Different ways of thinking

A few years ago I read an inspirational book by Michael Gelb called “How to think like Leonardo da Vinci“. It’s an amazing book to prompt different thinking and increase your powers of creativity. The book came to mind last week as I was thinking through some ideas in the day job.

I want to push our work to the next level, really explore a big idea and take it out across the region. To do this, we need to be thinking differently.

Revisiting some of the ideas in that book by Gelb, I found the 7 types of thinking which he identifies. It’s a great way to classify diverse approaches to thinking. Here they are:

1. Curiosita – insatiable curiosity and an unrelenting quest for learning.
2. Dimostrazione – testing things out through experience, persistence and willingness to learn from mistakes.
3. Sensazione – continual refinement of the senses to enliven experience.
4. Sfumato – literally “going up in smoke”. Willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty.
5. Arte / Scienza – the balance between science and art, logic and imagination. Whole brain thinking.
6. Corporalita – cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise.
7. Connessione – recognising the connectedness of all things. Systems thinking.

When I look at that list, I can see that there we already have work across a number of these areas. But there is a lot to be gained from ensuring that we are truly embracing ALL of these ways of thinking.

I’m trying to draw together the strands of work that we do into a coherent and overarching programme. This model developed by Gelb from da Vinci’s Notebooks provides a framework to help to build a coherent approach.