"Most of life is simple and basic. (p. 15)

However, to keep it that way, we've got to get really good at thinking about thinking. When I look at simplicity, I look at two things:
1) How we use language tools. They get you thinking.
2) How we ask questions. They get you thinking about the right things."

(p. 138) "Clutter stops you from doing breakthrough thinking. Anything that helps you organize your thinking is going to take you to a higher level, get you to ask bigger questions." 

WHO IS DESIGNING YOUR CONTENT FOR E-SPACES: SOMEONE SKILLED IN THINKING ABOUT THINKING? (P. 155 – 56)
A lot of work gets done in your e-spaces—from intranets and teleconferences, and everything in between—but who is designing these spaces and what goes inside them? Are your techno-wonks also skilled in helping people think? Don Winkler provides a good reason why you might want to expand the list of people who contribute to how these spaces are designed.

Winkler is chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Credit Company, the world's largest automotive finance company. He has spent his entire life living with dyslexia. "I go to bed at nine and wake up at three, for two reasons," he says. "Mostly, it's because I have so much fun doing what I do. I have a very strong sense of purpose. I also get up early because I need to prepare differently than many people. My laptop, the Internet, clipping services—everything needs to be cross-tabbed. And if it wasn't for my Palm Pilot, I'd never know where to be when."

What can dyslexia and other learning differences, which affect 15 percent of our population, teach us about content? "I see dyslexia as a gift," Winkler says. "It has taught me a lot about organizing information. Before I had all the technology I do now, I had to develop coping mechanisms. I learned to organize information just enough to ask the questions that got me to the real issues. I couldn't afford for meetings and conversations to produce even more for me to sift through. Most information just produces more complexity."

"I later learned that my ways of coping were teaching me to think about thinking. I realized that the real point of most information is to bring the conversation to a higher level. To help people ask better questions. And to create breakthroughs."

"For example," Winkler continued, " a few years ago, the bank I worked for was wrestling with some very complicated issues in our industry. My team and I spent a lot of time organizing information so people would focus on the contradictions, gaps, and opportunities. So more people would ask different kinds of questions."

"During a breakthrough meeting, Yolanda, a clerk in one of our branches, asked a very simple, yet powerful, question. She asked: 'Our goal is to do whatever it takes to serve every person that comes into the bank, right? Yet you just said only 50 out of every 100 people get their loan applications approved. Where do the other 50 go?"

"The answer," says Winkler, "was that these loan turndowns were walking out the door and going to finance companies, which provided loans to people with less-than-perfect credit. So Yolanda asked a second question: 'Don't we have a finance company at our bank?' The answer was yes."

"Yolanda's questions led to major breakthrough. We created a referral program that now accounts for over $150 million a month in new loan volume. All because Yolanda asked, and someone listened." Winkler concludes: "to me, that's what simplicity in information design is all about: Designing the information in ways so people ask new and tougher questions and have better conversations."

DESIGN NOTES: Winkler is often called upon within his organization to guide the discussions that created breakthroughs. You have the opportunity to do the same thing—and go further.

You could be asking teammates skilled in "thinking about thinking" to move beyond facilitation. They could be designing your e-spaces. Do you have people with organizational effectiveness, anthropology, sociology, or change agent backgrounds contributing to how content is organized, visualized, and compared? Are they the ones studying and listening to your associates as they use your tools?

Or is that left to the techno-wonks? If so, your associates are probably working too hard to see the connections and contradictions buried within your e-spaces.

(Back cover) "It's simple. Push aside those stacks of paper and business books cluttering your desk and pick up this one. Finally, fifty years after Peter Drucker heralded the rise of the knowledge worker, Bill Jensen gives us a smart, practical guide to the essential role of leaders in the knowledge age—creating clarity and context out of confusion."