The Business Skills Handbook

1
The Business Skills Handbook
2
The Business Skills Handbook

• Thinking and Memory Skills
• Week 13

3
Reading

• Recommended text
• The Business Skills Handbook
• Horn, R.
• London CIPD
• 1st edition, 2009
• ISBN 1843982188
• Chapter 13 Thinking and Memory Skills (page 317)

4
Lecture Outline

• develop a clear conception of what thinking is
• recognise the different types of thinking and
  where to use them
• developing a clear understanding of how memory
  works
• developing a good memory

5
Learning Objectives

• be able to recognise and use different types of
  thinking
• develop a range of techniques to improve memory

6
What is Thinking?

• I did it without thinking! We have all probably
  said this at some stage in our university, social
  or work life. It is often said when something
  goes wrong when there is an unexpected outcome.
  Many of our daily actions are performed without
  thinking.

7
What is Thinking? 2

• This is not a problem. Indeed, if we had to think
  extensively before we did things, we would get
  very little done. This raises two questions
• How careful should we be before allowing actions
  to become routine?
• and
• How do we know when we should be thinking and not
  behaving in a routine manner?

8
What is Thinking? 3

• Once you have thought about this, you may come to
  realise that most of our daily actions are
  performed in a routine manner. Routine is a
  powerful controller of behaviour.

9
What is Thinking? 4

• So thinking can be patterned and routine, but
  there will be times when patterned, routine
  behaviour will not be suitable. Real thinking
  will be needed when you encounter
• a difficulty with normal patterned behaviour
  what you normally do does not work any more
• a new or unfamiliar situation you have no
  experience to call upon or the normal patterned
  behaviour does not work in that situation
• a changed situation something has changed and
  requires a change in behaviour.

10
What is Thinking? 5

• When we are confronted by a situation, difficulty
  or problem that we have not experienced before,
  we will need to engage a thinking process. Your
  ability to think in an appropriate way and
  develop practical and effective solutions is a
  very valuable skill.

11
What is Thinking? 6

• Thinking takes time, so although you may
  concentrate on solving a problem, the solution
  may not readily come to you. You may have
  experienced this when you strain and strain to
  solve a problem, either academic or practical
  you then give up and do something else and then
  wondrously wake the next morning with a solution.

12
What is Thinking? 7

• Thinking is the purposeful and conscious action
  of considering. When the conscious work is
  finished, the unconscious mind will carry on.
  Effective solutions often come from hard,
  purposeful, conscious thinking and leaving the
  problem for a while (time).

13
What is Thinking? 8

• Thinking may be required to solve an academic
  problem, such as an assignment. It may be
  required to solve a practical problem, such as
  poor team performance. In business these two
  elements are always connected. Academic problems
  need to be solved with reference to practical
  outcomes for business.

14
What is Thinking? 9

• Practical problems need to be solved with
  reference to academic theory. Lets move on now
  to think about the different types of thinking
  you can employ in solving problems.

15
Different Types of Thinking

• When you look at these different types of
  thinking you may feel they are all the same or
  very similar. Clearly, they are all examples of
  thinking. But, you will need to recognise the
  fine-grain differences between these ways of
  thinking.

16
Different Types of Thinking 2

• An indicator of an effective learner or manager
  is that they will be aware of and able to control
  their thinking. So if at first these ways of
  thinking make no sense then persevere because
  with time (like thinking) they will stand out
  clearly as different ways of thinking.

17
Different Types of Thinking 3

• There are more ways to categorise thinking and
  more categories of thinking than can ever be
  useful. The following sections categorise
  thinking in ways that I think are useful in
  business.

18
Different Types of Thinking 4

• Practical thinking focuses on the processes of
  business. How in practice does the process of
  business happen? The underlying data for
  practical thinking is observation. The skilled
  manager can observe and diagnose a problem.

19
Different Types of Thinking 5

• The key criteria of practical thinking are
  experiences. A managers experience provides an
  extensive library with which to compare the
  present. Practical thinking is also logical
  process thinking. This is the ability to link one
  process to another in effective ways so that a
  process is effective.

20
Different Types of Thinking 6

• Over time managers build up mental models of what
  a good business process will be like and they
  judge current processes by reference to those
  mental models.

21
Different Types of Thinking 7
22
Different Types of Thinking 8

• Convergent thinking is a cognitive process
  bringing information and thoughts to a common
  point. It is integrative in that it brings known
  things to one point. It is effectively a
  condensing process of bringing together a
  synthesis of ideas. This type of thinking might
  be used when there are lots of ideas and opinions
  but very few agreed solutions.

23
Different Types of Thinking 9
24
Different Types of Thinking 10

• Divergent thinking starts from a common point and
  moves outward in a creative way to increase the
  diversity of thought. It is essentially creative
  in that it moves from what is known towards new
  ideas and perspectives. This type of thinking
  might be used with complex problems that have
  proved hard to solve for lack of ideas.

25
Different Types of Thinking 11

• Critical thinking is convergent thinking that
  assesses the claims of something. This was
  covered extensively in Chapter 10.

26
Different Types of Thinking 12

• Inductive thinking is a reasoning process that
  starts with the parts and cognitively works
  towards the whole. This type of thinking is most
  often seen in qualitative research where parts of
  a problem are researched and then the researcher
  argues how the parts create the whole.

27
Different Types of Thinking 13

• Deductive thinking is a reasoning process that
  works from the whole to the parts. This is often
  seen in quantitative research where the whole of
  something is researched and the explanations are
  then made about the parts.

28
Different Types of Thinking 14

• Evaluative thinking is thinking concerned with
  judging the value of something. It is closely
  tied to critical thinking and was extensively
  covered in Chapter 10.

29
Different Types of Thinking 15

• Comprehension thinking is the cognitive process
  of understanding something. This process is often
  a case of understanding writing or situations.
  The techniques of comprehensive thinking are
  visualisation, contextualising and practice.

30
Different Types of Thinking 16

• In visualisation we make visual in our minds the
  ideas we read on paper. We imagine how the idea
  would take place. Drawing on paper or creating
  the image in your mind is an excellent way to
  comprehend something. We can also comprehend
  something by placing it in a familiar context.

31
Different Types of Thinking 17

• Finally we comprehend by trying out or
  practising. If we use the idea of speed reading,
  all three techniques could be useful. We read
  about speed reading then imagine how it will
  happen we place it in context by thinking, I
  could use that idea here or here we will
  comprehend the idea better when we try it out.

32
Different Types of Thinking 18

• Memorising thinking is covered later in this
  chapter. It involves using strategies and
  approaches that allow the recall of information.

33
Different Types of Thinking 19

• Reflective thinking involves careful and
  consistent thought about what you know and
  believe. The reflection requires that you weigh
  up the reasons for your beliefs. It also requires
  that you change your thinking dependent on the
  reasoned analysis of a situation or belief.
  Reflective thinking is the basis of all change
  and improvement.

34
Different Types of Thinking 20

• Investigative thinking involves thinking and
  analysis of things that are incomplete or
  unclear. We could call this detective thinking
  because it involves piecing together actions that
  have taken place. You will need to adopt this
  mode of thinking when investigating critical
  incidents at work. Managers often need to
  investigate some sort of failure, accident or
  complaint.

35
Different Types of Thinking 21

• Social thinking concerns the emotions, beliefs,
  actions and thoughts of others. In most social
  situations you will have developed social
  thinking from an early age.

36
Different Types of Thinking 22

• But, conscious social thinking is required by
  managers who must not only take the views,
  perspectives and desires of others into account
  but must also demonstrate that those views have
  been taken into account. Without active social
  thinking managers can easily overlook the
  perspectives of smaller groupings in their team
  or workforce.

37
Different Types of Thinking 23

• Creative thinking involves measures and
  techniques that inspire new ways of thinking and
  acting.

38
Memory

• Memory is an important part of academic and
  business life. You may at the moment think your
  memory is not very good I cant remember a
  thing. Understanding how your memory works and
  developing some helpful memory methods will soon
  improve your memory.

39
Memory 2

• The most important reason to improve your memory
  at university is to do well in examinations. But
  improvements for this reason will also help with
  other university tasks and will certainly help
  you at work. It is not always your ability to
  recall facts and figures that is important it is
  often that you need to recall where you can find
  those facts and figures.

40
Memory 3

• Modern computing can certainly help here in that
  organising information has never been easier.
  Well-organised information is also easier to
  retrieve and easier to remember. So part of
  having a good memory is to organise information
  in ways that are easily retrievable. In business,
  the ability to remember your customers and their
  preferred purchases and some relevant personal
  facts is vital.

41
Memory 4

• If you are in sales your customers will buy more
  from you if they think you know them personally
  and care about them. So how would you remember
  the details of each of your customers, their
  buying preferences and some personal facts?

42
Memory 5

• Modern handheld computers provide the answer. All
  the information you will need to successfully
  manage the sales relationship can be held on
  these devices. You only have to look up the
  detail five minutes before you make the sales
  contact. But you still have to be able to
  remember the detail for the length of the meeting.

43
Memory 6

• Lets look at the nature of memory by considering
  what is easy to remember and what is hard to
  remember. I doubt you have any trouble
  remembering
• the names of family members or friends
• your birthday
• how to read and write
• knowledge from school
• stories from your past
• skills, such as riding a bike
• routines and habits.

44
Memory 7

• However, you might have more trouble remembering
• things that you dont want to do
• things you believe will be difficult to remember
• information that you consider to be boring or
  trivial
• changes to your daily routine
• things you did when you were tired, bored or
  unwell.

45
Memory 8

• Forgetting things can have some unpleasant
  effects
• embarrassment, frustration or anxiety
• a reduction in self-confidence
• feelings of being stupid
• avoiding participating in things withdrawal
• apprehension once we have experienced the
  inability to remember.

46
Memory 9
47
Memory 10

• How memory works
• Memory is a process and that process is believed
  to follow these steps
• You perceive something by sight, sound, smell,
  taste or feel.
• This information is filtered by the sensory
  registers and committed to short-term memory
  (STM) (also known as working memory).
• STM can hold this information for up to 30
  seconds and there is a limit of about 59 items
  that can be held in STM for most people.

48
Memory 11

• If you choose to you can commit it to long-term
  memory (LTM) this is done by
• rehearsal
• coding
• Imaging.
• You need to retrieve it from LTM to STM if you
  want to use it.

49
Memory 12

• As an example lets consider how you perceive
  information in a lecture using two different
  scenarios.
• Scenario 1
• In the first lecture you are given extensive
  handouts that cover all the slides shown and the
  related information. You sit passively listening
  to the lecturer and at the end of the teaching
  session you can remember only one striking visual
  thing that was shown to you about halfway through
  the lecture.

50
Memory 13

• Scenario 2
• You are given no handouts and have to listen
  carefully and make your own notes. You do this by
  creating a visual mind map of the ideas
  presented. An hour after the lecture you can
  recall most of what was taught.

51
Memory 14

• Memory in Scenario 1 the only stimuli you
  receive are a stream of sound that enters your
  STM it is not encoded or otherwise transferred
  to LTM and is quickly forgotten. The visual
  stimulus is immediately transferred to LTM by
  imagery.

52
Memory 15

• Memory in Scenario 2 the constant sound and
  visual stimuli are transferred by encoding and
  imagery, the mind map you created, to LTM as the
  lecture progresses. This is available to retrieve
  back into STM some time afterwards. If this LTM
  were reinforced it would become relatively
  permanent in LTM and available to retrieve for
  years afterwards.

53
Memory 16

• In Memory Scenario 2 there are simple techniques
  that will improve your ability to remember the
  mind map you created during the lecture. Common
  helpful techniques are
• numbering and lettering lists
• diagrams, pictures, tags and icons
• colours
• adding your own contextual examples
• linking and connecting
• logical structures and positioning think about
  the clock index from Chapter 2
• top-level summaries.

54
Techniques for Improving Your Memory

• You will need to reflect on the techniques of
  memory that will work for you. We are not all the
  same and some of the following work for some
  people and some do not.

55
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 2

• Pictures and images
• We have already noted that pictures and images
  are easier to remember than words. Linking and
  visualising by drawing ideas will assist with
  remembering them. This is a two-stage process
  the act of drawing fixes the thing in LTM and
  then the act of looking reinforces the thing in
  memory.

56
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 3

• Charts and tables
• Complicated and complex data is easier to
  remember if it is structured into tables or
  charts.

57
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 4

• The Roman Room
• The Roman Room strategy is an extension of the
  association and imagery approach. Here the things
  you need to remember are placed into rooms in
  your family home. In each room you will have
  furniture and furnishings that can also be linked
  to things you need to remember.

58
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 5

• This technique works because you are very
  familiar with your family home and you link new
  information to this familiar structure. While
  this will require some mental effort to link the
  items to the rooms and furniture, it does allow
  for excellent recall. If the links can be funny
  or odd, they will be all the more memorable.

59
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 6

• Acronyms
• Acronyms are words made from the first letters of
  something you wish to remember. They allow recall
  of both the information and the order of
  information. One classic that most people will
  know is ROYGBIV, which is a way of remembering
  the colours of the rainbow red, orange, yellow,
  green, blue, indigo, violet.

60
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 7

• A more complicated acronym is BEDMAS, for the
  order that maths operations should take
  brackets, exponentials, division, multiplication,
  addition and subtraction.

61
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 8

• Two business-related acronyms are
• SMART specific, measurable, achievable,
  realistic and timely
• TRACC for business memos timely, relevant,
  accurate, concise and clear.

62
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 9

• And finally, a North American one for the quiz
  enthusiasts
• HOMES Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior
  the names of the Great Lakes.

63
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 10

• Acrostics
• Acrostics are short phrases where the first
  letter of each word is the cue for something you
  need to remember. If we take a look at an
  acrostic that will help remember the planets in
  the solar system, you will see how they work.

64
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 11

• The planets and the order they are from the Sun
  Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
  Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. There arent many useful
  acrostics in general and not many in business, so
  the essence is to build your own for remembering
  things.

65
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 12

• Now to that acrostic that could be used to
  remember the order of planets from the sun is
• My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Up Nice
  Pancakes

66
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 13

• You will note that this works much better for
  this ordered list than an acronym would. This is
  because MVEMJSUNP doesnt actually mean much to
  most people. You can easily invent your own
  acrostics to cope with the specific knowledge
  that you need to remember.

67
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 14

• Chunking
• Chunking is useful with numbers. If you remember,
  your short-term memory will be running out of
  space by the time you have heard or seen 59
  items. A ten-digit telephone number will be
  difficult to remember.

68
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 15

• Try remembering 0770525252 as a single-digit
  sequence. This may be difficult, as your mind
  will automatically chunk it to make it easier to
  remember. Wait 30 seconds and see.

69
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 16

• Can remember it? Now try remembering0770 52 52
  52. This should be easier and you will probably
  remember it tomorrow.

70
Techniques for Improving Your Memory 17

• Chunking with familiar numbers is an even more
  effective method. If your birthday is on the 07
  of August and your granny lives at number 70 and
  part of your car registration is 52, then this
  becomes a number you are unlikely to forget.

71
Activity
72
Next Week

• basic Word skills
• using the new features of Word 2007
• using keyboard shortcuts
• understanding and using styles and themes
• creating a references list and a bibliography
• creating an index
• creating a contents page
• using mail merge

73
The Business Skills Handbook
The End