrier (Simon & Schuster, 1990; Touchstone, 1997). He has consulted to IBM, USWEST, Chevron, Chase Manhattan, Nabisco, ING North America, Procter & Gamble, and NTT/Verio.

Where to Go for More Information

REFERENCES

Siler, Todd. “Metaphorming Your Company: Leading with the Next Generation of Brainstorming Tools.” In Leader to Leader, 15–19. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.

———. “Think Like a Genius Program for Business: Engaging Everyone in an Organization to Think, Learn, Work, and Perform to the Best of Their Abilities Through Metaphorming.” In Organisational Learning for All Seasons: Building Internal Capabilities for Competitive Advantage, edited by Prem Kumar, 285–296. Singapore: National Community Leadership Institute, 2003.

———. Think Like a Genius: The Ultimate User’s Manual for Your Brain. New York: Bantam Books, 1997.

ORGANIZATIONS

Metaphorm !t—www.metaphormit.com

Think Like a Genius—www.ThinkLikeAGenius.com