Michael Vaughan - The Thinking Effect: Rethinking Thinking to Create Great Leaders and the New Value Worker

Praise for The Thinking Effect

In The Thinking Effect, Mike Vaughan provides great insight into why most training programs fail, and more importantly, what to do about it. The book is transformational, thoughtful, and provocative. Mike provides a vision and path for the future and calls us to rethink thinking. He succinctly lays out how to use cutting-edge simulations to engage individuals in a virtuous cycle that involves improving thinking, applying it to different situations, and learning from the outcomea cycle that changes mental models and reveals what we call the Thinking Effect. A must readI believe that this will become one of the most important books in our field!

Chris Hardy, Ph.D., Director, Global Learning and Technology Center, Defense Acquisition University

Mike Vaughan has nailed a critical leadership and learning issue and the way out of it. His book should be a must read for individuals and organizations that want to make a difference.

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, US Navy, Ret. NASA Astronaut TO

Finally a book that articulates a simple methodology of how to think versus what to think, that is sustainable, scalable, agnostic to time, economy, politics, and social and cultural bias. As I read through the book, the very activities getting in my way of thinking were happening as if he was narrating those very moments. Great leaders are not perfect, they succeed and fail. Failing forward, assimilating, adapting, and applying the lessons learned is the differentiator this author so artfully describes.

Rodahl Leong-Lyons, Vice President of SalesAmericas, HYATT

The way the world does business has changed dramatically in the last decade and it will continue to change. That means educationespecially education for professionals and higher educationmust continue to change, continue to rethink aspects of their value propositions. Michael Vaughan is ahead of the curve in mapping how critical thinking and imagination are re-emerging as essentials for leadership in all fields.

John P. Fitzgibbons, S.J., President, Regis University

The noisy debates about whether schools are failing or work-force skills are slipping skips over the fundamental question, What is it we want our graduates and employees to know? The Thinking Effect argues persuasively that they should learn how to think. The lessons it offers, from cognitive science and neuro-biology, provide a clear guide as to how training and education can best achieve that goal.

Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor Professor of Management, The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, author of Talent on Demand

RETHINKING THINKING
to Create GREAT LEADERS
and the NEW VALUE WORKER

MICHAEL VAUGHAN

First published in the United States of America and
Great Britain by Nicholas Brealey Publishing in 2013

www.nicholasbrealey.com
www.thethinkingeffect.com

2013 by Michael Vaughan
Graphic images by Julie Leidel
Product images by Chris Kline

Cover Design: Laura Manthey Design

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Printed in the United States of America
18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

ISBN: 978-1-85788-599-6
E-ISBN: 978-1-85788-933-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vaughan, Michael, 1970

The thinking effect : rethinking thinking to create great leaders and the new value worker / by Michael Vaughan.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-85788-599-6 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-85788-933-8 (ebook)

1. Organizational learning. 2. Organizational effectiveness. 3. Thought and thinking. I. Title.

HD58.82.V38 2013
658.3124dc23

2013018714

To my amazing wife, Stefania, and my children, Stan, Evan, and Nica: You are the greatest thinkers and leaders in my life. Your support, love, and encouragement made this book happen.

To my colleagues at The Regis Company: thank you for embracing the audacious vision of changing the way organizations learn.

This book, from its original concept to its final form, represents the synthesis of ideas and input from many people. Since the list is so vast, I cant insert all the names herebut you know who you are! I wholeheartedly want to thank each of you for your time, insights, and guidance. As you read these pages, I hope I represented your contributions thoughtfully.

I would like to offer a special thanks to Bill Husson and Regis University, in Denver, Colorado, for providing the resources to start The Regis Company. And to my research and editing team, Meredith Jones and Jenny Sullivan, for being great sounding boards and dealing with my endless revisions.

Several people have taken extra time over the past two decades to help guide my thinking, and this, in turn, has shaped who I amboth as a leader and as a person. The first person I would like to acknowledge is Ed Yoblonski. I met Ed in 1990 during my first college internship. After graduating from college in 1993, Ed hired me to lead a team of twenty-seven people who were responsible for monitoring the phone system across the Western United States. All the people on my team were members of a telecommunications union. On my first day on the job, Marya member of my team who also happened to be lead representative of the unionsaid to me, Ive been at this job more years than you are old, and Im going to watch every move you make. And she did. I was written up for a union violation almost every week for the first few months. Through Eds guidance, however, I learned the true essence of leadership. During the course of my first year, we created a fun and supportive team. In fact, Mary asked me if I would serve as the representative between the union and management during contract renegotiations that following summer.

The next individual who took me under his wing was Dr. Tony DSouza, a Jesuit priest from India. After spending time in management positions at large organizations, I had become downhearted with the leaders around me. Many were close minded and old school, with no desire to change. In my pursuit of answers and insights, I met Tony at a retreat he was leading in Colorado. He taught me about limiting beliefs and helped me uncover my own. Shortly after the retreat, I tossed on a backpack and went to India to stay at various villages and retreat centers outside Mumbai that Tony organized for me. During that time I learned the importance of self-awareness and awareness of others.

I met Peggy Steele in 1995, when she acquired my first software company. Lets just say this world needs more leaders like Peggy. She could tell you that you screwed up in such a way that you would actually feel inspired to change. Peggy shaped my thinking about leadership and the importance of research. She challenged me to do, dream, and become more. Many of the ideas in this book were seeded by Peggy and her challenge to find new ways of educating others.