The Hyperthinker by Philip Weiss

Last week I was invited to speak on a panel at the European Public Affairs Action Day.  The topic of discussion was key trends in EU lobbying.  As the introductory speeches began, I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts and I tried to think of some key insights and messages that would at least get a discussion going.

The setting was a conventional hotel venue populated with people in ties.  So this was definitely not TEDxBrussels, but the turnout was good considering Brussels’ then arctic conditions.

I started by saying – rather dramatically – that we were living through a massive Black Swan epidemic (looked around to see if the word meant anything to the audience).  In other words, we lived through a series of highly improbable events which had a significance impact – from the financial crisis to the Arab Spring and the never ending Eurozone crisis.

Recently, we witnessed Wikipedia shutting down for an entire day out of protest against SOPA.  The effect: a new form of lobbying was unleashed and SOPA was dropped the following day by one of its main sponsors.  This is just the latest in a series of events demonstrating the growing power of NGOs.  A power which developed out of their innovative use of new technologies to campaign and perhaps underlying societal trends.

The key trend I want to emphasise is how incredibly slow the ‘Brussels Bubble’ has been at recognizing and adapting to these changes.  In my speech, I stated that around 90% of organisations in Brussels still campaign as if nothing had changed in the past 50 years (I can’t claim to have the hard data supporting this figure but no one challenged it).

In a less forward statement, I told the audience that the fear of change, lack of innovative spirit and courage deficit was shocking and that our community needed to change attitude and mindset.  I also suggested that corporate members were beginning to put increasing pressure on associations to see a change in approach – and not just to get ‘more for less’ as some suggested.  They want to see different outcomes and different campaigns, they wanted to see value for money and want to see something to change.

Many Brussels associations have embraced the mindset of the Brussels Institutions and only see the limitations on what they can do.  Thus they fear change even more than the institutions they are trying to influence.  Paradoxically, the more they resist change, the more frustrated their member companies become and the more critical the situation becomes.

Alfons Westgeest, from Kellen, built on my 90% stat to launch into a weather analogy describing the Brussels frozen paradigm – which I must say I rather liked.

The discussion that followed touched on a range of different subjects and some sceptics said this was a naive view of things.  I talked about how some industries, such pharmaceuticals, were experimenting with new approaches despite challenging legal constraints and a conservative past (see vaccinestoday.eu to see some of the work we did with them in action).

However, I was also reminded of how much Brussels needs more inspirational and ground breaking initiatives such as TEDxBrussels.eu or Solve for X, an initiative Google recently launched to solve some of the worlds seemingly insurmountable challenges (www.wesolveforx.com).

In the face of a cold wave, Brussels could do with a healthy dose of sunny optimism.

For communicators who want to see change in Brussels and in the EU,  the starting point is to be willing to do things differently and prepared to take a risk.  Once you are open to experimentation and innovation, the extraordinary tools and networks brought about by the internet can be incredible opportunities.  If you want to find out how to do that, just drop us a tweet

It's tough being smart

Last week I was reading an article from the Harvard Business Review by Heidi Grant Halvorson curiously entitled: The Trouble with Bright kids.

I enjoyed the ‘takeaway’ from the article, which I quickly shared with my own children Ivan (11) and Natasha (8).  The short of it is that kids who believe that their success is due to them being smart, tend to perform worse, when facing challenging problems, then kids who believe that they succeed because they work hard.  This was demonstrated through experiments with children in a classroom environment.

I can see the importance of this as I have often come across very intelligent people who are limited in their abilities because they fear being ‘caught out’.   They are either afraid of appearing less smart then they think they are or of damaging their public reputation.

Soft and hard paradigms

In the hyperthinking system, I further develop this notion as part of the problem adults encounter as they grow older.  Their preconceptions, prejudice and preconceived ideas become more entrenched.  I call this a ‘hard paradigm’, when the paradigm we use to understand the world becomes increasingly rigid and changing it can be a genuine problem.  Children, on the other hand, start off with ‘soft paradigms’, that only become harder as time passes and their confidence in their own abilities is strengthened.  This is particularly visible with languages and technology when comparing how adults face learning in contrast to children.

These fields are often perceived as incredibly challenging, and some adults form the conclusion that they are simply ‘not equipped or gifted’ to acquire these skills.  Children, on the other hand, have no such reservation and will always pick up new languages if sufficiently immersed in the environment it is spoken – the younger the easier it seems.  With technology (computers), children again have no fear or resistance when learning how to engage with these devices that sometimes have a deeply off putting quality for adults.  They play, they try, and the ‘thing’ responds.  This provides them with an endless source of entertainment and by playing, they learn.

The difference, in my mind, is that adults have ingrained preconceptions of what they ‘should’ know and what their abilities are.  Once they feel they are struggling with a new mental skill, there is a natural inclination to give up early.  Especially when the learning might reveal how little they know about their field of endeavour.  We don’t believe it is about hard work – or ‘hard play’ as some children see it.  When faced with a new language, children learn best when they simply try through repetition or trial and error.  Adults on the other hand tend to over analyze the language, try to fit it in an existing paradigm and struggle to make this work.  This is (in part) why learning things that seem to come effortlessly to kids are a massive struggle for us, grown-ups.

The lessons from the HBR article (and other articles by the same author) is that almost any mental skill can be learned.  Provided we allocate time, effort and practice to develop that skill.  Second, our own perceptions about our abilities can be a hindrance to our learning, thinking of ourselves as smart can limit our capacity to learn and embrace challenges.  Instead of thinking of ourselves as smart (even if we are), we need to believe in our ability to ‘work the problem’.  We should relish spending time and energy trying to solve problems and make it one of our core skills.