THE AUSTRALIAN: THE first female Australian bishops could be ordained within a year after the Anglican Appellate Tribunal found there was nothing in the church’s constitution to stop their elevation.

Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall said yesterday it was possible a woman bishop could be appointed next year, the logical progression of the decision 16 years ago to ordain women as priests.

However, Dr Aspinall said there were no vacancies and pointed out the country’s 23 diocesan bishops had agreed to delay any decisions about how to proceed until their next national meeting, in April.

Announcing that the seven-man Appellate Tribunal had found no impediment in the church’s constitution against women becoming bishops, Dr Aspinall admitted the move might provoke some parishioners to leave the church.

Yesterday I went to the Melbourne Museum to see the new interactive multi-media installation THE MIND: ENTER THE LABYRINTH. It’s a trip! Also, well worth the visit both to the new museum itself and to the MIND exhibit.

Explore the workings of the mind by entering a world of emotions, thoughts, memories and dreams. Step into the shoes of those that see the world from different mind perspectives. Discover the ways in which drugs and disorders affect our minds and question your attitudes to normality.

Here’s a simple audit for you to rate your own brainpower. It was designed by Dr Eric Bienstock who is Vice-Principal of SOT in New York. Eric based this checklist on the SOT’s Learn-To-Think Coursebook and Instructors Manual (Michael Hewitt-Gleeson & Edward de Bono, Capra/New 1982).

How do you rate your own brainpower?

INSTRUCTIONS: Answer each of the following questions, scoring
either 3, 2, 1, or 0 points for each answer depending on your
objective estimate of how often you actually do what is stated.
Use your best guess of the following criteria for scoring:

3 - 90% OF THE TIME (nearly always)
2 - 70% OF THE TIME (mostly)
1 - 40% OF THE TIME (often)
0 - 10% OF THE TIME (hardly ever)

SCORE

______ My judgements of ideas are based on the value of the idea rather
than on my emotions at the time.

_______ I judge ideas not just as “good” or “bad” but also as “interesting”
if they can lead on to better ideas.

_______ I consider all factors in a situation before choosing, deciding or planning.

_______ I consider all factors first, before picking out the ones that matter most.

_______ When I create a rule I see to it that it is clearly understood
and possible to obey.

_______ I try to see the purpose of rules I have to obey, even if I don’t like the rules.

_______ I look at consequences of my decisions or actions not only as they affect me
but also as they affect other people.

_______ I look at a wide range of possible consequences before deciding
which consequences to bother about.

_______ On the way to a final objective I establish a chain of smaller objectives
each one following on from the previous one.

_______ The objectives I set are near enough, real enough and possible
enough for me to really try to reach them.

_______ In planning, I know exactly what I want to achieve.

_______ I keep my plans as simple and direct as possible.

_______ I know exactly why I have chosen something as a priority.

_______ I try to get as many different ideas as possible first,
before starting to pick out the priorities.

_______ I will go on looking for alternatives until I find one I really like.

_______ While most people look for alternatives when they are not satisfied;
I look for them deliberately even when I am satisfied.

_______ I am able to tell myself the real reason behind a decision I make.

_______ Before making a decision, I consider the factors, look at the consequences,
get clear about the objectives, assess the priorities, and search for possible alternatives.

_______ I am able to see the other person’s point-of-view whether I agree with it or not.

_______ I am able to spell out the differences and similarities between different viewpoints.

_______ TOTAL SCORE.

INTERPRETATION

Don’t panic, this is NOT a scientific test. It’s just an audit or checklist to help you take stock of your thinking, that’s all! A trained thinker can direct his
or her thinking and use it in a deliberate manner to produce an effect.
To a trained and skilled thinker, thinking is a tool that can be used at will
and the use of this tool is practical. This ability to use ‘thinking as a skill’
is the sort of thinking ability that is required to get things DONE.

* If your total score in this test was between 51 and 60 points,
you may already possess superior brainpower.
* If you scored between 31 and 50 points, you may have better than average brainpower.
* If you scored between 0 and 30, you may possess no additional brainpower
other than the natural thinking ability that most people have.

___________ Record your score and any comments you have:

TENPOWER: The Powers of Ten: Just ask the question: How can I X10 this?

Tenpower is a measurement tool. Measurement is a very important skill for the brainuser to develop. It’s also a big help in finding a way out of our CVS. For example, a BVS is a decimal of a CVS. A CVS is also a decimal of a BVS. In other words, they are related by powers of ten. Sometimes a BVS is ten times smaller than a CVS. Other times it is ten times greater.

The deliberate or habitual use of the number 10 is called Tenpower.

Ten times better may be ten times more, or ten times less, or ten units forward or ten units back. It’s the deliberate use of tenpower as a provocation to get you to escape from your CVS.

Tenpower helps you to switch patterns of perception. That’s all.

While it is not important that the number ten is accurately used, its use is a powerful escape mechanism.

Tenpower is simple and powerful but it’s not easy.

Just add a zero and take an X10 leap with tenpower!

This was the title of a lecture I presented a few years ago at Monash Medical Centre to the medical staff. The title was deliberately provocative and the auditorium was filled. Doctors and medical staff work hard, they make critical decisions under relentless pressure and they use the same brain that we use.

This well-written article from the New Yorker by Jerome Groopman explores this topic:

“The errors that doctors make because of their feelings for a patient can be significant. We all want to believe that our physician likes us and is moved by our plight. Doctors, in turn, are encouraged to develop positive feelings for their patients; caring is generally held to be the cornerstone of humanistic medicine. Sometimes, however, a doctor’s impulse to protect a patient he likes or admires can adversely affect his judgment.”

More …

George Gallup

George Horace Gallup (November 18, 1901 – July 26, 1984), American statistician, invented the Gallup poll, a successful statistical method of survey sampling for measuring public opinion.

As a pioneering pollster, company founder Dr. George Gallup determined that in seeking the truth, that is, the actual “will” of the people, his guiding principle would be independence. To ensure his independence, and therefore his objectivity, Dr. Gallup resolved that he would undertake no polling that was paid for or sponsored in any way by special interest groups such as the Republican and Democratic parties. Adhering to this principle, The Gallup Organization has turned down thousands of requests for surveys from organizations representing every shade of the political spectrum and with every kind of special agenda.

In business, Jack Welch was the most famous advocate of cvs2bvs in the US.

He used cvs2bvs at GE to help him change the culture of a 100-year-old manufacturer to the most valuable company (at the time he left it) in the history of the world!

I was invited to GE soon after he became chairman and CEO. In the 1980s I spent several years, at his request, installing the cvs2bvs brain software at GE. He wrote to me saying, “I would love to have a management team that really understood the cvs2bvs equation. It’s the ‘value-added’ role in the management process”.

In his book about his time at GE called, Jack (Warner Books 2001), he wrote, “It would make each of us wake up with the goal of “Finding a Better Way Every Day”. It was a phrase that became a slogan, put up on the walls of GE factories and offices around the world”.

Jack also used cvs2bvs in crisis management situations and on one very serious occasion involving a crisis between GE and Reagan’s Defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, Jack asked me to meet with him privately, in Manhattan, to apply cvs2bvs to finding a solution.

He also told me that it helped him design new concepts like ‘Boundarylessness’ and ‘Work-Out’. He wrote, “Suddenly, “Finding a Better Way Every Day” wasn’t just a slogan. It was the essence of boundaryless behaviour, and it defined our expectations”. Jack was famous for the little hand-written notes he would send to people. He sent me several and the one I prized the most was, “Michael, you are a friend of our company”.

Triathletes use cvs2bvs to get better (and ‘better’ means more clever) at swimming, cycling and running. 1998 Canadian Ironman, Shane Smith, won his medal at Penticton BC and presented it to me because he said he used cvs2bvs to plan his strategy to win it. I still have it hanging on my wall because it is the only triathlon award I’m ever likely to see.

Others use the cvs2bvs brain software to get better at relationships and parenting. Scientists use it for better researching and designing better experiments. You can use it to become better at listening, better at solving business problems, better at selling, better at creating opportunities, better at making decisions, better at handling family matters, better at dealing with personal situations, better at getting better, better at anything!

Olympic Gold medalist, Peter Vidmar, was another sports advocate of cvs2bvs. Peter was the first ever to get a perfect 10 in gymnastics and did so at the XXIII Olympiad Los Angeles in 1984. He used to say, “CVS to BVS plus ROV!”

Gymnasts, Peter explained, were rated on Risk, Originality and Virtuosity or ROV. At that time, all Olympians were presented with a beautiful full-colour, hardbound Commemorative Book by the IOC as a souvenir of their participation in the games. In appreciation, Peter presented his copy to me with the inscription, “CVS to BVS + ROV”.

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