Whenever you want to do something better, or choose the best thing to do, you start thinking. Thinking is purposeful, it has to do with intention, and therefore reflects and drives motivation. Yet there is widespread opinion that it is just abstract, with no bearing on real life or practical action. "It's theory, and those who can, do: those who can't, think!" Some people pride themselves as doers, and despise thinkers as if they don't achieve anything much. Actually, every time something goes wrong it is usually because someone failed to think first. When it goes exceptionally right, it may well be due to the quality, speed or depth of thought, which is why exceptional producers of results are paid so highly. Indeed, fewer and fewer people today are paid for their physical strength, more and more for their ideas, knowledge, motivation and judgment.

However, what goes on inside the minds of everyone is not visible, even to the people concerned. Only when you become aware of your thinking skills can they be directed, steered and sharpened up for the future. Thinking is no narrow activity, but a highly complex integration of many interacting energies, which between them produce everything someone does and achieves. There is therefore no higher priority than to find out how thinking works to bring about what you need, and to learn to make the most of these faculties to assure the quality of everything you do.

Since most of our activities involve other people, it can be just as important to observe and understand how someone else is thinking: what they are bringing to the table. If it is hard to be aware of your own thinking processes, how can you expect to see the intentions behind their approach, what is going on inside their head? Everyone nowadays depends on other people making contributions to the task that are different, yet all dealing with them in a concerted way. This requires recognition of how everyone is thinking: what kinds of intelligence are required for this task, and what kinds will assure the result is effective, that it will get done.


Here are just some of the issues Effective Intelligence tackles. Which ones matter most to you?