Learning for Innovation

Learning For Innovation

Innovation is essential for developing wholeness in people and organizations. Terms such as learning organization, lifelong learning, and growth mindset pay tribute to the changing dynamics. A shift in thinking occurs from we learn, know, and then apply, to we won’t know till we try, and from that, we understand. A closer look at the different modes of thinking shows that we cannot merely replace one with the other. Instead, we need to integrate them to enhance innovation and wholesomeness.

Learning occurs naturally in life.

Learning is what enables us to adapt to our ever-changing environment. A newborn starts crying when it feels discomfort. It will eventually learn to associate that discomfort with hunger. In life, we are constantly learning; when we are young, we call it playing, which captures nicely the joy learning can bring. Learning builds understanding, relates ideas, makes connections between prior and new knowledge, and even transfers this knowledge to new and different contexts. In the brain, new knowledge is represented by the formation of brain cells and synaptic connections. A healthy lifestyle, including sufficient sleep and exercise, is positively correlated to the strength and formation of these cells. However, one of the most significant factors is experience. It continuously shapes our brain structure and modifies our behavior. Cognitive neuroscience looks at how the brain learns, stores, and uses the information it acquires.

Learning and thinking are intertwined.

Thinking is essential for learning. To understand the elements relevant to innovation and integration, we will look at five modes of thinking: categorical, relational, innovative, integrative, and systems thinking. Categorizing is how we structure data, and relational is how we use the data. Innovating finds new ways to use the data. Integrative links data across opposing dynamics, and systems thinking acknowledges the interplay of all dynamics. While some of these modes are always present, others only develop over time. Innovative thinking emerges earlier than integrative and systems thinking. Both, however, are vital for development to be wholesome.

Categorical thinking.

Categorizing makes sense.

Categorization is the act of seeing something as something else and is fundamental for learning. Barking and wiggling a tail makes us recognize a dog, irrespective of whether it is a Chihuahua or a Husky. Categorization lets us quickly grasp something new by linking it with something we are already familiar with. It allows us to take in large amounts of data and simplify and structure it to make sense of the world quickly.

Depending on our experiences and interests in life, we can go on to further differentiate the data we encounter. We might notice that one dog is small and the other large. One has short hair while the other has long hair, yet we can be sure they both classify as dogs. We can further differentiate by drawing distinctions. This is where granularity comes in.

Granularity is about distinctions.

Legend has it that the Inuit can differentiate between 27 different types of snowflakes. This is a vital piece of information that can become a matter of survival if the weather changes. They distinguish details that people from other parts of the world might not detect even if pointed out. Their granularity regarding snowflakes is very high. The term granularity refers to the scale or level of detail in a data set. More granular means more detail and clarity, whereas less granular means less detail; therefore, a bigger picture emerges. This is like using a macro lens, whereby a full zoom on an object might reveal microstructures you cannot see with your bare eyes. Still, you have no clue what this might be, whereas resetting the zoom shows the object, but now you cannot see the detailed structure anymore.

Bart de Langhe and Philip Fernbach describe in their article on The Dangers of Categorical Thinking how the view of the world can be warped by categorical thinking and how that can harm our ability to make sound decisions. This would result from a lack of granularity when you don’t refine your knowledge. Distinctions are how you can move beyond the limitations of categorical thinking.

Distinctions are the basis for specialization.

The capacity to analyze and clarify is valuable, and there are many distinctions we can draw in life. An expert can draw distinctions in his area of expertise that others cannot. When we are younger, we naturally learn to draw distinctions in the fields that interest us, such as sport, music, language, or art. Our ability to draw distinctions in a specific area might be considered our talent. Once we settle into a particular career path, our schooling system predefines the subjects within which we are to build granularity. Whether school or passion fuels our desire to learn, we refine knowledge by drawing distinctions, and with the ability to identify plenty of differences, we become experts within a field. However, you can also have too much of a good thing. The Guinness book of records is full of people that have expertise in some field.

There is a term for specialists with a narrow focus in the German language. They are referred to as “Fachidiot” which translates to subject idiot, but that translation does not capture the meaning entirely. A “Fachidiot” has such expertise in his area that he interprets everything through the limited lens of his content, thereby missing the context. You can liken it to a case of not seeing the forest for all the trees.

Having deep expertise in only a few areas can make it challenging to relate to other things and people. It also limits our creativity. We know so much in that one area that we cannot see anything for anything else anymore. One glance, and we „know“ it is one thing and lose our ability to see anything else. This hampers our ability to innovate, for mistaking something for something else is also a skill.

Relational thinking.

Relating puts things into perspective.

There is no use if we can distinguish hunger from other physical sensations if we haven’t associated eating something with making the desire go away. Relational thinking refers to our ability to perceive basic patterns and make sense of them. While distinctions can be seen as segmentations within a category, relating draws connections between categories. One focuses on content and the other puts it in context.

Categorizing and relating are among the cognitive cornerstones for development. We apply both across our lifespans—however, a few factors influence which is more pronounced in our lives. If you grow up within a collective mindset, as cultures with tight-knit family structures or communist ideologies have, your relational thinking muscle is likely more developed than your categorical thinking. Whereas if you are raised with an individualistic mindset, as western cultures often promote, your categorical thinking muscle that focuses on making distinctions is likely more enhanced.

Bevor I reveal the exciting differences, let me give you a chance to test your brain: you have a bear, a monkey, and a banana; which two go together?

Photos by Zdeněk Macháček, Jamie Haughton, and charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

Have you made your decision? Ask categorical thinkers, and they will group the animals, whereas a relational thinker is more likely to group the monkey and the banana. Those who instantly see both options might be suitable to mediate across functions. Another difference is that categorical thinkers will first look at themselves or the central object when looking at a picture. In contrast, relational thinkers first take in the surrounding scenery. The awareness is different, which is also reflected in how these thinkers take in new information. Try practicing one or the other to balance your preferred thinking mode. Innovation relies on different ways of thinking.

Innovative thinking.

Relating knowledge to new and different contexts.

Innovation is about breaking the tendency to think categorically and puts us in the sphere of relational thinking. However, this requires us first to have categorical thinking well established. Creativity is often described as connecting the dots. The more dots we have, especially from many different fields, the more new connections we can create. How do we get lots of dots? Remember granularity? Dots are the details we get by drawing distinctions. Connecting the dots happens based on relational thinking. Innovating is when we link the previously unrelated in new and different contexts.

Innovation requires the capacity to categorize, distinguish, and relate.

Creativity is the art of combining something in a way that hasn’t been done before. It is about seeing the world in new ways and finding patterns between unrelated things that enable us to draw a connection. The more unrelated the dots, the more creative a relationship strikes us. To recognize patterns that speak for a link, we no longer focus on differentiating within a category. Instead, we focus on finding similarities between distinctions. And as we live in a world of endless options, this is not a conscious process of linear cross-checking which ones might match. Instead, such matches are the result of overlapping and can be furthered by two means: increased distinctions and increased variety.

An example of this might be reading two books parallel. I always have at least one audiobook and another book on my e-reader and daily ‘read’ a few chapters of each. Talk about cross-pollination. This is akin to a musician that knows a wide range of different musical genres being more likely to compose something unusual than a musician that is only familiar with one genre – the latter has fewer dots in his repertoire to mix and match.

Innovation is thinking differently.

We never stop categorizing, distinguishing, and relating in life, but there seems to be a change in how they interact. We first need to define a category before further differentiating it. Similarly, we first need to understand the relationships between dots before linking dots ourselves. I liken them to bowls that are nested within each other. Upon filling with good examples to solidify our understanding, they spill over into the next bigger one. Here they combine to bring on new cognitive abilities. Up to this point, creation occurred primarily by following existing blueprints. Innovative thinking enables us to link dots and create entirely new blueprints on our own.

Relational thinking expanded beyond the known connections we learned from others or observed ourselves to creating new ones. However, that is not all. Relational thinking is the foundation of other modes of thinking as well. In the beginning, I mentioned integrative thinking and systems thinking. I will expand on these in my next article on Integrative Thinking.