Our Research – the source of our Clear Thinking

Why do plans fail? The Business Experience has conducted extensive research into ‘Why Strategies, Plans, Projects, Innovations, and Communications Fail’ … and “What really affects Business Performance and Reputation?”   • major projects such as the London Millennium Dome and the Millennium (Wobbly) Bridge • business failures eg Marconi and ITV Digital • innovations such as Sir Clive Sinclair’s C5 tricycle and 3G mobile telephony • business communications such as Press and TV advertisements and exhibition stands.   We found that the prime cause of failure was Thinking Errors by teams at the Planning stage. In most cases we could identify the precise Thinking Error - and the exact stage in the Planning Process - where things started to go wrong. For example, we counted 21 major Thinking Errors in the ITV Digital collapse!   Root Causes We identified eight separate reasons why teams - at any level - can make costly Thinking Errors. They included poor leadership (eg inflexible Leadership Style), and simple Subjectivity - getting too involved to remain objective. However, all the other six reasons involved the way people, and teams, think. Or didn’t think ("How did that happen?")    How to avoid Thinking Errors Team leaders can avoid Thinking Errors by:   • engaging the right Leadership Style for the situation • making sure the team engages the right Thinking Style for the stage reached during any team thinking  and planning activity • maintaining objectivity by asking someone outside the team to challenge assumptions etc   All our training programmes and team/group workshops are specially designed to help participants and teams check their Leadership Styles and Preferred Thinking Styles; engage the right Thinking Styles; and minimise Subjectivity. Classic examples from our Research   The team that planned the London Millennium Dome made dozens of avoidable Thinking Errors. They designed an engineering masterpiece as a structure. But they clearly didn’t think much about its purpose (poor Conceptual Thinking).   They also failed to engage the People Thinking style when planning the layout of the Zones. The most interesting zones were positioned near the entrance causing massive queues by the main door and empty areas elsewhere.   Detail Thinking was absent when they designed the zone doors - some of the exhibits were too big for the doors.   And finally, the killer Thinking Error was having only one security checkpoint for hundreds of VIP’s and the media on a freezing opening night. This guaranteed negative press coverage for the project’s whole life. ‘Wobbly’ Thinking Even experienced teams can make what look like absurdly simple Thinking Errors. For example, the two highly respected teams that designed the London Millennium (Wobbly) Bridge. Everyone knows about armies, bridges, and walking in step!     Our Clear Thinking approach – based on solid research - minimises the risk of failure, and vastly increases the chances of success, in any work activity.

Reading between the lines. In virtually every Failure Case, we can spot the exact Thinking Errors that planning teams made.