Zero-based thinking is a creative thinking technique that helps you approach problems and find solutions from a completely different position. It requires that you put every previous decision on trial for its life on a regular basis, especially when you get new information or gain experience that contradicts or challenges the thinking upon which the decision was made in the first place.
Zero-based thinking comes from the financial concept of zero-based budgeting. In zero-based budgeting, instead of looking at how much to increase or decrease a particular expenditure in an upcoming accounting period, you ask the question, “If we were not spending money in this area already, would we get into this area again today, knowing what we now know?”
This question is called a KWINK analysis. “Knowing What INow Know, is there anything that I am doing today that, if I had to do it over again, I would not have gotten into it in the first place?”
Draw a line under all your previous thinking and be prepared to challenge every decision you have ever made with this question.
If you ask this KWINK question and your answer is “No, knowing what I now know, I would not get into this situation again,” then your next question is, “How do I get out, and how fast?”
Here is what I have discovered. When your answer to the zero-based thinking question comes back with a “no,” it usually means that it is too late to save the situation. The only question now is how long are you going to wait, and how much is it going to cost, before you finally bite the bullet and stop doing what you are doing?
Three Areas for Zero-Based Thinking
There are three major areas where zero-based thinking is applicable throughout your life and career. The first has to do with relationships. Is there any person in your business or personal life who you would not get involved with again today, if you had to do it over, knowing what you now know?
Is there any person that you would not hire, promote, assign, or delegate a task to, knowing what you now know about this person?
Fully 85 percent of your unhappiness, stress, and frustration in life, personal and business, will come from your continuing to associate, live with, or work with someone who, knowing what you now know, you wouldn’t get involved with in the first place.
The second area where you apply zero -based thinking has to do with every part of your business. Is there anything that you are doing in your business that, knowing what you now know, you would not start up again today if you had to do it over?
Is there any product or service that you are offering that you would not bring to the market, knowing what you now know?
Is there any method of marketing, sales, or business development that, knowing what you now know, you would not start using again today, if you had to do it over?
Is there any process, procedure, or method of doing business that, knowing what you now know, you would not implement again today?
The third area where you apply zero-based thinking is with regard to investments of money, time, or emotion. Human beings hate to lose money, for any reason. But many of our very best and most carefully considered decisions about investments of money, both in business and in personal life, will turn out to be wrong to one degree or another. Simply ask yourself, “If I had not invested money in this particular product, service, or activity, knowing what I now know, would I invest the money today?”
If your answer is “no,” your next question is, “How do I get out of this situation, and how fast?”
Be willing to cut your losses, to admit you made a mistake, you were wrong, and that based on your current information it was not a good investment. Refuse to throw money down a rat hole by refusing to admit that you made a mistake.
Just as people hate to lose money, they hate to lose time as well. You may have invested an enormous amount of time developing a new product or project, learning a new subject or skill, or taking a particular course of study. Now you realize that, knowing what you now know, it was not a good idea. You have lost your time. It is gone forever. Your solution is to stop investing time in a situation or area where it is clear that your original investment has been lost.
Finally, it is quite common for us to invest an enormous amount of emotion, especially in relationships (business and personal) and in courses of action (study or career directions). Nonetheless, if it is clear that we have made a mistake and that all our emotional investment has been of no use, we must be prepared to write it off and walk away.
In order to think creatively and come up with the best new ideas for the future, you have to be willing to clear out the mental blocks that hold you back from creative thinking. Zero-based thinking is one of the very best tools you can use to remain flexible and open and to become a competent and creative thinker in every area of your life.
ACTION EXERCISES
1. Identify one relationship in your life, business or personal, that you would not get into again today, and resolve to end it as soon as possible.
2. Identify one activity in your business or personal life that you would not start up again today, if you had it to do over, and resolve to get out of it immediately.