Deep thinking: structured thinking

? 1- 1, the benefits of structured thinking from life scenes

? 1-2, which is widely used in the workplace.

2. Three elements of structured thinking

? 2- 1, with a clear theme

? 2-2. Classification and grouping

? 2-3, logical progress

3. Structured construction method

? 3- 1, find the structure from top to bottom

? 3-2, bottom-up induction and refining

Step 4 Find structural skills

? 4- 1. Derive structure through common structure types.

? 4-2. Accumulate structure when studying at ordinary times, and internalize knowledge into ability.

5. Daily training methods

? 5- 1, tired structure

? 5-2. Write an article

? 5-3. Talking about topics

0 1

Imagine that we are going to the supermarket to buy the following items: laundry detergent, pears, garbage bags, mops, apples, chopsticks and peanut oil. At this time, if you only rely on memory, you will often get lost after visiting the supermarket. If we change the way, simple classification, such as garbage bags, mops, laundry detergent are all related to cleaning; The fruits are apples and pears; The kitchen is related to chopsticks and peanut oil. Is it much easier to remember like this? In fact, everything you want to buy is the same, but the second way is more regular. Why is the second way easier to remember, because it is more in line with the basic laws of human thinking, that is, one is that the brain likes to remember less information, and the other is that the brain likes regular information. For another example, when the ancient Greeks looked up at the starry sky, they named various constellations, which was more vivid and easier to remember than scattered stars, which also proved that the human brain had the characteristics of classifying and organizing things.

In fact, not only in life, but also in work, there are often such scenes. For example, when writing a report, there are often a lot of scattered information and materials at hand. Convenient network also makes it very easy to retrieve massive information, but often the brain is in a mess, there is no way of thinking, and it is impossible to produce a high-quality written report with clear logic.

In addition, you may encounter this situation, that is, you have talked with the opposite person for a long time, and you can understand every word, but you just don't know what he really wants to say. After talking for a long time, I didn't want to listen, even a little anxious.

This is because our brains are not good at dealing with scattered and complicated information, and if we can organize scattered information with a "structure" or "framework", it is structured thinking. Structured thinking is widely used in the workplace. Its main functions are: 1, making thinking more logical, 2, solving problems more efficiently, and 3, communicating with people more clearly.

02

What are the elements of structured thinking? Structured thinking includes three elements: first, the theme is distinct, that is, there is a clear central idea; The second is classification and grouping, that is, grouping similar information together; Third, logical progression, that is, there is a logical relationship in the vertical direction and a progressive relationship in the horizontal direction. Let's talk about these three elements in detail.

1, the theme is clear and the central idea is clear. Look at the following passage first:

What does this passage mean that London is more open than other cities? Want to express the comparison between Zurich and other cities? Look at the person is a blank face, in fact, the article means:

Is that clear? Once the conclusions and opinions are expressed, readers can easily understand the meaning of this passage.

2. Classification and grouping. Grouping the same kind of information can meet two needs of the brain: one is to remember no more than seven ideas, concepts or projects at a time, and the other is to find out logical relationships and laws. It is not enough to group ideas or concepts by logical methods, but also to find out the logical relationship between them. The function of classification is to improve an abstract level and reduce the information that the brain needs to process. In this way, you don't need to remember every concept, you just need to remember the group to which these concepts belong. It is easier to remember because the thoughts at the next level can always prompt the thoughts at the next level.

There are three principles for classification and grouping: 1, and the thoughts at any level must be the summary of the thoughts at the next level; 2, the thoughts in each group must belong to the same logical category; 3, the thoughts at each level are independent and do not overlap (MECE principle).

The following figure shows an example of classification grouping:

3, logical progression, vertical level has a logical relationship, horizontal level has a progressive relationship. Vertical relationship can attract readers' attention well. Through vertical relationship, you can guide a question-and-answer dialogue and let readers know your thinking progress with great interest. The main mother who expresses her thoughts is to convey new information to the audience. In order to convey new information to the audience, the way of expression will inevitably make the other party question its logic, such as "why", "how to do this" or "why do you say this". As an author, he must answer readers' questions horizontally at the next level of expression. But your answer is still to convey new information to the reader that he doesn't know and make the reader have new questions, so you answer the reader's new questions at the next level.

As shown in the figure below, this is the structure of a business report. The theme of this report is to suggest buying the franchise of company B. There are three reasons for suggesting buying the franchise. At the next level of each reason, all the questions that readers may ask have been answered. To sum up, every statement you make will arouse readers' questions, and you must also answer readers' questions one by one at the horizontal structure level under this statement.

Let's talk about the horizontal relationship first. When considering how to express the next structural level, you must ensure that your expression can answer the questions caused by the expression at the previous level, and at the same time, you must ensure that the expression is logical. In other words, expressions must have a clear inductive or deductive relationship, and the two relationships can only be one of them, and inductive and deductive are the only two possible logical relationships. In deductive thinking group, it is the order of deductive reasoning. But in inductive thinking group, we can choose a logical order, and there are three common logical orders, namely, chronological order, spatial order order and importance order.

03

After talking about what structured thinking is, how to build a structure next? We can use top-down or bottom-up methods to build structures. The top-down method is usually simpler than the bottom-up method, so try the top-down method first.

1. Find the structure from top to bottom: conceive a framework first, and then put the information or solution into the framework.

Let's look at a problem first, how to arrange our work plan for a week. I believe it is not difficult. You must have heard of the important emergency four-quadrant time management rules. It's easy to know what to do beforehand and what to do afterwards.

Let's look at another question. Now we need to write an analysis report on the macro market environment of products. From what angles should information be collected and analyzed? If you don't use structure, you may say, "Ah, the overall economic environment is not good now, and enterprises are cutting costs in the cold winter of capital." This analysis is one-sided and unconvincing. The commonly used framework for analyzing macro-environment is PEST, that is, politics at the political level, economy at the economic level, society at the social level, and science and technology at the scientific and technological level. With this structure, information and opinions can be put in for a more comprehensive analysis. Similarly, the five-force model is used to analyze the competitive environment; Swot framework is used to analyze opportunities and advantages, etc. With the help of these frameworks, we can help our thinking to be more comprehensive, efficient and logical, and at the same time help us open our minds.

2. Summarize the structure from bottom to top: When you are not sure what framework you can use, you can structure the information through the following four steps.

Step 1: Brainstorm, and draw all the ideas on this issue on paper or whiteboard, including the ideas of other relevant personnel on this issue, no matter right or wrong, as long as they have ideas, they can also discuss and communicate in the middle. When the ideas are almost written, review these fragmented ideas and connect the similar ones.

Step 2: Contact grouping, which classifies and groups ideas according to contact conditions.

The third step: refine the structure and see if there are certain rules in these groups. According to this rule, it is necessary to adjust or supplement each group. At this time, the principle of mece (mutual independence and complete exhaustion) can be used to determine the group adjustment, and the final group is the structure.

The fourth step: point of view supplement, after determining the structure, see whether it is necessary to supplement other information under each structure, and finally improve the thinking.

Let's take an example: suppose your friend or younger generation is going to work in the Internet industry and asks you the question "Is a newcomer to the Internet a startup company or a mature big company?". Then how can we help him analyze it?

The first step: write down all the ideas: including 1, mature big companies have higher wages; 2. The training system of mature large companies is more perfect; 3. Mature big companies have many cows; 4. Startups can train people better; 5. Entrepreneurial companies can have a direct dialogue with top management; 6. Entrepreneurial companies are risky; 7. Entrepreneurial companies have equity and high potential income; 8. Entrepreneurial companies are promoted faster; 9. Mature big companies have good welfare; 10, the workflow in mature large companies is more standardized and efficient; 1 1, mature large companies are more likely to enter entrepreneurial small companies; 12, interpersonal relationships in large companies are complex.

Step 2: Grouping by contact, we can find that 1/6/7/9 seems to be related to income and welfare, and 2/4/8/1112 seems to be related to training development; 3/513 Regarding interpersonal relationships, the classification results are as follows:

Step 3: Use MECE principle to find out the rules of each group and determine the structure.

According to MECE principle, these groups need to be independent of each other and completely exhausted. Income, career development and interpersonal relationship are independent of each other, but have they been exhausted? I don't think so. Should we consider our own abilities and interests? Then, there are: income, career development, interpersonal relationship, ability and interest. Do these five elements conform to MECE principle now? It seems that they are almost exhausted. But it doesn't seem to be independent, because ability seems to be related to career development, so we combine career development and ability into income, career development, interpersonal relationship and interest, which is in line with MECE principle.

Step 4: supplement information, such as income, whether to consider the basic salary, bonus and salary increase frequency. Office environment, convenient transportation and welfare distribution; Whether to consider overtime in career development, and so on.

Using the above ideas to analyze the problem, has it become much clearer?

04

These are two ways to find the structure. In fact, there are some skills in finding a structure. Here are two tips:

1. Deduce the structure through common structure types: You will find that many thinking structures are actually very similar.

Mastering several common types of thinking structure will help us find the structure more easily when solving problems.

Here are some types of thinking structures, some of which are very common:

-Two-dimensional matrix category: task four-quadrant matrix (urgency and importance), Boston matrix (market share and growth rate), Ansoff matrix (new/old products, new/old markets).

-Process category: product value chain, customer life cycle.

-Three elements: 3C strategic triangle (company, customer, competitor) and workplace clover model.

-Stakeholder categories: five power models.

2. By learning the structure of knowledge accumulation, knowledge is internalized into ability.

How to internalize? As can be seen from the above examples, our knowledge and methodology are nothing more than a thinking structure. Therefore, when we read books, articles and learn new knowledge, if we can accumulate these thinking structures and apply them, that is, knowledge is internalized into ability, which is also called deliberate practice, which is the only way to improve ability.

For example, you know Maslow's five-level needs. Just knowledge. The Internet is everywhere, and thousands of people in Qian Qian know about it. However, if you analyze a problem (for example, how to improve the sharing rate of an active page) and apply this knowledge as your analytical framework to make your thinking more rigorous and structured, this is the ability to internalize knowledge.

Therefore, when learning knowledge, we should not only be satisfied with knowing, but also think further: What other occasions can we apply? In this way, the next time you meet the corresponding occasion, you can remember and apply this knowledge.

05

Knowing structured thinking is not enough. It takes us to practice deliberately, so that we can truly master and internalize our abilities and become our way of thinking, and finally we can skillfully use them. Here are three ways to practice. Persisting in practice will definitely improve structured thinking.

1. tired structure: when reading a book, I see some interesting theories, think about its three applications, then write them down as my own material and take them out when I have time. At the same time, these theories can also be classified, such as value chain and three elements.

2. Write articles: One article a week must be written in a structured way, and try to use the structured materials accumulated by yourself. If you don't have time to write an article, build the structure of the article and write the key points.

3. Talking about topics: Give yourself a topic every day, and use 15-20 minutes to solve/demonstrate this topic in a structured way. Don't write it down, just tell yourself or your peers. Similarly, try to use the structural materials you have accumulated in the process. In addition, if you conceive the structure yourself, you should also organize it in the material library. This training is the most critical point.

Finally, several points are summarized:

1, the function of structured thinking is: 1) to make thinking more logical, 2) to solve problems more efficiently, and 3) to communicate with people more clearly.

2. Three elements of structured thinking: 1) The theme is clear, that is, there is a clear central idea; 2) Classification and grouping, that is, grouping similar information together; 3) Logical progression, that is, there is a logical relationship in the vertical direction and a progressive relationship in the horizontal direction.

3. When facing a problem, don't go into the details immediately, think about the framework first. If you can't find the framework, list all the information and find the framework through bottom-up refining.

4. The structure shall conform to the principle of MECE (mutual independence and complete exhaustion) as far as possible. If not, it should at least meet CE (complete exhaustion);

5. Most structures are common types. When you can't find the structure, you can rely on these types: two-dimensional matrix, process, three elements, stakeholders;

6. The method of internalizing knowledge into ability: apply and integrate knowledge into your own thinking to improve your communication and thinking ability;

7. Methods of training structured thinking: Tired of structuring, writing articles and talking about topics.

1, circle the sun circle: "consulting fee 1 hour 3 thousand, you can learn their thinking" (WeChat official account article)

2. barbara minto: Golden Pagoda Principle (Book)