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By Roy H. Williams

Hear Memo... Horizontal Thinking 

American education teaches a subject vertically, narrow and deep. And the deeper one plunges into the subject, the narrower it gets. Specialization.

1a. Liberal Arts
1b. Literature
1c. Spanish Literature
1d. Spanish Literature of 1492-1681
1e. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
1f. Don Quixote de La Mancha by Cervantes (1605)
1g. Symbolism in Don Quixote

And then you write your master’s thesis:

1h. Sancho Panza as a Figurative Symbol in Don Quixote de La Mancha

Our educational system has taught us to value vertical, deductive reasoning. This is why our logic is so often binary: if-then, either-or, right-wrong. This is the logic of technology.

But vertical thinking is most powerful when augmented by a horizontal viewpoint since the lateral perspective will often spy answers that lie outside the vertical path.

Horizontal thinking will recognize a pattern it has seen, even when that pattern was observed in a completely unrelated field.  (The cognoscenti will remember this technique as Business Problem Topology.) This "pattern recognition" often allows the horizontal thinker to correctly predict an outcome from what appears to be too little information.

Intuition is unconscious, horizontal thinking.

Purely horizontal thinking is known as daydreaming. Fantasy. Mysticism. The purely horizontal thinker has a thousand ideas but puts none of them into action. He or she sees the big picture and all its possibilities but has little interest in linear, step-by-step implementation.

Purely vertical thinking leads to compliance, conformity, and a false sense of knowledge. (False because it’s often just memorization in disguise. The student knows what to do without understanding why.) The purely vertical thinker is a nit-picker, a legalist, a tight-ass.

The healthy mind is capable of switching from vertical to horizontal thought and back again.

Problem solving is horizontal thinking adjusted by vertical analysis. But the implementation of that solution will require step-by-step, vertical action modified by horizontal adjustments as the need arises.

Read his books and you’ll recognize Lee Iacocca as a horizontal thinker who implements his ideas vertically.

Iacocca sees patterns, then takes sequential action to accomplish what he has seen in his mind.

"When you stop to think about it, most of the great companies of our times began as upstarts – little Davids taking on big Goliaths." – Lee Iacocca, Where Have All the Leaders Gone? p. 159    

Horizontal thought is how Iacocca rescued Chrysler from the brink of disaster. It's how Peter Ueberroth organized the wildly successful Los Angeles Olympics and generated a surplus of 250 million dollars. It's how Amazon.com and eBay came to be. It's how the Prius and the iPod were born.

Wizard Academy teaches you how to see the answers that lie outside the vertical perspective.

Are you a little David? Do you want to learn the techniques of the great innovators?

Come to Wizard Academy and we’ll teach you how to defeat the Goliath in your life.

Yours,

Roy H. Williams

How to Sell Radio Advertising and Make it Work
is horizontal thinking applied to the future of radio. If radio is your business, you need to be here June 24-25.

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By Roy H. Williams

Hear memo 

Socrates was right, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Most of us have moments when we ask, “Am I happy? Is this what I want to do? Am I making a difference? Would I be missed if I were gone?”

Introspection is like medicine. It’s beneficial in small doses but an overdose will leave you self-absorbed and depressed.

My policy to write about you, not me.
My goal is to give you interesting things to think about.
My hope is that your life will be made better because of me.

People who perceive these things through my writings assume I’m a sensitive person who will look deep into their eyes and say profound things. They’re always disappointed when they meet me. In truth, I am introverted, vain, vulgar, and socially awkward.

But God likes me anyway.

Strangely, I’m a powerful public speaker. This is due to what psychologists call my auxiliary personality, a hidden part of me that walks on stage when it’s show time. The bigger the crowd, the taller my auxiliary. The real me always watches from offstage. “Gosh, he seems to be doing pretty well. Let’s hope he doesn’t say something I’ll regret.”

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All ships rise on an incoming tide just as even a lazy business can increase sales in a buoyant market.  However the tide is turning.

To quote Roy H. Williams in his memo Buried Treasure, "2008 is shaping up to be an unhappy year for most product and service categories." 

Want some more indicators of the turning tide?

Currently there are 2,011,770 businesses in Australia.

Of those, 1,930,000 employ fewer than 20 people.

Businesses in Australia that have no staff number 1,200,000.

Of the businesses that started in 2003, 58 percent are still operating.
To look at that another way, 42 percent failed.

Of the ones that failed:
•    36 percent folded in the first year
•    27 percent the second year
•    20 percent in the third year
•    17 percent closed in year 4

The businesses with no employees had the highest failure rate.

First a seemingly insignificant David took on a giant and rocked the world.

Now the world has Paul Potts. Enjoy...  

Hallmark Card Moment. Shy Welshman, no extra charge.

- Roy H. Williams 

Did you click the link? Go on brighten your day. Do it. You really want to.

PS. A special thanks to Wizard Partner Clay Campbell for sharing.