1. SMART THINKING
60 BURSTS OF BUSINESS BRILLIANCE

2. SMART THINKING
Some examples. There are 60 in the book.

4. GROWTH ~ COMMUNICATION
INNOVATION ~ CREATIVITY
RELATIONSHIPS ~ THINKING

5. FORMAT
• Choose an area such as growth
• Stick a provocation on the wall
• Read the stimulus sheet for one minute
• Apply to your business, brief, or issue
• 5 minutes per thought
• Repeat ten times
• One hour per area
• Move to any of five other areas
• Or repeat for a new brief or issue

6. STIMULUS

7. LET’S DO SOME SMART THINKING

8. GROWTH

9. 1. PLANNING
• Do you have a plan?
• How long should it take to
design one?
• Do you need one at all?

10. 2. MODELS
• What can a model tell us?
• Are your models reliable?
• How should they be used?

11. 3. TARGETS
• Why have a target?
• Numerical or thematic?
• Absolute or relative?

12. COMMUNICATION

13. 1. TOPICALITY
• What is your point?
• What is your point of view?
• Are you prepared to say “I
don’t know”?

14. 2. ATTITUDE
• Should you change the
nature of your meetings?
• Could you adopt assertive
inquiry as a discussion
style?
• Are colleagues respected?

15. 3. CLARITY
• Do we really need to do
this?
• Are we just doing rather
than thinking?
• Do we churn out stuff just
for the sake of it?

16. INNOVATION

17. 1. APPROACH
• How curious are you?
• What do you use as
stimulus?
• What habits could you
change or introduce?

18. 2. OPPORTUNITY
• What is the nearest
Adjacent Possible?
• What is the simplest thing
to do?
• What next single step can
you take?

19. 3. NOVELTY
• Do you or a colleague keep
saying “We tried that before
and it didn’t work.”?
• Can you break with the
past?
• How can you ‘forget what
you know’?

20. CREATIVITY

21. 1. ENVIRONMENT
• How stimulating is your
office?
• What could be changed
cheaply?
• Where should we generate
our ideas?

22. 2. AMBIGUITY
• Where are we on this
project?
• Is it unclear or heavily
regimented?
• How do we resolve the
tension between fuzziness
and apparent control?

23. 3. ORIGINALITY
• What if this thing didn’t
exist at all?
• What if we were designing
it from scratch?
• Can we start from first
principles?

24. RELATIONSHIPS

25. 1. ATTITUDE
• Is your business far too
serious?
• Are you?
• What can be done to
lighten things up, without
losing professionalism?

26. 2. MOTIVATION
• What’s in it for you?
• What’s in it for them?
• How can we ensure enough
motivation to make the
project a success?

27. 3. HUMILITY
• How can you bring modesty
to your work?
• How can you help your
team?
• How can you help your
clients or customers?

28. THINKING

29. 1. THOUGHT
• Do you have enough time to
think properly?
• If not, how can you create
it?
• Do you and your colleagues
place enough value on
thinking time?

30. 2. ACTION
• Could you earmark a Think,
Do day or time period?
• Could the whole team?
• Could the whole business?

31. 3. RESTRAINT
• Can you resist the
temptation to do
something, anything?
• Which current issue would
be better left alone?
• Which areas are best left to
sort themselves out?

32. BREVITY EQUALS INTELLIGENCE

33. thesmartthinkingbook.com
theideasbook.net
thediagramsbook.com
expertadviceonline.com
kevinduncanexpertadvice@gmail.com
@kevinduncan