Author's Note
There are many exercises in this book.
You are strongly encouraged to do them.
This is both to provide a pause so your brain can better absorb what you have just read, and also to emphasize the point that has been made.
The Exercises, which all appear on right-hand pages, are not at all difficult.
Just note down your thoughts on a piece of paper.
The Suggested Answers, which all start on the page after the Exercises, are my own.
I have done the exercises immediately after setting them up.
So the thoughts given are from the top of my head—just as you would do the exercises.
The sample answers are not the result of careful consideration.
Almost all the exercises were set up randomly, so the exercises were just as new to me as they will be to you.
If you do not do the exercises you will only get half the value from this book.
The book is not a novel to be hurried through in order to see what happens’.
Read through it slowly.
Agree or disagree.
Add your own experience and comments.
Your intention should be to learn something from the book.
If you learn nothing the fault could be either mine or yours.
If you think you know it all already then the value of the book is to confirm your wisdom.
Part 1 — Introductory
Foreword
This book is not about the interest that comes from celebrity, outstanding feats, unusual experience, an interesting job or special interest groups.
The book is about the interest created by ordinary people living ordinary lives.
Introduction
Being interesting is a ‘skill’ which can be developed.
Being clever is not enough.
Interest is not just an encyclopedia of facts but is full of possibilities and speculations.
Playground of the Mind
It is in the playground of your mind that interest develops.
It is the activity in your mind that elaborates around what is perceived.
This is the ‘richness’ that is the basis of interest.
Foreword
A beautiful face and a boring mind is boring, boring, boring.
A beautiful body with a boring mind is boring, boring, boring.
A fit and healthy body with a boring mind is boring, boring, boring.
A clever mind can also be boring, boring, boring.
I have known beautiful women who are very boring.
I am sure there are beautiful women who are very interesting.
People spend a huge amount of time, trouble, care, worry and money on becoming or remaining beautiful.
How much time do they spend on becoming interesting?
There are people who exercise and jog for hours every day in order to be fit and healthy.
They watch their diets and carefully select what they eat.
They load themselves up with vitamins and supplements.
The result is often excellent.
But how much time do they spend on developing an interesting mind?
Magazines and other publications have done a wonderful job in raising standards of attractiveness and health.
People today are more visually attractive than they have ever been.
Some of them are also more healthy than people have ever been.
But all this is boring unless the beauty and health is accompanied by an interesting mind.
So how much time do we spend on developing an interesting mind?
If you are indeed beautiful (and I use ‘beauty’ in the broadest sense) then you owe it to yourself to be interesting too.
Otherwise all that beauty is wasted.
If you are not particularly beautiful then you had better work hard at being interesting.
All this seems obvious and reasonable — but there are two flaws in my argument.
If you are yourself a boring person do you notice that other people are boring?
This is a very difficult question to answer.
Suppose that a boring person does not notice that someone else is boring: then if you are content to live amongst boring people it should not much matter whether or not you are interesting.
You would not notice how boring they were and they would not notice how boring you were.
I suspect, however, that even boring people notice how boring other people are.
They can certainly notice when someone is interesting.
So becoming interesting is not a waste of time even if most of your friends are content to be boring.
Is there perhaps the danger that, if you develop your ability to be interesting, you will notice even more than before how boring other people can be?
If you develop a taste for the finest French wines, do you not notice the awfulness of lesser wines?
I do not think the analogy holds, because in becoming more interesting you become more able to make other people interesting.
It may be hard work but it can be done.
The second possible flaw in my argument is as follows.
I stated that a beautiful body with a boring mind was indeed very boring.
But many people have beautiful statues which they continue to enjoy even though those statues have even less of a mind than a boring person.
That is true and if you are content to be treated as a statue or object or trophy then being interesting may not be important to you.
Remember, however, that a statue is not expected to be interesting but people are expected to be interesting.
Frames of Interest
I was having a drink with Buzz Aldrin and his charming wife Lois at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles.
Whenever I looked it Buzz there was always that mental frame: ‘This man has actually walked on the moon.’
That is so powerful and so permanent a frame of interest that it outweighs everything else, but it so happens that Buzz is indeed very interesting in his own right quite apart from that remarkable fiat.
I used to know Peter Habler, the Austrian who was the first to climb to the top of Mount Everest without using oxygen.
Again the frame of interest is very strong.
Clare Francis is a slight and very attractive woman who sailed single-handedly around the world.
She then went on to write successful thrillers.
All these people were humble and not at all pretentious.
Yet that powerful frame of interest makes them interesting.
Then there are people who have had interesting lives or done interesting things.
A woman who lives for months with a tribe in the Amazon is going to be interesting.
A nun who leaves the convent after ten years as a Reverend Mother is going to be interesting.
Someone else might have been in the FBI or the Mafia or a spy in Moscow.
Someone may have an especially unusual job — like training fleas for a flea circus or being a wine taster.
Another person might be notorious for having had eight wives in succession — or all at once.
Then there are the usual celebrities of film, television, etc.
There is even derived celebrity: a girl who knew a man who once danced with Princess Diana.
It is difficult to separate curiosity from ‘interest’.
If you are ‘interested’ in that person then anything that person does becomes interesting.
So fans would probably be interested in the color of Tom Cruise’s pajamas.
I want to make clear that this book is not about frames of interest.
If you want to become interesting by walking across the Sahara with two camels that is up to you—I shall say no more.
If you want to become interesting by falling in love with a serial killer that is again up to you.
Interesting jobs, interesting feats and interesting experiences can all make someone more interesting.
But it is also possible to be interesting doing an ordinary job and living in an ordinary suburb.
That is what this book is about.
Special-interest Groups
There are racing fans who can discuss in minute detail the harm of a particular horse.
There are experts on fifteenth-century Italian art who can discuss with intense interest the development of the artist’s palette.
There are stock-market analysts who can discuss with great interest the imminent collapse of high-tech stocks.
There are skillful gossips who can discuss the complex relationships of everyone at a certain party: who was with whom and who was deliberately not with whom.
Special-interest groups who play the game skillfully are always of interest to each other.
That is also not what this book is about.
If you wish to become an expert in champagne or post-modern architecture that could certainly make you a more interesting person.
I do recommend the development of such special interests but that is not what this book is about.
People belonging to special-interest groups are usually of interest to other people in that group.
Occasionally a person with a special interest can also be of interest to others outside the special group.
This all depends on a person’s ability to make the subject interesting to others who do not already have the full background.
Some people can do this while others cannot.
The sort of ‘interest’ I shall be discussing in this book does not depend on having, acquiring or communicating knowledge of a specialized field.
Very Ordinary
I fully acknowledge that all the types of ‘interest’ that I have outlined here are indeed a powerful way of becoming ‘interesting’.
The challenge is to see how an ordinary person leading an ordinary life can yet be interesting.
It might be difficult to shine at basketball if you are not unusually tall.
It might be difficult to shine at tennis if you do not have quick reflexes.
But anyone can be more interesting if they pay attention to some of the things in this book.
It is up to you.
Introduction
I have known some very clever people who are not at all interesting.
Intelligence is like the horsepower of a car.
Thinking is like the skill with which the car is driven.
There may be a powerful car driven badly and a humble car driven well.
Thinking is a skill which, like driving skill, can be taught and developed.
That is why I am involved in various projects around the world for the direct teaching of thinking as a specific subject in schools.
It is astonishing that the most fundamental of human skills should be neglected by education.
It is assumed that thinking cannot be taught, but only learned as a by-product of some other subject.
This is an absurd and old-fashioned view.
Some very clever people are only clever within their particular field.
They have learned well the thinking idioms required in that field but have no generalizable thinking skills.
When you talk to them they lay their thoughts before you just as if they were giving you a book to read.
There is no interaction.
You take it or leave it.
Some clever people are caught up in the ‘intelligence trap’.
This is a phrase I coined many years ago to describe why being intelligent was not enough.
For example, many clever people believe that ‘critical thinking’ is enough.
It is enough to be able to judge (‘critical’ comes from the Greek word kritikos, for judge).
Such people are very ready to criticize but not so good at the generative thinking required to produce ideas.
Another of the traditional nonsenses of education is to believe that teaching critical thinking is sufficient.
Judgement is an important part of thinking just as the front left wheel of a car is an important part of the car.
But a car needs more than a front left wheel.
Teaching critical thinking is not enough.
A clever person might be interesting while explaining the intricacies of his or her particular field but is not necessarily interesting on other matters.
Being interesting involves an interaction with the listener.
It is what happens in the listener’s mind that makes the listener interested.
If the listener is not interested then, by definition, the speaker is not interesting.
An interesting conversation is very like jazz.
There is improvisation.
There is a to and fro.
Themes are taken up and elaborated.
Instruments talk to each other.
There is always an onward flow.
There is development.
Sub-themes are taken up.
The developments and interactions of jazz have their parallel in ‘interest’.
Just as a jazz musician develops skill in jazz so a person can develop skill in being interesting.
This book is about the different components of that skill.
The way we think and the way we express those thoughts will decide how interesting we are both to others and to ourselves.
Facts and Figures
I have written this book very much as I would conduct a conversation.
This is not a reference book for facts.
There are times when I shall suggest a speculation for which a particular reader may know the exact answer.
There are times when I may quote a figure which is in fact incorrect.
As usual readers will rush to put me right.
What I shall put forward are the sort of remarks a person might make in an ordinary conversation and not in an examination thesis.
‘I think...’
‘I believe . .
‘I seem to have read that...’
‘I was once told. .
‘This may not be so but...’
Of course, the truth is always of the utmost value but being interesting involves possibilities and speculation.
If we did not dare to say something until we had double-checked the facts first then conversation would be most limited and uninteresting.
We might as well just sit and read an encyclopedia.
The Italians have a very useful category which is not ‘truth but something which ‘should be true’.
A story is said to be ben trovato, which literally means ‘well found’.
If the story is interesting in its own right then it should be true.
At the same time it is acknowledged that it may well not be true.
There is nothing more dull than a pedant who insists you do not open your mouth unless you have completely checked out what you are going to say.
Provided you do not make false claims with competitive arrogance, the use of speculations and possibilities is a key part of being interesting.
Part of being interesting is the ability to ‘play’ with ideas.
Solemn pomposity is the opposite of interest.
Provided things are not claimed as absolute truth and provided they are not accepted as absolute truth, there is the fun of play.
Young animals play in order to enjoy it and also to develop the life skills they will need.
Playing with ideas is exactly the same.
Playground of the Mind
It is what happens in your mind that makes you interesting.
It is how you express what happens in your mind that makes you interesting.
It is what you cause to happen in the mind of a listener that makes you interesting.
Your mind is your playground.
Your mind is your garden.
You play as you wish.
You grow what you wish.
Just as an impresario puts on a stage show so you are the impresario of what goes on in your mind.
There is a huge difference between the mind and a camera.
The camera just records passively what is placed in front of it.
The human mind does very much more than record passively what is in front of it.
Past experience is called upon
emotions, feelings and values are tapped
speculations and possibilities are opened up.
It is the ‘richness’ of all this activity that is the source of ‘interest’.
The cover of the book shows a spiral.
This is because we ‘create’ interest as we spiral around a subject, moving ever wider to make further connections.
Part 2 The Basic Operations of Interest
Possibility
Opening up and exploring possibilities in the mind.
Going beyond what is in front of you.
The role of hypothesis and speculation.
Alternatives
The deliberate generation of alternatives.
Alternatives of explanation, action, ways of looking at things, etc.
The importance of the ‘fixed point’.
Concepts
The fundamental importance of concepts to all thinking.
Concept extraction as a source of interest.
Run Forward in the Mind
Visualization, imagination and projection.
Looking ahead, moment to moment, to see what follows and what happens next.
Exploring forward in time.
Connect and Link Up
The effort to make connections and to link up different matters.
Skill at connecting things enlarges the field of interest.
We are no longer limited to the immediate matters.
Provocation
With provocation there may not be a reason for saying something until after it has been said.
Provocations are the basis of creativity.
Provocations open up new lines of thought.
Attention-directing
Where do we direct our attention?
Why do we direct attention?
Attention either flows on or is directed.
Directing attention creates the dance of attention that is central to interest.
Alleys, Avenues and Themes
We choose to open up and to pursue avenues and alleys of interest.
How do we notice them?
Why do we choose them?
Themes are very broad areas of attention.
Clarify, List and Summarize
The need to express things simply and to communicate them well.
The use of analogies and metaphors.
The value of lists in clarifying thinking and providing attention points.
Possibility
Almost everyone knows that ‘possibility’ is the most important word in the success of Western civilization — where it has been successful.
Very few philosophers will tell you that.
No university puts sufficient emphasis on the importance of possibility.
Progress is supposed to come about through information, logic and truth seeking.
Without possibility there would have been no success in science and technology.
Two thousand years ago Chinese technology was far ahead of Western technology.
Had that progress continued, China would totally dominate the world today.
But it did not continue.
The Chinese never developed the ‘possibility’ system of the hypothesis.
Their scholars were content to tie things up in description packages (like so much university work today).
The scholars dominated and crippled China’s development — which is why Mao had his Cultural Revolution.
Without the hypothesis there is no progress in science.
Without the ‘possibility’ vision there is no progress in technology.
Possibility is very largely the basis of ‘interest’.
If we could only open our mouths to deliver encyclopedic facts we should largely remain silent.
Interest would be confined to only those facts which were themselves interesting.
It is possibility and speculation that can make anything interesting.
Opening Up
Possibilities open up possibilities.
This process of opening things up is the key to being interesting.
Being dogmatic and always narrowing down to certainty is boring.
There is research to show that when girls are learning to read they use their brains in a way that is very different from the way in which boys use their brains.
With girls many different areas of the brain are activated.
With boys it is just one area (the Broca area).
Why should this be so?
We can ‘speculate’ and open up possibilities.
We can imagine the female brain later in life.
If the female is looking after young then any strange sound has to be identified because it could mean danger and the need to defend the young or to remove them.
So ‘meaning’ has a scanning sense.
Could it be this?
Each possibility has to be scanned in order to identify what it might be.
If the male is hunting, in an aggressive mood or in a mating mood, then meaning is much more ‘focused’.
There is one objective at a time.
Opening up possibilities is a matter of scanning within the mind.
Levels
Where does ‘possibility’ fit in with truth and other matters?
There are a number of different levels.
Certain:
Absolutely definite.
A confirmed fact.
Truth accepted by everyone.
Almost Certain:
You cannot be 100 per cent sure.
When you get up in the morning you cannot be sure you will be alive to go to bed that evening.
When you get into a car you might just have an accident.
But for all practical purposes you are certain.
Probable:
Something is likely.
The balance of probability is that it will happen.
It is probable that there will be a McDonalds in any big town.
It is probable that if you insult someone they will get offended.
Possible:
It is ‘possible’.
This is much less than a probability
and may even range down to ‘just possible’.
There does, however, have to be some real possibility.
Fancy:
This is something you say or believe, not because you believe it is possible but because it serves some purpose such as enjoyment.
The likelihood may be very low but you are not claiming real possibility.
You may want to believe there is some magic fruit which if eaten can make you wise for ever.
(More realistically, you could read my Textbook of Wisdom.)
Fantasy:
There is no expectation whatever that something will happen or even be possible.
There may be a fantasy that you could fly or be beamed up to a spaceship or have a date with your favorite celebrity.
With fantasy anything goes.
It is important to note that ‘possible’ must have some element of logic or reality in it.
We may have no means of knowing or checking if something is indeed true or even likely, but it is possible that it is true.
A hypothesis in science is not a random guess.
In science we set out to see if the ‘possibility’ is indeed true.
Where possibility is used as a base for ‘interest’, there are two levels of interest.
1. Could it be true?
2. What would result if it were true?
In a sense we explore the consequences of the possibility actually being a reality.
Possibility is only limited by imagination.
As you make a conscious effort to open up and explore possibilities your imagination will get better and better.
It is the pause to explore possibilities that matters.
If you rush ahead without pausing then your imagination never gets a chance.
Speculation
There is so much overlap between possibility, hypothesis and speculation that they could all be treated as the same thing without much loss.
A hypothesis does fit the available evidence and you do hope that it will prove to be correct.
You work towards showing that it is true.
A speculation is weaker than a hypothesis.
A speculation is a possibility that you use in order to find some evidence from which you may then form a hypothesis.
There may be little or no evidence for a speculation.
A speculation, as in the investment world, is really a gamble.
Might it be so?
In the world of ‘interest’ speculations are fun because they are open to people who do not have special knowledge.
A hypothesis is much more serious.
The purpose of a speculation is to set off thinking in a certain direction.
Speculations must always be treated as speculations.
There should be no attempt to claim them as truth or even as a hypothesis.
Once this is accepted then it becomes possible to make interesting speculations.
Like a hypothesis, a speculation provides a frame through which we can look at a part of the world.
Speculations add richness and interest to thinking and to conversation.
Why do fatter people seem to have a better sense of humor?
… because their relaxed enjoyment of life made them fatter in the first place .
… because their hormones are more in harmony.
… to protect their inner sadness .
… because laughter is their way of contributing and being liked.
… because they are not anxiously trying to maintain some image.
… because they laugh louder and are therefore more noticeable.
… because people expect fatter people to be happier and so notice it (self-fulfilling prophecy).
These are all speculations that get us thinking.
As far as I know there is no evidence to suggest any one of them as a ‘hypothesis’.
Mental Habits
Understanding the value of possibilities and deliberately searching for them can become a mental habit.
It is a matter of pausing to explore possibilities.
Possibilities are a whole area of mental activity which lies between truth and total fantasy.
It is a very rich area because for any one truth there are many possibilities.
At the same time there is a skill in exploring for possibilities and setting up speculations.
The more ‘reasonable’ they are the more interesting they will be.
Total, unrestricted fantasy may be amusing from time to time but it is not usually ‘interesting’.
If you stick only to known ‘truths’ and facts then you are likely to be boring.
Possibility is a major game to be played in the playground of the mind.
Alternatives
Creativity is all about generating alternatives.
What are the alternative explanations”
What are the alternative courses of action?
What are the alternative choices?
What are the alternative ways of doing this?
What are the alternative ways of looking at this?
‘Possibility’ leads directly into alternatives.
It is possibility that discovers, creates and designs the alternatives.
Technically, alternative means ‘one other’ but in practice it now means many possibilities.
Alternatives are the best antidote to dogmatism and arrogance.
‘Yes, that is one way of looking at it, but it is not the only one.’
In science, proof is often no more than lack of imagination.
We assume that A must cause B because we cannot imagine any other possibility.
A good scientist imagines the alternative explanations and then tries to eliminate or check out each one.
Arrogant people fasten on to the one view that suits their purposes and insist on its validity.
Validity is enough.
There are times when several alternatives are equally valid.
They may be parallel causes or contributory factors.
Juvenile street crime may be caused by drugs, by family breakdown, by gang culture, by the influence of TV and by unemployment.
It would be ignorant to insist on only one of these causes.
Alternatives are the best alternative to negativity.
If you do not agree with someone then try to see why you do not agree.
1. It may, be that you are dealing with different basic facts.
2. It maybe that you are looking at a different part of the situation.
3. It may be that you are seeing things from a different point of view.
4. It may be that you are using different values.
5. It may be that your projection into the future is different.
With normal argument you would disagree immediately and then set out to argue the point.
Instead you lay out the other person’s point of view and then you lay out — in parallel — your own point of view.
Very often both can co-exist because of different values or different information or different projections.
Parallel thinking is much quicker and more powerful than argument.
The Six Hats method of parallel thinking is now in use with many major corporations and other organizations around the world.
It can reduce meeting times by up to 75 per cent.
(See my books Parallel Thinking and Six Thinking Hats.)
Alternatives are part of the basic tidiness’ of interest, it is obvious that not all alternatives are equally possible, equally valuable or equally practical.
Interest lies both in generating the alternatives and then in examining them.
A feast of alternatives provides an excellent mental meal.
Consider the simple equation 5 + 3 = 8
There is no other possible answer.
Consider 8 = 3 + 5
While this is certainly correct there are many, many possible answers.
8 = 4+4
8 = 6+2
8 = 4x2
8 = 12-4
The Fixed Point
Alternatives are not random.
Whenever we set out to generate alternatives there is always a ‘fixed point’ at the back of our mind.
It is this ‘fixed point’ that connects up the alternatives.
What is an alternative to a ‘toothbrush’?
If the fixed point is ‘cleaning teeth’ then alternatives might include: a rag; chewing hard materials; some paste we smear on the teeth and leave overnight, etc.
If the fixed point is ‘applying toothpaste to the teeth’ then the alternatives might include: foam; finger; a stick; a lozenge, etc.
Formal and Informal
The search for alternatives may be formal:
“Let’s see how many, alternative explanations there might be’:
‘That is one point of view; let’s see if there could be another one’;
‘That is one way of doing it — we might be able to find a better one.’
More often the search for alternatives is informal.
In any situation you get into the habit of seeking out alternatives.
At worst you find no alternatives so you have wasted a small amount of thinking time.
You may find alternatives but none of them are better than the obvious approach.
You are at least better off for having justified the current approach.
You generate several reasonable alternatives.
Your mind is now enriched by these possibilities.
Even if they are not of use at the moment they will be of use in many future situations.
Concepts
It is unlikely that the human brain could ever have been designed by an engineer.
Almost all the excellences of the human brain arise from its engineering defects.
Engineers seek precision.
It is the blurry nature of the human brain that is so powerful and gives rise to concepts.
Imagine a camera that could only take blurry pictures.
We would send it back to the engineering department with instructions to make it more precise.
Biological organization is very different.
The blurriness is a great advantage.
Without concepts we are stuck in detail.
We might have images of several different cups.
Each image might be exact but there would be no collective linking.
The concept of a cup is a blurry image of something which has the nature and the function of any cup.
Because it is blurry it is not any particular cup but ‘cupness’ in general.
Extracting concepts is one of the key operations in ‘interest’.
We can take a concept from a situation and then play around with that concept.
We can discuss the concept itself or go on to other examples of the same concept.
A particular chair might be limited and boring but the concept of ‘chair’ or ‘sitting’ could open up new avenues of thinking.
Why do some cultures prefer to sit on the ground or on cushions?
Perhaps because they were nomads and did not want to have to carry furniture with them.
Perhaps the lack of rain made it possible to use the ground, whereas in a rainy country the mud on the ground would have ruled out sitting on the ground.
Interest largely consists in moving on from one idea to another.
Amongst the different mechanisms of flow and movement, concept extraction is one of the strongest.
It is not easy.
Many people find dealing with concepts awkward.
There is no one right answer or one right concept.
There are broad concepts and there are specific concepts.
The concept of ‘sitting’ is different from the concept of a chair’.
There is also the concept of ‘rest’ and the concept of’ ‘being in a position to do something’ (such as eating).
When dealing with concepts think of.
… a blurry image
… a general function
… a way of doing something
… a method
… a broad classification
… the underlying principle
… a small collection of actions or things
What is the concept of ‘insurance’?
At the level of purpose the concept is ‘financial compensation for loss’.
At the level of function the concept is ‘those exposed to a risk contribute in advance to the compensation paid to whoever has the loss’.
The basic concepts are ‘compensation’ and ‘distributed contribution’.
What is the concept of education?
At one level it might be ‘expensive baby-sitting’.
Or, it might be ‘the preparation of youngsters to contribute in society’.
Or, it might be ‘imparting the accumulated knowledge some people believe to be necessary’.
It might even be ‘a self-serving system that sets its own tests and congratulates itself on preparing youngsters to pass these tests’.
Simply extracting and spelling out possible concepts can be an interesting operation.
You make the effort to find the ‘essence’ of the system.
Prejudices can be fed into the concept.
Concept Differences
Sometimes it is ‘interesting’ to focus on concept differences and even opposites.
We can seek to contrast concepts or to show concept shifts.
As usual, things which appear to be similar can be shown to be very different.
And things which appear very different can, sometimes, be shown to be very similar.
These give the surprises and insights that make things more interesting.
Parrots live a very long time.
Should we have liquidized parrots every morning for breakfast?
This bizarre suggestion opens up several concepts.
There are the two competing dietary concepts.
The first concept is to avoid all those things which might be harmful such as high-cholesterol food, fats, etc. at only fish and vegetables.
The second concept holds that there are certain ‘good things’ and if you eat enough of these then it does not much matter what else you eat.
It seems that the French have a much lower rate of heart attack than the British.
Yet the French are busy eating croissants, butter, etc.
They also drink wine.
It seems that alcohol itself in moderation is a good thing.
In addition there are factors in red wine which are also very good.
Walnut oil is now a favorite ‘good thing’.
Flavenoids in tea are supposed to reduce the incidence of strokes.
So the British should be better off in that area.
When we look for differences there has to be some point of similarity.
To say that a hamburger is different from a skyscraper is not particularly interesting.
But to say that both are examples of the export of American culture makes a contrast more interesting.
The interesting contrast is that the skyscraper depends on mechanical efficiency (construction, steel frames, lifts, etc.) whereas the hamburger depends on functional efficiency (brand image, marketing, standardization, etc.).
Concept Level
It is the ‘effort’ to find concepts and to think at the concept level that is important.
Interest is made up of a number of efforts:
… to open up possibilities
… to look for alternatives
… to extract concepts.
Run Forward in the Mind
Imagine you are ‘fast-forwarding’ on a video recorder.
In your mind you run something forward from a starting-point or scenario.
What do you see happening?
I could use the word ‘projection’ but it does not fully cover the process.
You visualize and watch what you visualize.
It is not on an abstract level but on a concrete ‘picture’ level.
You watch the scene unfold.
And then you talk about it.
That is another ingredient in the process of interest.
Joint Exploration
The process of ‘running something forward’ in your mind can be an individual exercise or a joint one.
You can invite someone else to join you in the exploration.
One party or the other might suggest an aspect of the situation and invite the other to visualize it.
For example, in the exercise involving one leg being shorter than the other leg the following remarks might have been made:
‘Let’s see what might happen in sport.
‘What about day-to-day living; moving about the house; walking down the street .
‘How would this affect leisure activities?’
‘What would be the effect on children?’
‘Can you think of any situation where it might he an advantage?’
‘How would it affect going up stairs?’
It is this interaction and the generation of different views which creates the interest.
It is possible to deal with the consequences in a broad sense or in a very detailed sense.
‘How do you think most people would react to the idea of giving pensions to discharged prisoners?’
‘Imagine a sixty-five-year-old man who has worked hard all his life to get a small pension.
How would that person react to the idea that a prisoner discharged after ten years in prison gets an equal pension?’
Connect and Link Up
The process of connecting up and linking up different matters is basic to the process of ‘interest’.
There are two key types of connection.
- How do you link up something that is being said to your own experience, knowledge and feelings?
- How do you link up one thing with another in order to keep going forward along an alley of interest?
Gossip works well because what is said immediately links up with people you know directly, or indirectly as celebrities.
As the gossip accumulates there is more to know and more to link up with.
Sports fans have interesting conversations because they already know so much about players, games, league-table positions, that new information has much to link up with.
Special-interest groups work in the same way.
In general terms, something is interesting if it can be linked back to the individuals taking part in the discussion or to human behavior in general (and hence to individuals in an indirect way).
This very important aspect of ‘relevance’ will be discussed in a later section of this book.
It is fundamental to the process of interest.
Why is this of interest to me?
A skilled politician on television will always answer the question he or she wants to answer.
Whatever question the interviewer puts forward, the politicians, through a series of clever linkages, will bring it back to the answer he or she wants to give.
In the same way, ‘connecting up’ allows us to bring in thoughts, feelings, experience and special knowledge.
We find ways of linking these in to the ongoing discussion.
‘That reminds me of the time when.
‘Talking about bridges, did you know that London bridge … ?’
‘Coming back to your point about restaurants, have you ever …
‘I want to tell you another story about poodles … ‘
Associations and Triggers
A ‘trigger’ is a very loose form of connection.
Some word or concept simply triggers your thoughts about a subject.
Unless what you have to contribute is particularly interesting in itself, which it might be, triggers can actually diminish interest through disrupting the flow of a conversation: if, for example, in an interesting conversation about walruses someone is triggered to wonder why ‘walrus mustaches have become less fashionable’.
There is a fine balance between the lightness and variety of conversation and continual disruption.
Association is also a relatively weak form of connection.
The association might be very personal and therefore not of interest to others.
It therefore appears as a disjunction in the conversation.
If the matter introduced in this way is itself of interest then the association has a value.
Functional Links
Suppose you were asked to link up the words: wine, typewriter, newspaper and shampoo.
‘I went shopping in the morning and bought some wine, some paper for my typewriter, shampoo and a newspaper.’
‘As I was walking down the high street I noticed some wine at a sale price.
In the next shop there were typewriters.
On the corner was a man selling newspapers.
Then I remembered I had to buy some shampoo.’
Those sorts of connection are weak and boring.
Functional links examine concepts, uses, values, similarities, differences and other aspects instead of just stringing together the items in a story-line.
Skill in establishing strong functional links adds to interest because the flow from one idea to another now has a basis.
The mind is now engaged, which it is not in a simple story-line connection.
CONCEPTS:
This relates back to ‘concept extraction’.
What concepts do we find here?
USES:
What is the purpose or function?
Can a case be made for a similarity of purpose?
VALUES:
Why is this of value?
Does the other matter offer the same value?
SIMILARITY:
In what way is this similar?
Do they possess something in common?
DIFFERENCE:
Is the difference sharp enough to be an ‘opposite’ or a ‘contrast’?
Something may be similar in some respects but very different in others.
Keep Going
The purpose of connecting things up is to ‘keep going’.
Outside special-interest areas there are a few subjects which are sustainable entirely on their own.
Skill in linking things up means that other aspects or other subjects can be brought in.
The important thing is that it should be done smoothly.
Otherwise there is the artificiality of seeming to have a ‘shopping-list’ of things to talk about and going down the list item by item.
As usual, it is the activity of the mind around a subject that makes it interesting for both the speaker and the listener.
Connections are doors that are opened so both parties can proceed through that door into another room.
If you become skilled at connecting things up then no starting-point is ever too boring because you can move on to aspects or connections that are interesting.
‘Keeping going’ does not imply speed or a race.
There is no hurry.
You travel along the road of interest at leisure.
You pause and look around.
You dawdle and pick flowers.
You stop to talk to other people.
It should never be a rush to get from A to B as fast as possible.
Provocation
Provocation is fun.
Provocation is an essential part of creative thinking.
What is the definition of a provocation?
‘There may not be a reason for saying something until after it has been said.’
That is rather different from ordinary thinking where there should be a reason for saying something before that thing is said.
In provocation the thoughts set off by the provocation are the justification for the provocation in the first place.
The human brain works as a self-organizing information system.
This means that asymmetric patterns are formed.
There is a mathematical need for provocation in order to cut across the patterns to open up new ones (creativity).
Those interested in these aspects of deliberate and formal creativity (lateral thinking) should read my book Serious Creativity (HarperCollins).
Provocation is such an essential part of thinking that many years ago I invented a word to signal that a provocation was being made.
That word is ‘po’.
‘Po cars have square wheels’ is signaled as a provocation.
It is not intended to be a direct practical suggestion.
That provocation actually leads to the concept of ‘intelligent suspension’.
Provocation overlaps with speculation but goes further.
A hypothesis should have a ‘reasonable’ basis.
A speculation does not need that reasonable basis but the speculation should not be outrageous or contrary to normal experience.
A provocation can he outrageous and contrary to normal experience.
That is its very function.
To jump the mind out of its usual tracks.
Because the provocation is deliberately signaled as a provocation (by the word ‘po’) the provocation can be as bold and provocative as you like.
The whole point about a provocation is that it does have to be provocative.
There is no point at all in putting forward a weak provocation.
There are in fact formal ways of creating provocations (described in the book Serious Creativity) but there is no need to go into such detail here.
It is enough to emphasize that provocations should be bold and contrary to normal experience.
Use of Provocations
When you have a provocation you ‘run it forward’ in your mind.
You can ‘extract the concept’.
You can ‘explore possibilities’.
You can make ‘connections’.
You can examine for ‘benefits and values’.
Most of these processes have already been considered.
They apply equally to provocations as to any other situation.
The provocation provides an unusual starting-point from which we ‘move’ forward with the process known as ‘movement’.
‘Movement’ is quite different from ‘judgement’.
With judgement we are concerned with whether someone is right or wrong, fits or does not fit our experience.
With ‘movement’ we are only concerned with moving forwards to a new idea.
Movement is an active mental process, not just the suspension of judgement.
At the end we do want to come back to an idea that has value, is practical or at least is ‘interesting’.
In the practical use of lateral thinking we do intend to end up with an idea which is practical and valuable.
Where provocation is being used to stimulate interest it is enough that new and interesting ideas are produced.
These can lead to insights and new considerations.
For example, the provocation: PO criminals should attend night classes to make them better criminals’, could lead to the idea of spelling out very clearly the behavior that takes criminals into another class of crime.
The use of guns or knives as a threat might make the crime much worse.
So would the presence of an accomplice.
In practice, such considerations are often taken into account, but they need to he widely known by potential criminals.
Interest Sensitivity
The ‘drivers’ of interest include: emotions, feelings, surprises, fascination, relevance, personal relevance, etc.
These will all be considered in later sections.
For the moment I want to focus on sensitivity to interest.
Some photographic films are much more sensitive to light than others: i.s.o. 400 is much more sensitive than i.s.o. 100.
In the same way we can develop a sensitivity to interest.
… this leads to many things
… this is different from the normal
… this offers benefits and values
… this suggests a new way of looking at things
… this has direct relevance to human behavior
… this would solve a particular problem
… this changes the focus
Attention-Directing
How would we manage if we were never allowed to ask a question?
‘What time is it?’
‘What is your name?’
‘How much does this cost?’
‘Where is the bathroom?’
‘Who told you that?’
At first it might seem that life would be very awkward if we were never allowed to ask questions.
In fact it would make very little difference.
‘Direct your attention to the time.’
‘Direct attention to your name.’
‘Tell me the cost of this.’
‘Tell me where the bathroom is.’
‘Direct your attention to the origin of that.’
A question is just a very simple way of asking someone to direct his or her attention to some particular matter.
Direct your attention and then tell me what you find or see.
Most thinking is a matter of directing attention.
Direct attention to the consequences of this.
Direct attention to the benefits / dangers.
Direct attention to the alternatives.
Direct attention to other people’s views.
The very successful CORT Thinking Program, which is now being used throughout the world for the direct teaching of thinking as a skill in schools, makes use of ‘attention-directing tools’.
The DATT program for business does the same.
Imagine a house.
You can direct your attention to the facade as a whole; to the windows; to the entrance.
In your imagination you enter the house and can now direct your attention to each room in turn.
You can instruct an explorer to look north and to note down what he or she sees.
Then east, then south and then west.
Frames for directing attention are much in use.
In the process of ‘interest’, the directing of attention is very important.
You pick on something that has been said and encourage others to direct their attention to that matter.
Not only do you suggest directing attention to the matter but you may also suggest how you direct attention.
In discussing traffic congestion in cities someone may mention the need for more taxis.
You choose to focus upon that.
You may then suggest a provocation: ‘Po every car can choose to be a taxi.’
You may then wish to add special information.
In Peru every car can choose to become a taxi; you just put a card in the window saying ‘taxi’ and you are a taxi.
Not everything that is said is of equal interest.
It may even be that the main line of conversation is rather boring.
So you focus on one particular remark and use it to open up a new avenue of interest.
Skill in doing that is part of the skill of interest.
Sensitization
A fanatical feminist listening to a conversation or a lecture is highly sensitized to any remark that could be interpreted as keeping women in a less important role than that of men.
This frame of sensitization allows the person to pick up any such remark no matter how slight or unintended.
If you are coming in to land in an airplane you often fly over the airport car park.
If you instruct your mind to ‘pick out the yellow cars’ then you suddenly find that every yellow ear seems to ‘pop up’ from amongst the others.
The biological value of sensitization is obvious.
If a lion is hunting a zebra then the lion is sensitized to notice young or weak zebras and so pick them out as prey.
A zebra is sensitized to notice a lion, so if there is any sound or disturbance the zebra will be prepared to pick out the lion.
Sensitization prepares the mind to notice things.
We give instructions to the mind to direct attention to one thing or to another.
There are some traditional frames of ‘sensitization’ which are always in mind.
… human behavior
… men/women relationships
… sex
… money
… power
… celebrity gossip
All newspaper editors know these frames automatically and arrange their pages accordingly.
If you have special knowledge in an area then that also becomes a frame of sensitization.
You listen to the conversation in order to pick up a point of possible connection so that you may introduce your special knowledge.
Sometimes this does add to the interest.
Sometimes it can be boring if you try to steer every conversation around to the same field of interest.
The Pause
If you are driving along the road you do notice some things beside the road.
If, however, you pause in your driving with the deliberate intention of looking around, then you will notice very much more.
It is the same with a flow of conversation.
One point leads to another and the flow continues.
If, however, you create a ‘mental pause’ then you can stop at some point in order to look around.
You can elaborate around that point.
You can use the point as the start of a new avenue or alley of interest.
The pause can be internal to yourself or you can suggest the pause to others:
‘Let’s stop for a moment at this point.
Why … ?’
The Dance of Attention
Aesthetics is no more than the choreography of attention.
In a beautiful work of art our attention is taken on a dance:
from the whole to a part;
back to the whole;
from one feature to another;
from one emotion to another;
from a relation to itself to a relation to life;
and so on.
High skill in the ‘interest’ process also involves this dance of attention.
There has to be a feeling of when to move on.
When to get involved in detail and when to work with broad concepts.
When to speculate on relevance and when to leave it at a suggestion level.
The lively dance of interest is different from the pompous march of boredom.
Alleys, Avenues and Themes
Interest is much more like exploring an old town than driving along a superhighway.
Interest is not a matter of getting from A to B as quickly as you can.
Interest is not a matter of proving your point or ramming your opinion down other people’s throats.
Interest is not a matter of preaching or making political speeches.
Interest is a mutual exploration of what is interesting.
Unlike the meeting of a board of directors or the meeting of a consultant with a client, there is not a fixed agenda or road map.
It is not a matter of taking one road first and then another.
There is no road map.
It is like driving without a road map.
You follow your interest.
If a road seems interesting then you take it.
There are broad avenues of interest as in Paris or Buenos Aires.
There are quaint alleys of interest as in Mdina (Malta) or St Paul-de-Vence (France).
As we enter any road, avenue or alley we make our choice based on two or three things.
There is the starting-point.
There is the general direction.
There might even be a glimpse of what is promised.
It is exactly the same with interest.
There is the starting-point or point of departure.
This may arise from the ‘pauses’ described in a previous section.
There is a general sense of direction.
There may also be some particular items which appear in that direction.
There is no bold road sign to indicate a possible avenue or alley.
You need to be ‘sensitized’ to spot the potential beginning of an avenue or alley.
Choice of Avenue or Alley
There are a number of reasons why you might seek to open up some avenue or alley of interest.
1. It is a subject area of interest in itself.
For example, it may relate to some of the fundamental interest themes such as the relationship between the sexes.
2. It is a subject area that you feel would be of particular interest to those taking part in the discussion.
3. You have something particular to add to that area.
This could be information, ideas, speculations, etc.
4. You feel that others might have something special to say about that area.
It may be a way of drawing out that interest.
5. You want to escape from a line of thinking that has become boring.
In general, ‘richness’ and ‘relevance’ form the basis for choice.
There are occasions when a single theme is fascinating in itself even if it is low on relevance or richness.
That is exceptional.
The key questions to ask are:
Why is this interesting to me?
Why would this be interesting to others?
It may be that the general theme is interesting.
It may be that special knowledge or experience about the subject is interesting.
Alleys
Avenues are broad, sweeping directions of interest.
Alleys are little side turnings.
We may turn off down an alley and then return to the main avenue again.
An alley is never intended to be a major change of direction.
An alley is a small-scale exploration.
There may be just one point of interest to be explored.
Alleys often have hidden entrances.
They are not easily noticed.
You have to be on the lookout for them.
Themes
There is a great deal of overlap between avenues, alleys and themes.
An avenue is a broad line of thought.
An alley is a smaller, temporary exploration.
A theme is the broadest of all and indicates a large subject area.
For instance ‘gender change’ might be a theme.
So might ‘social self-adjusting systems’ (in the previous exercise).
Like concepts, themes have to be extracted and defined.
They are rarely laid out explicitly as ‘themes’.
You need to extract the theme, define it clearly and then offer it for exploration.
It is probably better to be explicit about a theme rather than just decide the theme internally for yourself.
‘I think this theme of gender change is interesting …’
‘Let’s look at the theme of social needs and gender distribution …’
‘There is this theme of overspecialization.
Fish can change sex but we cannot because we have become too specialized.’
Clarify, List and Summarize
There are some people who have the ability to make something that is very simple appear very complex.
Such people are unconscious experts at confusing both themselves and others.
Not only can they not see the wood for the trees, but they cannot even see the trees because they are looking only at the leaves.
There are other people who have the marvelous ability to take complex matters and to make them appear quite simple.
Such people can see to the heart of the matter.
Such people can discard what is detail and what is irrelevant.
Not surprisingly, simplicity horrifies those people who cannot be simple.
Those who do not have the ability to see through to the heart of the matter genuinely believe that it is the complexity of the detail which really matters.
So they dismiss as ‘simplistic’ anything which does not follow the complexity of detail.
Unfortunately many academics and critics fall into this category.
They hate simplicity because there is then very little to write about.
Also there is the ultimate dilemma.
Is this person writing so simply because he or she really understands the subject, or is the person writing simply because he or she has only a superficial view of the subject?
It takes an honest brain to make the distinction.
Three Nobel prizewinners wrote forewords to my book I am Right - You are Wrong.
One of them remarked that in order to express something simply you had to really know your subject.
Whenever I talk to top-level mathematicians and physicists they can understand the full implications of expressing something simply.
Too many philosophers, psychologists and journalists cannot.
Such people are bogged down with wordplay and cannot see beyond the words.
Being able to clarify something and to communicate it in a simple way is part of the interest process.
While ‘richness’ is an important part of interest, ‘confusion’ is not.
People who are confused may seem to be having an interesting time because there is a lot of to-and-fro discussion.
But the overall feeling is one of confusion and waste of time.
The after-taste is bad.
Analogies and metaphors are powerful ways of expressing complex relationships.
Analogies can never ‘prove’ anything but they can show the possibility of a relationship.
That possibility now has to be considered.
We usually think that if something is good then, surely, more of it is better.
You might gave many examples of where and why this is not the case.
Too much chocolate cake may make children ill.
Too many marriages may make a person careless.
A simple analogy can clarify the whole process.
There is the salt curve.
No salt is bad.
Some salt is good.
Too much salt is bad.
In economics, Arthur Laffer set out to show that too much taxation actually reduced the tax take because people made more strenuous efforts to avoid paying tax.
Complex Situations
Systems, relationships and abstract matters can be complex.
Often it is easier to show them pictorially with diagrams.
This helps where it is possible.
At other times we may need to simplify something in order to understand it.
We may need to bring it down to its essence.
Lists
There are some people who introduce ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ into all their conversations.
These might be factors, alternatives, choices, reasons, types, etc.
This can be annoying because the listener feels an obligation to remember the listing.
It can therefore be very irritating.
From time to time, however, there can be a clarifying value in offering a list as a list.
If the items are simply run off in general conversational mode they may not get the attention they deserve.
Items on a list are more clearly separated out and can therefore be seen to be more distinct.
Each item can then become a point for discussion and examination.
The distinctiveness of the different points would be lost in a general description.
A list is a powerful form of attention-directing both from the point of view of the person compiling the list and also from the point of view of the people to whom the list is presented.
They may want to add to the list.
They may want to claim that some points are not really separate but are aspects of the same thing.
So in spite of the sometimes irritating nature of ‘listing’ there can be a clarifying value.
Summaries
Summaries may be used at the end of a discussion or at any point along the discussion.
‘Where are we at?’
‘How far have we got?’
‘What have we covered?’
‘What are the main points again?’
From the point of view of ‘interest’ there is no need to be pedantic or heavy-handed about summaries.
Nor is there any need for the summary to seek to be totally comprehensive.
It is enough that the summary covers some of the main points and gives the general flavor of what has happened.
A summary may simply record different points of view.
‘So we agree to disagree.
This is your point of view … and this is my point of view … The difference arises from the different way in which we see people reacting to the suggestion.’
‘It is clear that we have different values here.
Your value is … and my value is … So we cannot agree.’
‘Under these circumstances … what you see is correct.
But under these other circumstances … what I say may be correct.
It depends on the actual circumstances we find.’
Part 3 The Drivers Of Interest
Feelings
Feelings provide the fuel for interest.
There is a whole range of human feelings.
They are there to be enjoyed.
Interest seeks to draw in those feelings.
Relevance
Relevance to yourself Relevance to other people.
Relevance to human nature and so on to individuals.
Relevance is a key part of interest.
Something becomes interesting as soon as it can be made relevant.
Human Interest
There are a number of basic ‘human-interest’ drivers: sex, money, scandal, categories, etc.
People are interested in people and people’s behavior.
Emotions
These are the strong emotions.
What is their place in ‘interest’?
Do they help with interest or do they interfere with interest?
Emotions may be simple or mixed.
Humenes
This is a new word to cover that aspect of interest that derives from physiological behavior in the mind: humor, insight, surprise, etc.
This is a powerful form of interest but need not involve either relevance or feelings.
Fascination
A powerful form of interest.
The interest that is aroused by wildlife television programs.
Something may be fascinating in itself.
The importance of curiosity.
Knowledge and Stories
The content part of interest.
Information and experiences.
First-hand or second-hand stories.
The ingredients of interest as distinct from the operations.
Feelings
Fishermen go out to catch fish.
They are judged to be successful or otherwise according to the number of fish they catch.
Art, literature, drama, opera, soap operas and ‘interest’ are all attempts to catch ‘feelings’.
I intend to separate out ‘feelings’ into three main groupings.
1. Feelings in general
2. Emotions
3. ‘Humenes’.
You will not know what ‘humenes’ are and no dictionary will tell you.
It is a word I invented because there is a huge need to invent such a word.
It covers the variety of ‘mechanical emotions’ which arise from the way the mind works.
There will be a specific section on it later.
The Red Hat
In the Six Hats system of parallel thinking, the Red Hat allows a participant at the meeting to express his or her feelings as they exist.
There is no need to explain, justify, qualify or apologize for the feelings.
The Red Hat legitimizes feelings.
They are a useful ingredient in a discussion.
Intuition and feelings can be based on experience in the field which gives rise to a gut feeling which might be difficult to itemize.
Nevertheless, that feeling has validity and is a contribution.
This does not mean that intuition is always right.
Intuition can be seriously wrong at times.
When they told Einstein about Heisenberg’s proposed ‘uncertainty principle’, Einstein declared that his intuition insisted that the theory was wrong: ‘God does not play dice.’
It seems that Heisenberg was right and the great Einstein intuition was wrong.
Feeling is the fuel of interest.
Without feeling there is boredom.
Feeling is the key to interest.
How do we appreciate a good wine?
We try to develop a palate for wine.
We practice ‘directing our attention’ to different aspects of the taste.
There is the bouquet.
Then there are the different parts of the mouth and the tongue.
We develop a vocabulary (fruity, fresh, flinty, etc.).
Some of this is pretentiousness but some has a real value.
Which is the more important: wine tasting or our human feelings?
Probably the feelings.
But we make no effort to develop a palate (or palette) for human feelings.
We are content to rely on crude passions and emotions: ‘I like it’ and ‘I hate it.’
We are misled into believing that unless feelings are strong enough to be passions or emotions then they have no value.
This is nonsense.
There are a lot of very valuable and far more subtle feelings.
We need to notice them and to develop them.
It is this development of feeling that adds to interest.
It is rather hard to see how someone who has no feelings could be interested in anything other than in directions for finding the lavatory.
Just as people learn to recognize and name a variety of flowers if they are keen gardeners, so we should be able to recognize and name and express a wide variety of feelings in order to be able to enjoy them.
Leaving the feelings lurking unrecognized in the subconscious might be useful for the practice of psychoanalysis but not for anything else.
Examination of Feelings
Introspection means looking inward to examine feelings.
It is not my intention to encourage ‘navel gazing’.
One of the ingredients of interest is, however, to be able to have feelings and to talk about them.
Feelings can be just as much a subject for discussion as the latest football scores or the latest gossip.
Most people, rightly, hate being asked what their feelings are on a specific subject.
This is because they have not made those feelings visible to themselves or they suspect those feelings are going to be used as a basis for manipulation (which is too often the case).
Views, Opinions and Feelings
Feelings may be expressed as such or they may be embedded in a view.
Racist feelings are usually embedded in a view or opinion.
The feeling that criminals are too cosseted is expressed in demands for tougher sentencing.
Prejudices against women in business are sometimes expressed through opinions on the need to look after a family, female physiology or the supposed use of female charm.
The proof that an opinion is merely a feeling in disguise is given by the generality of the opinion.
If ‘all’ women are incompetent and ‘all’ the unemployed are scroungers, then it is clear that a feeling is at work.
While the having and expressing of feelings is an important part of interest, the simple parade of strong feeling is not particularly interesting except to show that such feelings exist.
There is usually little room for exploration or discussion.
There is a simple test question that can be used:
‘Are you content with that opinion?’
If the answer is ‘yes’ then there is little room for exploration.
Other People’s Shoes
To give your own point of view is always of some interest.
To be able to explore the point of view of others is of even more interest.
This needs to be done honestly.
You need to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.
If it is done badly it is worse than useless because it can give a false impression of the feelings of others.
A ‘logic bubble’ is that bubble of perceptions, values and feelings within which each person acts perfectly logically.
The exercise is to try to see into that logic bubble.
The attempt is not to lay out what other people ‘should’ feel but what they might actually feel.
Nor is it a matter of telling what you would feel in the other person’s shoes.
It is what the other person feels — with that person’s intelligence, experience and background.
When applied to other people the concept of ‘ought’ has no value.
Part of the exercise is to identify the different people in the situation who might have feelings on the matter.
Relevance
Nothing is of interest unless it is relevant.
There is one big exception to this rule and that is the ‘humenes’ which I shall consider in a later section.
In general interesting things are relevant in some way to those who are interested.
Direct personal relevance is somewhat rare.
Relevance usually comes through the ‘human race’ or through a ‘special situation’.
Where something can be seen to be relevant to humanity in general then it becomes relevant to those humans discussing the matter.
The transference from animals or insects to human behavior is easily made even if scientifically very doubtful.
Interest, unfortunately, is not only based on good science.
Anything that happens with living creatures can be seen as a ‘model’ for human behavior.
Personal situation relevance refers to situations like courting, marriage, aggression, group behavior, etc.
The transfer is from behavior in those situations to the situation in which at least one of those discussing the matter happens to be.
Remote Relevance
In many instances the relevance is direct and the transfer to the human condition is obvious (even if unjustified).
At other times the relevance is not immediately obvious and it is a duty of ‘interest’ to make the bridge and to show possible relevance.
Poets do this all the time with their similes and metaphors.
A skilled person can construct a relevance from almost any starting-point back to human nature.
This can be done through concept extraction, processes, similarity, opposites, etc.
‘We can see a parallel here …
‘Contrast this with human behavior …
‘There is an interesting concept here …
The question to ask yourself is: ‘How could this be a metaphor for human behavior?’
In such exercises a good deal of latitude and poetic license is allowed.
Often it is the use of the item as much as its characteristics which permits the transfer of relevance.
Show Relevance
The effort to show relevance is a key part of the interest process.
Things which have no relevance simply flow by — unless they are humenes.
At any moment there needs to be an effort to link things back in.
Why or how is this relevant?
What can we learn from this?
What does this tell us?
This is not an educational effort because some of the transfers may be extreme.
But connecting and linking things up is part of their interest, as discussed in a previous section.
Human Interest
People are interested in people.
They are interested in how other people behave.
They are interested in how they behave themselves.
They are interested in general human behavior.
They are interested in the gossip about the mythical figures of celebrity.
Gossip is so strong, so reliable and so well-used a method of interest that I shall assume that it would be superfluous to write about it here.
The gossip amongst a group of people all of whom know the subjects of the gossip is evidence of powerful interest at work.
Often there is the element of a continuing drama with the pull of a television soap opera.
What happens next?
What did he do?
What did she do?
There is intrigue and curiosity.
Gossip is a trading currency of human relations.
You offer some gossip and expect to get some back.
That gossip can be dangerous, damaging and unfair is all true, but then a kitchen knife can also be used for stabbing someone.
What I want to consider in this section are examples of those instances where the ‘human interest’ aspect is direct and does not have to be transferred.
The relevance is obvious.
Emotions
Rather surprisingly, emotions do not play a strong part in ‘interest’.
Feelings are more important.
The reason is that emotions are so strong that they dominate the situation and kill the interplay, exploration and elaboration that is so essential to interest.
A person in the grip of a strong emotion may be interesting in himself or herself but does not contribute to an interesting discussion.
There is one aspect of emotion which does contribute to interest.
It is to do with shock, horror, disgust, voyeurism and prurience.
People do seem interested in the details of disasters, serial killings, torture, strange sex practices, etc.
Some of this interest may be curiosity.
In the case of plane crashes or terrorism there may be the sense of ‘it could have happened to me’.
The attraction of horror and unpleasantness is not easily explained but is easily exploited.
It may be that people see themselves as leading such humdrum lives that anything exotic suggests that there is ‘out there’ another type of life.
Just as you might be interested in the tales told by someone who has just returned from an exotic country, so you might be interested in other ‘exotic’ behavior.
The abnormality is the basis of the interest.
A murderer who kept parts of his victims in the freezer and ate bits from time to time seems more interesting than a drunk driver who kills a pedestrian.
As with gossip this source of interest is traditional and does not need much elaboration here.
Whether one approves of it or not is unlikely to make any difference to its continuing as a powerful source of interest.
Perhaps our interest in abnormality is really an affirmation of our appreciation that most of humanity is pretty normal.
Mixed Emotions
There is a classic story about ‘mixed emotions’: seeing your mother-in-law drive over the cliff in your brand-new Mercedes.
Mixed emotions are far more interesting than unmixed emotions because there is so much more going on in the mind.
At one moment one emotion is dominant and then this gives way to another; then back to the first and so on.
That is more interesting than the rigidity of single emotions.
Humenes
A friend of mine, Professor Ungku Aziz, found that the Bahasa language used in Malaysia did not have a word for ‘mind’.
So he invented the word minda, which is now in such general use that it even appears on advertising posters.
Although language seems so rich it is in fact very deficient in words to describe processes.
That is why I had to invent the term ‘lateral thinking’ to describe the thinking involved in changing perceptions and concepts instead of just working with them.
For the same reason I had to invent the word ‘po’ to signal a provocation.
Without such a signal we would never know when a deliberate provocation was being offered.
We need new words to describe the following more succinctly:
‘the way we look at things’
‘running something forward in the mind’
‘interest points’
‘direct your attention’.
I invented the term ‘logic bubble’ to describe that total bubble of perceptions, emotions and values within which every person acts perfectly logically.
The word ‘humene’ is a new word that is also badly needed.
In discussing interest, I have looked at interest arising from feelings, emotions, basic human interest and relevance.
But there is a whole other class of interest which need not be connected at all to human interest.
The interest of humor arises directly from the physiological mechanisms in the brain.
The humor may be totally remote and say nothing about the human condition, but it remains interesting.
The brain has a powerful mechanism for disliking what is different from what is expected.
When Professor Bruner at Harvard made up a pack of playing-cards in which every card was normal with the exception of the three of hearts, he got some interesting results.
His three of hearts was black instead of red.
When students were asked to look through the pack, they would often feel nauseous or even be sick when they came to the black three of hearts.
This mismatch mechanism can be very strong.
So quite apart from the usual emotions and feelings listed by psychologists there is a whole range of feelings that arise from the neuronal function in the brain.
At a tennis tournament there are 131 entrants for the singles event.
How many matches would there need to be?
It is not too difficult to work backwards from the end result: one match at the end, two in the semi-finals, four in the quarter-finals — and so on.
There will also be some byes in the first round.
But it is far simpler to see how many matches there would need to be to produce 130 losers (one winner).
The simple answer is 130 matches since each match produces one loser.
Simple answers to apparently complex problems often produce laughter and a sense of pleasure.
This is closely related to the laughter and pleasure of humor.
The same mechanism applies to insight and ‘eureka’ moments (sudden flashes of insight).
By and large psychologists have neglected this important area of feeling and emotion because it does not seem to have the survival value of sex, hunger, thirst, aggression, etc.
Yet in everyday life it is an even more important part of life than the ‘heavy’ emotions.
In the area of interest these ‘mechanical’ sources of interest are very central.
Yet we do not seem to have a word to describe this whole class of feelings.
That is why it was necessary to invent the word ‘humene’.
It is obviously derived from ‘humor’.
It is intended to cover all those brain mechanisms which give a positive sense of pleasure or interest, just as humor does.
‘Humene’ was chosen in preference to ‘humoid’ for obvious reasons.
Surprise
If something is different from our expectations we get a surprise.
An infant will gurgle with delight at a surprise but react with horror to a fright.
A surprise is something that at first is puzzling but then it suddenly makes sense — in exactly the same way as does humor.
In humor there is a preposterous situation which is suddenly seen to be ‘logical’ in some way.
The angry passenger stormed into the stationmaster’s office to complain that the two clocks on the platform showed differing times.
Was that not incompetence?
‘Not at all,’ replied the stationmaster, ‘what would be the use of having two clocks if they showed exactly the same time?’
There is a strange logic which we accept for the sake of humor.
A caricature has the same value.
We are at first surprised by it but then relate it back, logically, to the person involved.
Expectation
Snooker apparently makes good television.
There are the colored balls and the green surface and seriousness of the participants and all that, but the main source of interest is ‘expectation’.
The viewer clearly sees what the player is trying to do.
Then within a few seconds the player has or has not done it.
This is the same sort of interest that is aroused by quiz shows.
There is a set-up with a clear expectation.
Then, within a few seconds, we see the result.
Obviously, there do need to be a lot of successes in order to sustain the interest.
Interest can be engineered by ‘setting things up’.
This can be done by means of a question or by means of an offered choice.
‘Which is more important to you: excitement or peace?’
‘Which is the more useful: beauty or personality?’
‘What would you have done at this point … ?’
A question is always a ‘set-up’.
Simple things put as questions can become more interesting.
Fascination
Fascination is a very powerful source of interest.
It is part of the ‘humene’ group.
Something may be fascinating in itself even if it has no relevance to human behavior.
The interest is even stronger if the item is both fascinating and also has a relevance to human behavior.
To be fascinating something must be unusual: logically coherent: and open up lots of questions.
Fascinating means that moment-to-moment you want to see what happens next.
Wildlife programs on television are interesting because they are fascinating.
The bombardier beetle squirts very hot liquid at its enemies.
How does it heat up the liquid?
Why is it not damaged by its own heated liquid?
How did it learn to do this?
How effective is this weapon?
It is fascinating because of the ‘heat’ element.
Other creatures might squirt liquid, dye, acid or poison, but heat is unusual.
There is a frog in Queensland which swallows its own fertilized eggs.
The eggs develop in the frog’s stomach.
When the little frogs are ready, the mother opens its mouth and the baby frogs jump out.
This is fascinating because it is so bizarre and yet so logical.
How does the frog know to turn off the acid in its stomach so that the eggs are not simply digested?
Researchers are indeed trying to isolate this factor to turn off human acid when people have ulcers in the stomach.
How do the young frogs get their oxygen in the stomach?
What does the mother live on when she cannot do any eating?
How long does the process take?
Finally, how did it all come about?
It is difficult to see how traditional evolution would have brought about the conjunction of so many factors at once.
In Japan the word for ‘thank you’ is arrigato.
This seems to have come from the Portuguese word obregado.
Yet the Portuguese ‘black ships’ only arrived in Japan relatively recently.
Did the Japanese have no word for ‘thank you’ before the Portuguese arrived?
Why was this word taken up so readily?
Were the Japanese just trying to be polite to the Portuguese visitors and then got stuck with the word?
The Italian Panettone, which is much eaten around Christmas, is made ‘upside down’.
It is a very light bread.
When it cools after being baked the bread would naturally sink down so that it was less airy.
But if the bread is put upside down then it actually sinks ‘upwards’ and retains its airiness.
How did birds ever develop wings to fly?
A giraffe with a slightly longer neck would be able to get more food than other giraffes, so the long-necked giraffes would prosper because there was an immediate advantage as the neck grew longer and longer over time.
This is easy to understand.
But a bird’s wings would be useless and would offer no advantage at all until they were big enough to support flight.
So why should the wings have got bigger and bigger if there was no advantage?
Put this way the simple fact that birds have wings becomes fascinating.
What could have happened?
Possibility and speculation open up the matter.
It is possible that wings started with sea birds.
Birds like penguins and puffins use their wings to swim under water.
The bigger the wing the better the swimming.
So big-wing birds caught more fish.
This gives the immediate advantage.
Then one day a sea bird tumbled off a rock and learned to fly?
Or perhaps the evolution route came via flying reptiles.
Curiosity
Curiosity is a great driver of interest.
No one seems quite sure how to classify curiosity.
Is it a sort of emotion?
The drive to find out and to explore?
It probably fits under humenes.
You notice some flowerpots on a stone shelf above a door.
What do they mean?
You are curious.
You find out that each flowerpot indicates an unmarried daughter.
So traditionally a family signaled to the world outside that marriageable daughters were available.
Perhaps the young men then called or hung around hoping to meet the young ladies.
Perhaps that is where the expression ‘left on the shelf’ originated?
There is a biological urge to explore unknown things to find out whether they are dangerous, neutral or good to eat.
An infant is forever doing this with his or her mouth.
There is a need to explore territory to discover good things and to become aware of dangers.
In a more general sense this curiosity-driven exploration is a key ingredient in interest.
Some people’s curiosity is immediately aroused.
Such people can frame their own questions, which then open up interest.
This can become a useful habit.
Other people just seem to accept things as they are without any need to wonder or to ask questions.
Such people need to have the questions framed for them and put before them.
Then their interest is aroused and they also become eager to go further and to find answers to the questions.
Knowledge and Stories
At the beginning of this book I made it clear that special experiences, special interests and special jobs were all powerful sources of interest but not the subject of this book.
At the same time some knowledge, some information and some ‘content’ are necessary.
It is true that you can simply respond with interest and speculation to information put out by others but from time to time you need to be the source of that information.
It is perfectly possible to have an interesting and intelligent conversation about books, plays, concerts and television programs, with people who have had the same experience.
This is one type of the ‘special’ experiences which I excluded at the beginning.
With regard to ‘general information’ it is possible to pick up a huge amount of information from ordinary newspapers and magazines.
It is not so ‘much the major stories that matter.
It is the small, tucked-away paragraphs that are usually the most interesting.
They may cover research findings (people who drink tea have less chance of getting a stroke), events or anecdotes.
These little nuggets of information can be taken and put into your hoard.
It is important to ‘read between the lines’.
I have often found myself talking to someone who has read exactly the same article that I have read and I appeared to be telling that person new things.
If you read carefully between the lines you can extract far more. «§§§»
Why did this happen?
Why did this not happen?
Who would really have been affected?
What other background factors were there? «§§§»
These are the general-interest questions which allow a reader to get far more from what is read.
Interest is not only based on what you do with what you know, but also on how you get to know things.
The questioning of interest is part of the reading process.
Why do some people remember things they have read and others do not?
It is the difference between putting an ingredient on the shelf in the kitchen and actually cooking with the ingredient.
If you note the ‘interest’ when you come across something, if you ask certain questions and if you make connections, then your ‘use’ of that information puts the information actively into your mind instead of just plonking it there passively.
After awhile you can develop a habit of being ‘sensitive’ to interest.
Just as a wine buff can detect a fine wine so an interest buff can detect the ‘interest quality’ of any item that has been read.
You store the item under ‘miscellaneous interest’.
The more you then use the item the easier it gets to use it.
Stories
I am not referring here to major stories or personal-experience stories.
As noted before, such stories can be a great source of interest but they are not available to those who have not had the experience.
At this point ‘stories’ refers to anecdotes, short stories and funny stories.
There are two key considerations:
1. They must be short
2. They must make a point.
There are indeed some natural storytellers who can sustain with interest a long-drawn-out story.
Congratulations to them, because such stories can be very interesting.
That skill, however, is not available to everyone and a long story without that skill is very boring.
The point of a story is that it should make a point.
A story is not just permission to use up speaking time.
A story is not just permission to impose your voice on the ears of others.
A story is a sort of extended metaphor or analogy.
It tells something
about human nature;
about a particular person;
about a particular culture;
about a particular habit; or
about a particular event.
Accents, characterization and word pictures add tremendously to the value of the story but the mechanics of the story should be good.
PART 4 Interaction
Discussion
Discussion and conversation.
Interacting with other people.
The use of the basic ‘interest operations’ to increase the interest of a discussion.
Agreement
The value and use of agreement.
Ways of agreeing.
Developing and building on ideas.
Full agreement and partial agreement.
Disagreement
The dangers of negativity.
The ego-driven sources of disagreement.
The fundamental flaw in Western thinking.
The benefits of parallel thinking.
The Six Hats framework for discussion.
Designing a way forward.
Bores and Boring
Why is someone boring?
Jumps and changes in conversation.
The use and dangers of interruption.
Diversions.
Discussion
This book is not about how to have an interesting conversation.
There are people who are skilled at conversation but remain uninteresting people.
They know how to lead a conversation and how to carry it forward but they do not know how to be interesting.
This is an important distinction.
‘Interest’ is what happens in your mind and in the minds of others.
Discussion allows you to present your thoughts; to listen to the thoughts of others; and to explore a subject jointly.
If you really have nothing at all to say then saying it very skillfully does not amount to much.
You need to develop the basic skill of ‘interest’ and you also need to know how to interact with others.
Just as there are skillful conversationalists with nothing to say, there are also very interesting people with no skill at conversation.
So the interest is not made available to others and is wasted.
There are three main components of a discussion:
1. Presenting, communicating and elaborating your own thinking and views on a subject.
2. Encouraging, building and developing a subject that is being presented by someone else or is in general discussion.
3. Leading out and prompting someone who is boring, to make that person less boring.
Attention Directing
You choose to direct your attention to any part of the discussion.
You can open up avenues or alleys of interest as you wish.
You can extract concepts and play with them.
Often some part of a boring subject is much more interesting than other parts.
Changing the focus can revive a discussion that has become boring.
If you sense an avenue of interest you can lead the others down it.
If you try one avenue and it does not work, then try another.
There is a big difference between a scientific or business examination of a subject and a discussion.
The purpose of the discussion is ‘interest’.
So you explore for interest and follow the interest.
If this means that part of the subject gets insufficient attention that does not matter.
If you are at a buffet dinner you do not have to take an equal serving of every dish offered.
You choose what you want to eat.
In exactly the same way you choose what interests you — and the others in the discussion.
There is a need to develop a sensitivity as to whether a new avenue is working or not.
Something may be of great interest to you but not to others.
If you succeed in drawing others into your own interest then the avenue will work.
If not, you had better try a different one.
Attention-directing is a bit like being a sheepdog.
You note which way the sheep are heading and then you interact with them in order to get them to move forward.
Sensitivity, suggestion and direction are the ways of leading a discussion to more interesting areas.
Questions
Questions are a form of attention-directing, as suggested in an earlier section.
The difference is that with a question you force others to direct their attention instead of just directing your own attention.
Questions asked of oneself are a key component of ‘interest’.
Questions asked of other people are a key component of discussion.
Speculations and Provocations
When the natural ‘flow’ of the discussion seems to have dried up, it can be useful to insert a speculation or a provocation to open up new alleys of interest.
The nature and purpose of speculations and provocations have already been examined in a previous section.
The listener is asked to think forward or ‘run forward in the mind’ from the starting-point given by the speculation.
Alternatives and Choices
Interest can be stimulated by seeking alternatives and by offering a limited number of choices.
In a way an offered choice is an attention-directing device.
Instead of just asking someone to ‘think’ in general you provide the specific framework for the thinking.
Some people are not good at open-ended thinking but are much better at reactive thinking.
You ask someone to think about ‘color’ and they get lost.
Ask them to choose between ‘red’ and ‘blue’ and they might have a lot to think and to say.
You can also start off by offering some alternatives and then ask for additions to this list.
‘To reduce traffic congestion in a city we could restrict cars or we could build better roads.
What else might we do?’
‘To increase employment we could provide more training or encourage investment.
What else might we do?’
‘To get better service in a hotel we could be more selective in our recruitment or offer better training.
What else could we do?’
Vines grow along wires.
Creepers climb over trellises.
In the same way thinking often needs some framework.
Speculations, provocations, alternatives and choices offer such frameworks.
Instead of a vine shoot waving in the air there is a wire to guide it.
Instead of free thinking with nowhere to go there is the offered framework.
Opinions
Offering an opinion is also a way of stimulating thinking in a discussion.
As with the previous operations, an opinion offers a framework for thinking.
People find it easier to think reactively rather than proactively.
They find it easier to like or dislike a food dish put before them than to design a food dish.
So offering an opinion invites people to:
1. Agree
2. Disagree
3. Suggest modifications or qualifications.
Agreement
It is because most people do not know how to handle ‘agreement’ that they prefer ‘disagreement’.
Agreement seems weak and uninteresting.
You exert your ego, your importance and your presumed superiority through disagreement.
Agreement seems sycophantic you are inferior to the person with whom you agree because he ‘owns’ the opinion and you are just following.
If an economist woke up one morning and found that she or he agreed fully with another economist then that person is instantly superfluous.
Just as so many women do not know how to accept a compliment, so do most people not know how to offer agreement.
To disagree for the sake of disagreement is petty, stupid and the mark of a puny ego.
Unfortunately the famous Greek Gang of Three who wrecked Western thinking (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) put forward the absurd notion that dialectic and argument were the methods to discover the ‘truth’.
I fully agree with this claim, but discovering the truth is only one small part of thinking.
The productive, generative and creative part is much more important.
Agreement is encouragement.
Why should we not make an attempt to encourage someone in their exploration of a subject?
Why should it diminish our own importance to give importance to others?
Develop and Build Upon
Agreement does not simply have to be passive acceptance.
You should be making an effort to develop, to elaborate and to build upon the points with which you have agreed.
You may want to give further examples.
You may want to speak from your own experience.
You may want to take the concept further than the person who offered it.
Think of agreement as a starting-point.
Partial Agreement
There are times when agreement is not total.
You may agree ‘under certain circumstances’ or ‘if certain conditions are met’.
You may agree with part of what is said or the general direction, but not with the specific idea.
At any time you can express such partial agreement.
You do need to spell out very clearly indeed the qualifications or reservations that you have.
Every suggestion is complex and simple yes/no responses are rare.
The expression of partial agreement is much better than having to disagree because you cannot fully agree.
Disagreement
The only real role of negativity is to be negative about negativity.
In practice there are a whole number of reasons why people are negative:
… to be noticed
… to contribute and be involved
… to exercise their ego
… as part of a power-play attack on someone
… to demonstrate superiority
… because they have a different view
… because they cannot let an assertion go unchallenged
… because someone has the facts wrong
… because they believe argument is useful
… because it makes them feel important
… because they are aggressive
… because they like fights
… because they want to show how clever they are
… because they want to humiliate someone
… because everyone expects it from them.
The list could go on.
It is obvious that many of the reasons for being negative have little to do with discovering the truth.
Being negative is a pastime, a habit and a form of aggression.
Most of all it is attention seeking and ego driven.
So what do we do in those genuine instances where there is a real disagreement?
Parallel Thinking
Parallel thinking is very different from traditional adversarial thinking (see my book Parallel Thinking).
In parallel thinking you do not seek to prove the other person wrong.
Instead you lay down your view alongside the other view.
It may be that both views are right.
There is the story of the man who painted half his car red and half grey because he liked to hear witnesses contradict each other when he was involved in a motor accident.
Genuine disagreement can arise from:
1. different information
2. looking at something from a different perspective
3. looking at a different part of the situation
4. different operating values
5. different extrapolations into the future.
All these differences are made much more apparent and much easier to see in parallel thinking than in traditional adversarial thinking.
Arrogance
Surely it is necessary to attack ‘arrogance’ with its rigid views and sweeping generalizations based not on fact but on prejudice?
The best antidote to arrogance is the generation of alternatives.
If someone insists that there is only one way to look at the situation, you present a possible alternative.
If someone makes a sweeping generalization, you show exceptions.
If someone insists on the validity of his or her fact, you ask where they came from and how they were obtained.
The comparison approach is more effective than head-on disagreement.
Adjectives
Beware of anyone who uses too many adjectives.
This is because adjectives are based on subjective feeling but are put forward as if they had a basis in fact.
Disagreements are often based on no more than a disagreement with a choice of adjective.
Vehemence is expressed through adjectives.
Someone wants everyone to know that his or her feelings are deeply felt.
Clarify and Map
Short of a designed outcome that accommodates different values and different fears, the most useful outcome is a clarification of the actual points of disagreement and a mapping of these.
There is agreement to disagree on certain points.
Some matters such as choice of values and extrapolations into the future are always open-ended and subjective.
The intention of a designed outcome is to embrace the different points of view.
Just as a good map makes it much easier to decide which route to take, so the laying out of views, values, fears and needs makes it easier to design an outcome or to choose between alternatives.
The Six Hats
As I indicated earlier, the Six Hats framework is becoming very widely used for discussions.
It is a complete contrast to traditional adversarial argument.
It is an effective method for parallel thinking.
Meeting times are much reduced.
Fuller use is made of the intelligence and experience of those taking part in the discussion.
Ego-based thinking has no place.
Instead of the macho defense of an idea or attack upon another idea there is cooperative exploration.
Major corporations around the world are rapidly taking it up because traditional ‘Gang of Three’ thinking was never designed to be constructive.
Indeed, Western civilization has never developed an idiom of constructive thinking.
At each moment in a Six Hats meeting everyone is wearing the same colored hat.
There is no argument.
Ideas are put down in parallel.
The white hat is for information — of any sort.
The red hat asks for feelings, intuitions and emotions — without any need to justify them.
The black hat is for caution and risk assessment why something may not work.
The yellow hat is for seeking out benefits and values — the logical positive hat.
The green hat is for creativity, possibilities, alternatives and new ideas — the energy hat.
The blue hat is for managing the thinking process like the conductor of an orchestra.
Although the method seems simple and is simple, the best effects are obtained when there has been some thorough training in the method.
(For information see p.289.)
With the Six Hats method disagreements dissolve and disappear.
The emphasis is not on ‘battle’ but on designing the way forward.
At the end of the Six Hats session the decision has usually made itself.
Bores and Boring
A good bore is a work of art.
You marvel that anyone could be so boring and not ever notice it.
A bore is a monologue.
Except on a ‘twosome’ basis, someone who has nothing to say is rarely a bore.
Some clever people end up being bores when they have the potential to be very interesting.
Such people lay their thoughts before you just as they might give you a book and say, ‘Read this.’
It is not that a bore has no interest in his or her listeners.
There is no sensitivity to the reaction of the listeners and no consideration that it is possible to be boring.
Like all other forms of arrogance being a bore is a form of bullying.
Unless your story is totally new or exceptionally fascinating, you are a bore if you are not interrupted.
If interruptions do not come then you need to stimulate them.
Pause to ask questions.
Pause to see if your listeners are at all interested.
Almost any subject can be made interesting through possibilities, speculation, elaboration and questions.
When you see a glimmer of interest in the eyes of the listener seek to build on that.
If there is no such glimmer continue to try different approaches to the subject.
Pull in some of the basic human-interest drivers.
You can personalize and emphasize relevance.
You can also try ‘humenes’ with surprises and insights.
But you have to want to.
Mostly, bores do not see any need to do anything other than to continue to bore.
Do bores know they are boring?
Some do and some do not.
Jumps
When should the subject be changed?
At what point should there be a jump?
Should the jump be sharp and noticeable or a smooth transition which no one notices?
Everyone taking part in a conversation or a discussion has a responsibility to change the subject if the current subject is becoming boring.
Should you change the subject or try to inject new life into the existing subject through speculation and provocation?
If the subject is changed every time it flags then there will be a sort of random dance in which no subject is ever explored for long enough for it to be interesting.
So the first effort should always be to get more interest out of the existing subject.
When that has been tried and has succeeded, or failed, then it is time to change the subject.
The transition can be made through a concept, through personal experience or through special information.
It is not enough just to change the subject.
The new subject must be set on an ‘interest course’ through opening up avenues of interest.
Whoever changes the subject has the duty to do that.
It is not much use just dumping a new subject before others and asking them to make it interesting.
Interrupt
There is a story about an Italian professor who was so very busy that he would commence his lecture and then place a tape recorder on his desk and go away to do his work.
The tape recorder would deliver the rest of his lecture.
One day he came back unexpectedly early.
To his surprise there were no students in the hall.
Instead there were tape recorders on each desk, listening to his tape recorder.
Interruptions are a necessary part of interaction and interest.
Without interruptions there is a lecture.
With interruptions there is a conversation.
Interruptions can be a nuisance when:
… they interrupt the flow of a story at the wrong moment
… when they are too frequent
… when they introduce an irrelevant diversion.
… when they are of the ego-driven ‘notice me’ type.
An interruption may
ask a question
insert new information
insert personal experience
insert personal feeling
ask for clarification
and redefine the subject-matter.
Diversions
If you introduce a deliberate diversion it is up to you to lead the subject back to where it was unless you intended your diversion as a ‘jump’.
It is boring for someone to introduce a diversion and then leave things hanging in the air.
It is just like those road signs that signal a diversion to get traffic off the main road and then forget all about the traffic, leaving it to find its own way back to the main road.
Part 5 Summary
Summary
This book is about ‘interest’.
Interest is what happens in your mind.
A good cook can make an excellent meal out of few or poor ingredients.
Interest is the same sort of skill as cooking.
How do you treat the information or experience that you have?
How do you put things together?
Just as there are basic operations of cooking so there are also basic operations of ‘interest’ such as:
possibilities,
speculations,
provocations,
concept extraction, etc.
These basic operations are covered in this book.
A cook knows how to add flavor.
In terms of interest flavor takes the form of feelings, emotions, personal experience, relevance and the ‘humenes’.
You can become more interesting if you set out to do so.
Like riding a bicycle it may seem awkward at first.
Then it becomes easier and easier.
Like riding a bicycle it may seem ‘artificial’.
Why not just exist, breathe, talk and experience?
There would be no art at all if people just sat around ‘being’.
Art is artificial.
Being an interesting person means that you are more interesting to yourself as well as to others.
Life becomes more interesting.
Other people become more interesting.
This book is not about how to be a skilled conversationalist.
That is not the same as being interesting.
Some skilled conversationalists are not interesting.
But if you are interesting in yourself then your conversation is likely to be more interesting.
So it is not enough to be healthy, fit and beautiful.
Why not have a beautiful mind as well?
Your mind is going to be with you until you die.
It need not age at all.
Bores are predictable.
Some boring critic is going to write that this is a boring book on being interesting.
It may be if you read it that way.
