The History Of Higher Level Thinking

 

 

Dr. James Kowalick, one of the founders of IPT, discovered Higher-Level Thinking and its great potential when he was in Japan – a country that was not, at that time, associated with inventiveness. He was attending Kanreisha Yosei Gakko (‘Management Enlightenment School’), an intensive management session for top managers known as “Hell Camp.” His discovery came as a “Eureka Moment.” He suddenly realized that the highest-level inventions, patents, and intellectual property were dependent upon the mind of the inventor. Mentally reviewing the highest creative moments in human history, he pictured the human qualities associated with brief sparks of inventive genius.

His quest led him to study different forms of brainstorming, which he found to be grossly inadequate. Several ‘Six Sigma’ best-practice tools also proved to be lacking. Then he discovered TRIZ, a creative-thinking tool from the former USSR, and he became the first American to introduce this system to USA corporations and western nations. He traveled to Russia many times, and translated 21 TRIZ books into English. With his then-partner, Dr. Ellen Domb, he also formed the TRIZ-Journal, a comprehensive website which today, over ten years later, contains hundreds of technical papers on TRIZ, and which attracts 80,000 readers monthly (this site was recently acquired by another major corporate entity [see www.triz-journal.com].

But even TRIZ, as powerful as it is, was a disappointment to him. Why? Because in his opinion, TRIZ was bogged down in ‘ordinary logical mind.’ There were just a few very brilliant persons who had, over their lifetimes, been attracted to this approach. He carefully noted, however, that these brilliant people did not become brilliant because of TRIZ. They simply pursued and were attracted to TRIZ because they were brilliant to begin with. “There must be a ‘mind’ that is higher than ordinary mind” was a thought upon which he ‘meditated’ for a long time – it was a time of searching.

His search ultimately led him to discover the principles of Higher-Level Thinking, and to formulate it into algorithms that produced high-level inventions. For ten years, as he developed Higher-Level Thinking, he taught this technique to hundreds of executives at Cal Tech (Pasadena, California), also working with more than a hundred corporate clients (see Client Listing).

Dr. Kowalick realized that in order to achieve brilliant, high-value Intellectual Property, a corporation had to train its technical team in Higher-Level Thinking. During his residency at Cal Tech, he did just that for his corporate clients.

In 2003 Dr. Kowalick achieved his goal of formulating the principles of Higher-Level Thinking into inventive algorithms that “grow” inventions and Intellectual Property – given the right input and interpretation. He formed Innovative Patent Technology in 2006 and began addressing the “Top 100 Products in the World.” Interpretation: He developed White Papers which contain next-generation product concepts for companies who produce certain products (products in his ‘Top 100’ list)

Briefly – Higher-Level Thinking uses parts of the brain which go unused (even by people in the most creative of professions) simply because they are unaware that they can tap into it. It is the same level of thinking that the greatest inventors of all time have employed (seemingly by ‘happy accident’ or ‘serendipity’). This same Higher-Level Thinking was used to conceive and formulate the improved, and next-generation product development methodology.