While many jobs for American Masters of
Business Arts (MBA) graduates are going overseas, those who have Masters of
Fine Arts (MFA) will be in great demand. According to Gartner Inc, by 2010, 40
percent of IT jobs for MBA’s will be outsourced to workers overseas. The reason? A person can fill in a spreadsheet from India
as easily as from Silicone Valley for one-tenth the cost.
However, corporations cannot outsource
creative jobs as easily. The ability to go quickly from problem to problem,
problem to solution, or from initial idea to unique product does not cross
cultures well. The employee needs to be a part of the culture he or she is
marketing to. As a result, American employees with Masters of Fine Arts degrees
(MFA’s) are more in demand and earning more than those with MBA’s.
Why does someone who is trained in artistic
abilities do well in business? It’s not the particular artistic talent, but the
thought process that creates it. Fine artists have the ability to apply
non-linear thought to problems, which is a valuable business skill.
Companies are looking for those employees who can apply a non-linear thought
process to business problems.
What’s the Difference?
Here is a simple exercise that will
demonstrate the difference between a linear and non-linear thought process.
Take out a sheet of paper. In the top left corner, write a letter “A.” In the
center of the page, write a “B.” Halfway down the page on the right hand side,
parallel to the “B,” write a “C.” In the bottom right corner, write a “D,” and
in the bottom left corner write an “E.” Now draw a line from A to B to C to D
to E. That is linear thought–arriving at the final answer by following a
step-by-step process.
Now take your right thumb and forefinger and
grab the left top corner of the page next to the A. With your other thumb and
forefinger, grasp the lower left corner next to the “E.” Touch the A to the E.
That’s non-linear thought–finding the solution without having to go from point
to point to point.
Non-Linear Thinking is an Inherent Skill
From the moment you are born, you are an input
device constantly making connections. In the first five years of life, your
brain grows very rapidly and sets down patterns of recognition. For example, as
a survival skill, infants smile at everyone. Next they learn to recognize mommy
and daddy, then they develop a fear of strangers, and then they learn to
reserve affinity for family and other trusted people. Finally, they choose
their own friends.
Over time, people begin to lay down patterns
of normal and non-normal. That’s why you can look at a situation and know
something isn’t right. If you see someone in an airport who has recently had a
stroke, you may not realize the individual had one, but you do know that
something isn’t right. That is called non-linear thinking–moving quickly from
an observation to an end-point. Depending on your experience, that endpoint
might have an accuracy as low as 50-50. However, for people trained in
creativity, the accuracy is about 99.7 percent. These quick, non-linear
solutions, called snap judgments or instinct, are valuable in life and in
business. Too often, though, these instincts are not used in the business
world, but that’s about to change.
Creative, Non-Linear People Benefit Business
Creative people get in touch with the emotion
of what they’re creating in themselves and use that as a guide to produce the
same emotion in another person from the same society. Businesses see the value
of that skill–an employee making decisions based on the mindset of a person of
the general society, not as an employee tied to a business. Your non-linear, or
heuristic, thought processes are when you observe from the inside out, seeing
how your own emotions mirror the ones you observe in others.
Can people only achieve this non-linear
thinking ability by earning an MFA? Of course not. Not everyone is willing to
go back to school for another two to three years to get their MFA. Fortunately,
you can encourage the same type of non-linear thinking in yourself and your
employees.
* Eliminate your framing bias.
How you ask questions determines the answers
you get. For example, if you manufacture candy bars and you’re ranked second in
sales behind brand A, you may ask yourself, “How can we take market share away
from brand A?” The obvious linear answer: make your product taste like Brand A.
You have labs, testers, and linear thought people who can make Brand B taste
like Brand A, or even better. Due to framing bias, they ask the focus group,
“Which one tastes like Brand A? Which one do you like better?” Brand B wins,
because now it tastes just a little better than Brand A.
But the problem with this scenario is that
nobody ever went back and asked the basic question: Will our existing customers
accept this change? The executives assume brand loyalty will drag customers
along. But if they have a core group of fans who love the original taste of the
product, in changing the flavor, they alienate them.
* Quantitate non-linear thought.
Learn to apply non-linear or heuristic
research methods by taking a written inventory of your own feelings,
prejudices, and thoughts on the subject at hand. Now you have the ability to
walk into a situation and start observing how the situation itself affects you.
That’s called “going with your gut.” If you are a representative of your
culture, your environment, and your area of expertise, as well as in touch with
your customers and what you experience and feel, then you have unframed your
bias. If you are honest, you will be feeling the same reaction as your
customers, and you have just gone from point A to point E without all the
letters in between.
A business person needs to walk through the
mental door to unframe his or her biases. For example, with the chocolate bar
example, a good businessperson would go to the store, or go to the factory, or
call his or her best distributors. The businessperson would evaluate whether
the new product was flying off the shelf. If so, that’s good. But he or she
would not let that framing bias affect the next time he or she goes through the
door, as the opposite may be true then. Such an instantaneous response leads
you to continue doing what you’re doing or more of it, depending on how well
it’s going.
Learning Non-Linear Thinking and Dual
Processing
A new intern fresh out of medical school is
the ultimate linear thought machine. In medical school, students are taught
that symptom equals possible disease. A equals B. They then run a test to
confirm if B equals C. This process, however, is not conducive to all types of
medicine. As soon as these new interns walk into an emergency room, they quickly
learn non-linear thinking. After a few days of training, experience, and
drilling, they become parallel processing machines. They still do their linear
thought processes but they also tap back into the non-linear thinking they had
before they got their higher education.
Most people who are now are drifting to an MFA
degree already have their MBA. They’ve learned and honed their linear thought
processes into a sharp edge; now they get their MFA to hone and reactivate
their non-linear thought processes. At the end of all that education, they must
learn to parallel process on their own, much like the emergency room interns.
In the future, people will pursue their MFA
after getting their Bachelor’s in business. This way they will achieve both
linear and non-linear thought processes and they’ll learn to parallel process.
Five to seven years from now, we will see people start earning dual degrees, or
universities may start offering a new degree that incorporates both.
In the meantime, businesses will need to find ways to encourage
parallel processing in their employees. They can do this in a few days of
intense training in a corporate retreat setting, or spread over several weeks
in a coaching environment. Getting back in touch with non-linear thinking is not
hard. Being able to parallel process takes some practice, but the payoff will
be more success for businesses, a steady job outlook, and higher earnings for
those who master this skill.
