I was recently asked to present with Colin James on the theme of “To Power Point or Not?” The client asked for a debate where Colin would argue against the use of Powerpoint slides and I would argue for them.
My response, supported by Colin, was to not make it a debate, argument or battle and not to take sides on slides. People don’t really need help with binary thinking; rather they needed help with a different kind of thinking.
This is binary thinking:
• Yes/No
• On/Off
• Good/Bad
• Black/white
• Against PP slides/For PP slides
We don’t need help with binary thinking because we already do a lot of it. It is easier for our brain to fall back into a neural rut that already exists rather than to create a new, lasting pattern. All these things are in the good pile; all these things in the bad. For example, everything my partner does is wrong/right.
If I were thinking in a binary way, I would say that all binary thinking is either good or bad. However, I prefer to think in a spectrum way and to think contextually. There are times when binary thinking is the best thing to do and there are times when certain things in life only have one correct answer.
Try this puzzle:
Find a common English three letter word, knowing that:
• LEG has no common letter with it
• ERG has one common letter, not in the correct place
• SIR has one common letter, at the correct place
• SIC has one common letter, not at the correct place
• AIL has one common letter, not at the correct place
If you work through it exactly, you will only have one possible correct three-letter word answer. Keep re-checking your process until you are certain then ask some work mates to do it.
There are times in life where we need exact answers and times in life where close enough is good enough. There are times
when binary thinking helps us be quicker and less stressed. However, there are also times when we need to think in spectrums.
This is spectrum thinking:
• Thinking in the entire range of wavelengths
• Nuances
• Layers
• Contextual (It depends)
• Percentages
• Possibilities
• Contradictions
• Partially correct answers
The binary approach is the folk wisdom that if we only have a hammer then every problem looks like a nail. Spectrum thinking says that more often than not we might use our hammer for nailing but the hammer doesn’t always have to be a single purpose tool.
With a little change and range of thinking the hammer might be used as a weight, a doorstop, pry-bar, gavel, sign holder or even a tennis racquet. (Check Shlomo Breznitz’s Maximum Brainpower for this reference and other wonderful brain cognition research). Spectrum thinking allows binary thinking to be one approach within the range of tools; however binary thinking alone doesn’t allow for spectrums.
Creating smarter and wiser thinking environments is part of my work with organisations, CEOs, schools, communities, radio listeners and readers. To do this, I will sometimes utilise slides in presentations and other times not, and some of the slides will be black and white whilst others will be the full range of a rainbow.
As best as possible, as well as we can in life, we need to run with what suits our purpose and outcome as well as what will have the greatest possibility of engagement and impact for creating learning/thinking wisdom. We can think just in black or white or we can do binary at times and sing a rainbow, too.