Mind Mapping Information Pack - Illumine Training
In this introductory pack are:
An article on using Mind Maps for Lifelong Learning
How to Mind Map - an introduction
Tips on using Mind Maps for negotiations
A synopsis of a unique survey into the uses of Mind Maps
How to find out more
Note - Mind Map® and Mind Maps® are registered trademarks of the Buzan organization
Mind Mapping is one of the key techniques introduced in our suite of courses that help individuals to deal effectively with the growing problem of INFORMATION OVERLOAD.
What do we mean by ‘information overload’?
Simply put, information overload is when the quantity of information we receive exceeds our capacity to deal effectively with it. This situation arises most obviously when people are trying to fit formal learning of any sort (diplomas, professional qualifications, MBA’s etc) into already full schedules. However, it also affects many of us day to day: too many emails, reports and briefing papers; insufficient time to undertake background reading; books bought but not read etc. Very often, when people are overloaded, they start to view information negatively and find that time for thinking, managing, creativity, coaching others, leadership etc are squeezed out, leading to a dramatic loss of effectiveness.
…very often, when people are overloaded, they start to view information negatively…
Our courses address the route cause of these problems by giving people effective tools with which to deal with the ever increasing volumes of information.
Mind Maps® for Lifelong Learning
There is a great deal of discussion about the increasing need for all of us to be able to continue to learn and develop throughout our careers and our lives. Here, Clive Lewis, Director of Illumine Training - specialists in helping people to deal with information overload - explains why many organisations are taking the subject very seriously….and finding that Mind Maps® are often the key.
Introduction
Being able to think, learn and work effectively used to be regarded as ‘nice to haves’. This perspective was often combined with the view that our ability to learn, be creative, solve problems, read quickly etc. is fixed. These perspectives are no longer accepted. The rate of change in all areas of life continues to accelerate. The strengths, skills and qualifications with which we enter employment are extremely unlikely to remain sufficient for a whole career. The need to constantly refresh our skills and knowledge is greater now than ever before. The old psychological contract between employer and employee is no longer valid. Many people expect to have two, three or more distinct careers and the trend is spreading. Very few people expect a job for life, and fewer employers make that promise.
…the strengths, skills and qualifications with which we enter employment are extremely unlikely to remain sufficient for a whole career…
Many organisations recognise these changes and put in place a range of training and open learning facilities for managers and staff at all levels. This often represents an enormous investment. At the same time, more people than ever before are taking responsibility for their own learning and development. The growth in the popularity of the MBA is just one example of how seriously many people are taking their on-going development.
Unfortunately, what many organisations and individuals fail to do is address the woefully low levels of understanding about how the brain works and how it can be made to work so much better. Failure to address this is akin to giving someone the most powerful computer in the world and not showing them how to turn it on!
In short, many people do not know how to learn effectively. They do not know how to assimilate new information and remember confidently. Their ability to embrace this new paradigm is severely limited as a result.
..using Mind Maps® allows us to tap into the huge latent potential which we all possess…
Learning should be an enjoyable challenge that enriches people’s personal and professional lives. It should allow people to explore their own creativity, gain new insights and build their personal knowledge and skill base. In order for the learning to be effective, it needs to be memorable. In order for anyone to remain motivated to learn, the experience must be both positive and enjoyable.
Mind Mapping is a note making and note taking system which is designed to help people to work, think and learn more effectively. Mind Maps® enable people to access their own creativity and to learn in a way that is efficient, effective…and enjoyable.
Mind Mapping survey results
Using our www.mind-mapping.com website we conducted the longest running Mind Mapping survey ever carried out; the survey was carried out over an 18 month period. The top 6 associations and some of the follow on links which people made with Mind Mapping are:
1. Creativity
- Connections
- New ideas
- Flexibility
- New business opportunities
2. Useful tool
- Helps information recall
- Groups related information
- Breaks blank page block
- More productive
3. Structure and order
- Logical progression
- See the wood for the trees
- Thoroughness
- Visual
4. Organisation
- Makes the complex, simple
- Memory, understanding
- Creating order out of chaos
- Putting data in manageable form
5. Free thinking
- Open minds
- Exploration and imagination
- Catches the attention
- Not constrained
6. Clarity of mind
- Better decision making
- Clear purpose
- Big picture and how to get
- Whole view in perspective
This is a summary of some of the associations people make with the term ‘Mind Mapping’. In fact over 150 different uses were identified, confirming our own experience on courses and seminars around the world: when used properly, Mind Maps® are the most versatile and effective tool available.
How Mind Maps® Work
Mind Maps® have been around for over 30 years and are used in every country in the world. Their originator, Tony Buzan, is renowned as one of the world’s foremost experts on the brain and how to use it better.
Buzan’s background is as an educational psychologist. Much of his early work was in schools and universities where people using his techniques quickly achieved impressive results. In their highly acclaimed review of best practice in education and lifelong learning around the world (The Learning Revolution, published by Accelerated Learning Systems Ltd) Gordon Dryden and Dr. Jeannette Vos suggest simply ‘don’t take linear notes: draw Mind Maps®‘.
As well as introducing Mind Maps® to schools and universities around the world, Buzan has taken Mind Maps® into many businesses where the application of the technique has been seized upon as an invaluable aid to thinking, creativity, effective working and lifelong learning. As continuing education and development have become more and more important to people at all levels in businesses and other organisations, ways of learning effectively have become critically important. Mind Maps® have an important role to play in helping people to assimilate new information and remember it. People with heavy workloads and busy schedules do not want to waste their time with ineffective studying; they want strategies that will help them to learn effectively and enjoyably.
So why are Mind Maps® so effective? The short answer is that they are designed to mirror the structure of the brain and its most basic building block, the brain cell. Drawing on the research into how the brain is structured and how it works, Buzan created a system which he describes as the external manifestation of the internal workings of the brain.
Using Mind Maps® allows us to tap into the huge latent potential which we all possess. The work of Sperry & Ornstein on the differences between the right and left sides of the brain is well known. Most systems of note making and note taking are predominantly left brain systems; they use lists, words, numbers and a simple chronological order. Mind Maps® add to these left brain functions, the use of colour, patterns, space, imagination, a global perspective and a hierarchical logic. In fact the whole brain is used together in a synergistic way.
…80% of the detail learned one day, is forgotten within 24 to 48 hours…
The other key aspect regarding how the brain works is the importance of association. The role of association in both creativity and memory cannot be over stated. Association is the key process by which thoughts are organised and information retained. Again, Mind Maps® are designed to accentuate associations through their unique line structure. By clarifying associations of ideas, which are expressed as single words or pictures, Mind Maps® help us to put information into our brains in a way that makes it easy for us to access it. Retention is not usually a problem; recall very often is.
For learning and development, the advantages of using Mind Maps® should be obvious. Synergistically using skills from both sides of the brain and making associations which would otherwise be weak or unclear, have tremendous advantages. We can add to these the ability to work intuitively and to establish personal styles that suit us best. All of these help us to assimilate information easily and enjoyably. Learning is no longer the chore it all too often seems; it is as it should be, a satisfying, pleasurable and creative experience.
Applications - Thinking and Learning Effectively
Mind Maps® are popular because having learned how to use them properly; they are a uniquely effective tool. As well as being used for all aspects of learning, they are a uniquely effective aid to creativity, invaluable for note taking in meetings and interviews, great for planning presentations, reports and projects; and a superb aid to problem solving and decision making. In fact wherever you would normally make or take a note, Mind Maps® are more effective.
However, for people who want to assimilate and remember information either for formal learning or simply to keep abreast of the ever-increasing volumes of information with which we are bombarded, there are other tools which are also invaluable. Many people are hampered by low reading speeds. Average reading speeds of between 200 and 240 words per minute are simply insufficient to allow people to take advantage of the almost limitless supply of information in books, journals, reports and computers. Trebling reading speeds is perfectly feasible with the right training.
The other major concern for people is their memory - and with good reason. 80% of the detail learned one day, is forgotten within 24 to 48 hours…unless effective strategies are put in place to avoid that happening. Again, the good news is that a good understanding of how the memory works and application of basic memory principles can prevent this information leakage and make learning effective and enjoyable.
Who Uses Mind Maps®?
Mind Maps® are used all over the world, by all sorts of people; from primary school children to pensioners. In the work place they are used to help people in functions and roles that cut right across the spectrum of employment. Many organisations are coy about their usage of Mind Maps® since they rightly see better thinking skills as sources of competitive advantage.
One traditional British bank was keen to get their employees at all levels to look critically at how they work. A Mind Mapping course was added to the list of available courses and it has quickly become one of the bank’s most popular courses. Executives go on the course for very different reasons; some want to be more effective problem solvers, some want help with planning and some simply want to take notes more effectively so that they get more out of the numerous meetings they attend. ‘Learning how to learn’ is also a frequently given reason, particularly for those working towards various professional qualifications.
In many of the UK’s leading organisations, departmental courses are arranged so that teams can adopt ways of working which unleash individual creativity and enhance group cooperation. One training department sent all of their trainers on a course together. The experienced departmental manager was very sceptical at the beginning of the day. At the end of the day she was delighted to have found a way of working which would improve individual productivity and help the trainers to work much more effectively and creatively together on course planning and design.
Inevitably there are many examples of people and organisations using Mind Maps® to improve their creativity and effectiveness. One heart-warming tale comes from a National Account Manager for a ‘personal grooming’ company who decided it was time for change of job. He applied for a job being advertised and, because his experience was a very good fit, quickly got on a short list of two. He was asked to go along to the final interview ready to lead a four-person discussion on the sales activity appropriate to support a major new product launch.
In preparation for the meeting he decided to explore his thoughts on a Mind Map®. The Mind Map® quickly became quite complex as there was a lot to think about. In mulling over how to present the various strands of activity he hit on the idea of actually giving to the four people a copy of his Mind Map® which is what he did. In fact he only gave them a high level overview Mind Map® and talked the panel through the various issues. At the end of the meeting (they had already seen the other candidate) the panel conferred briefly before giving him the job. He was surprised by the rapidity of the decision, but their reasoning was simple ‘we were able to see the quality and clarity of your thinking’ they told him.
…the need for lifelong learning is here to stay…
Effective Lifelong Learning
The need for lifelong learning is here to stay. The business world is going to continue to change; complexity will increase, volumes of information will continue to grow, competition will continue to
become increasingly global. The old relationship between employers and employees is changed forever.
Against this backdrop, companies cannot afford to under-utilise their most valuable asset. Unleashing the creativity, thinking capacity and learning potential of a company’s people must be the best investment they can make. For many organisations, the choices appear to be stark; they can choose to continue to treat training as an expensive overhead or they can commit to helping their people to develop by giving them the knowledge and skills that will turn them into lifelong learners and achievers.
There are many excellent courses available for companies who want to develop their staff; leadership, team building, motivation, presentation skills…. the list is long and varied and most of the training will have its place in a company’s portfolio. However all of this training is of limited value if employees from the Chairman down, are not first taught how to learn effectively and how to use the magnificent potential of their brains in everything they do.
As individuals we can choose to embrace this new paradigm or we can cross our fingers and hope that we will be OK; that our skills will not need to be refreshed and that our first career decision will be the only one we need to make.
…they make learning fun and rapidly help us to become efficient and effective learners…
If we decide to commit to lifelong learning, either formally or informally, then it makes sense to equip ourselves with skills that make that a positive and enriching experience. Mind Maps® are by some distance, the most effective tool I have come across in helping to achieve that. They make learning fun and rapidly help us to become efficient and effective learners. When Mind Maps® are used in conjunction with some of the other skills touched on in this article, studying ceases to be a chore which only a lucky few find easy; it becomes a skill which improves each time you use it. As one executive put it after a two-day course covering Mind Maps®, Speed Reading and Memory, ‘I’m excited about learning for the first time in my life and confident that I’ll remember whatever I learn’. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all felt that way?
How to Mind Map® - an introduction
Mind Mapping is the system of note-making, note-taking and thinking devised by Tony Buzan. Mind Maps® are used throughout the world by students, business people and professionals to help them to think, learn and work more effectively.
The Mind Map® Book by Tony Buzan is an excellent reference book on the subject, as is the www.mind-mapping.com web site. www.illumine.co.uk/
The steps are as follows:
- 1. Start in the centre of a blank landscape page of paper with a colourful, unframed image representing the subject
- 2. Make the branches closest to the centre thicker, attached to the image and organic in shape
- 3. Place the main aspects of the subject on these branches
- 4. Branch thinner lines off the end of the main branches and add sub-themes
- 5. Use images instead of or as well as words wherever possible
- 6. The image or word should always sit on a line of the same length
- 7. Add successive levels of detail by adding further branches and single words or images on them
- 8. Use colour, codes, arrows and highlighting to make each Mind Map® distinctive and memorable
Have fun and develop your own Mind Mapping style.
Hints & Tips
Using Mind Maps® to gain an edge in negotiations
A recent edition of the Harvard Management Communication Letter featured an article ‘Chart the Course of Your Negotiation’ written by Andrew Rosenbaum. Illumine’s MD, Clive Lewis, was interviewed for the article and was widely quoted in it. Here he summarises some of the ways in which Mind Maps® can be used in negotiations:
- use a Mind Map® to clearly identify your own objectives in the negotiation, your ideal outcome and alternative acceptable and unacceptable possible outcomes
- try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and add to the map what you believe would be their preferred outcomes and some of the alternatives
- map out your strategy, including some of the most likely and extreme tactics that may be used against you
- try to identify ‘win-win’ outcomes and work through how to arrive at them
- in complex negotiations, include on the map all of the people involved (indirect influencers as well as direct decision makers) and all of the different facets that need to be taken account of
if possible, use your map as a prompt to discuss the negotiation with a colleague before the negotiation - they may be able to add some different perspectives that you had not considered if you use Mind Mapping software, build up your own templates for negotiations that you conduct regularly