Full-Spectrum Thinking: How to Escape Boxes in a Post-Categorical Future

INTRODUCTIONThe Core Story WHAT CATEGORIES DO YOU USE TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF?I like to ask this question at the beginning of workshops, and I’m always surprised by how many different categories people use to describe them- selves: mother, father, manager, accountant, leader, board member, soldier, cook, gardener, writer, and so on. Quickly listing 20 categories to describe oneself is not uncommon.How many different categories does it take before you start thinking of yourself across a broad spectrum?Categories coerce. Categories are thrown at people like capture nets over wild animals. Categories keep us in cages. Categories can kill.Full-spectrum1 thinking is the ability to seek patterns and clarity across gradients of possibility—outside,  across, beyond, or maybe even without any boxes or categories—while resisting false certainty.In today’s political climate, categories dumb down the way we talk about each other. Categorical thinking moves us away from understanding the bigger picture. It lacks context. Categories lead us toward certainty, butaway from clarity.Full-spectrum thinking has the potential to diffuse polarities, to reveal that our differences are not as stark as they seem through the narrow lens of categories. My colleague Toshi Hoo, who leads Institute for the Future’s Emerging Media Lab, commented to me that full-spectrum thinking helps us find the multidimensional ways in which things are connected—not just the ways in which they are distinct from each other.Think of the best leaders you have ever had, the people who inspired you the most. How did those leaders categorize themselves? How did they categorize you and others? My guess is that your best leaders didn’t categorize others mindlessly. They  made you feel recognized and empowered—but not stereotyped. They used appropriate categories to define your strengths and highlight your contributions, rather than pigeonhole you or degrade your efforts. They didn’t box you in or categorize you as something you are not. They saw the full amplitude of your potential. My guess is that your best leaders were clear about the future but rarely spoke in certainties.This book is about how to seed and nurture a mindset that expands the characteristics that you already admire in the best leaders. Full-spectrum thinking fosters empathy. Mindless categorizing fosters contempt. Categories make it easy to write off others with tired labels like “immigrant,” “black,” “white,” “millennial,” “gay,” “Jew,” “Muslim,” or “old.” Choosing an identity for yourself is one thing, but being labeled by others is quite another—and the way you say it can be just as important as what you say.The way forward is to develop full-spectrum thinking—not by advocat- ing for our own stereotypes of others or by creating new boxes to throw people into without careful thought.Being stuck in categorical thought doesn’t actually involve much think- ing at all—you just assume without thinking that new experiences will fit into your old boxes, buckets, labels, generalizations, and stereotypes. Knee- jerk categorization of others is reckless. Even if after careful thought you decide to categorize, you should start by thinking about a full spectrum of possibilities first.Categorizing is a convenient and time-honored strategy for gaining and maintaining power. Categorization can have psychological or material ben- efits by helping you develop your own identity and community. But lazy or careless categorizing of others is dangerous—and it will get even more dangerous in the future. Fortunately, a gradual shift from categorical to full-spectrum thinking has already begun.Elite basketball players, for example, used to be categorized as a 1 (point guard), a 2 (shooting guard), a 3 (small forward), a 4 (power forward), or a 5 (center). Then came Magic Johnson and later LeBron James, and now even more broad-spectrum players can play more than one position. Categorizing basketball players no longer works in the same way it did. Today’s best play- ers are position fluid. They cannot be categorized easily or consistently. The serious players all have a spectrum of talents that defy static categories. They play multiposition—I’d call it full-spectrum—basketball.But it won’t be a total flip from categorical to full-spectrum thinking. I’m not against categories if they are accurate and fair and do no harm. All of us need to create structures and categories of some kind that work for us and for others. The categories that we choose can be empowering.The  best scientists, for example, learn how to use categories without being deluded by them. Categories have a long history and at times have been very useful. Nevertheless, John Fowles argued that we have become so steeped in categorical thinking that we sometimes cannot experience the spectrum of possibilities that the world around us offers. Often, we cannot see the forest because we’re so focused on naming the trees.2Full-spectrum thinking will apply across all levels of aggregation: indi- vidual, organizational, and societal. In the future, full-spectrum thinking will become both more necessary and less difficult because of a new range of tools.A fresh mix of new and old technology and media tools will enable—and then require—full-spectrum thinking. Over the next decade, the current tools for full-spectrum thinking will get dramatically better, just as the need for more nuanced ways of perceiving and judging the outside world will increase.Powerful  digital  media—including  gameful engagement,  big  data analytics, visualization, blockchain, and machine learning—will be both more powerful and easier to use. New clarity filters will get practical just as the need becomes urgent. Digitally amplified full-spectrum thinking will help us resist the temptations of premature categorization and false certainty. It will be an antidote to the dangerous polarization of today.Full-spectrum thinking has the potential to reveal that commonalities are hidden in plain view. Full-spectrum thinking is about recognizing pat- terns, seeking clarity, and resisting certainty. A full-spectrum mindset is a great place to start in order to make sense out of ourselves, the world around us, and the future. It provides context. It encourages nuance.Even though unexamined categorical thinking remains in force and is unconsciously followed in many fields, a more positive future is coming that will allow us to be much more nuanced and hopeful. The preferable future will be an intelligent blend of cautious categorical and disciplined full-spectrum thinking.Increasingly, we will be able to use new digital tools for full-spectrum thinking to achieve breakthroughs in business, leadership, innovation, politics, community relations, and many other domains. Sloppy categorical thinking, so common today, will be inexcusable and embarrassing in the future.The future will be a scramble: an asymmetrical patchwork of urgency, panic, imbalance, and hope. Full-spectrum thinking will make people more future-ready and better able to make sense out of new opportunities and threats. Some people practice full-spectrum thinking already, and their efforts will become more visible and powerful. It will also be much easier for novices to develop their own full-spectrum thinking abilities.We will move toward—but never quite reach—a post-categorical future that will reward rigorous full-spectrum thinking. Categories won’t disap- pear, but they will be far less coercive.This book is about why now is the time to shift from categorical toward full-spectrum thinking. It will help you become more of a full-spectrum thinker. It will guide you in creating organizations that value and benefit from full-spectrum thinking. I have three goals in this book: 1.  Improve how people think about the past, the present, and the future. 2.  Improve how organizations identify and evaluate new business opportunities.3.  Depolarize strategic conversations to allow for a wider range of alternatives beyond binary choices. This book is designed for use in training and executive development pro- grams for corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, and the military. It is written for hiring managers, chief talent officers, CHROs, CEOs, CIOs, and innovators of all kinds.The Conclusion includes a series of guidelines, tools, and actions you can take now to develop your own full-spectrum thinking mindset as well as spread this kind of thinking across your organization.I want this book to seed and nurture full-spectrum thinking and a next generation of full-spectrum thinkers. My purpose is to encourage business leaders, educators, public officials, and individual people to think beyond simplistic labels, categories, boxes, slots, or buckets. The dangers of certi- tude are swelling.Full-Spectrum Thinking can be read on its own or in concert with The New Leadership Literacies and Leaders Make the Future. In Full-Spectrum Thinking, I focus on the mindset that will be required to win in the future—and make the world a better place. I began this trilogy after my experiences at the Army War College, when I asked what kind of skills would be necessary for leaders to thrive in the post-9/11 world. Then, I became intrigued with leadership literacies—the disciplines and practices of leadership—beyond skills. I recommend that you begin with mindset, then consider literacies and skills.This book flows through three related parts: „ Part One is focused on the core concepts and how futures thinking and full-spectrum thinking can break us out of the categorical constraintsof the past and present. „ Part Two is focused on the emerging tools, the networks, and the true digital natives who will engage with the scrambled world around us and expand full-spectrum thinking on a global scale.„ Part Three is focused on the future that is already beginning today.It will show you examples of broader spectrums and new applications that will become possible first, then mandatory.New spectrums of meaning will become possible as people see the future with more clarity, but less certainty.Many people are certain, but few are clear. That’s about to change.