Strategy of the Dolphin: Scoring a Win in a Chaotic World

STRATEGY

OF THE

DOLPHIN

Scoring a Win in a

Chaotic World

DUDLEY LYNCH AND

PAUL L. KORDIS, PH.D.

Copyright 1988 by BRAIN TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION

Illustrations of aquatic caricatures by Bob Hosanna, Michael Leonard, and Paul Jensen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Brain Technologies Corporation, P.O. Box 358655, Gainesville, Florida 32635.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smashwords Edition

Lynch, Dudley.

Strategy of the Dolphin: Scoring a Win in a Chaotic World//Dudley Lynch and Paul L. Kordis.

p. cm.

Bibliography: p.

Index.

ISBN 0-945-8211-0

1. Psychology, Industrial. 2. Creative ability in business.

3. Organizational effectiveness. I. Kordis, Paul L. II. Title.

HF5548.8.L963 1989

  650.1—dcl988-37065

eBook version published September, 2013

eBook ISBN 0-945-82211-1

To Delphinus Delphis

Patience

OTHER BOOKS BY DUDLEY LYNCH

LEAP! How to Think Like a Dolphin & Do the Next Right, Smart Thing Come Hell or High Water

The Mother of All Minds: Leaping Free of an Outdated Human Nature

Code of the Monarch: An Insider’s Guide to the Real Global Business Revolution [with Paul L. Kordis]

Evergreen: Playing a Continuous Comeback Business Game [with David Neenan]

Your Dolphin High-Performance Business Brain:  21st Century Thinking Skills for Ambitious People Under Challenge or Under Fire

DolphinThink. Mastering the Skills You Need to Get Touch, Get Free, Get Focused and Get Going as a New Kind of Winner [a workbook, with Paul L. Kordis]

The BrainMap Workbook: A Leader's and User's Guide to The BrainMap

BRAINMAPPING: 30 Exercises, Games and Demonstrations for Using The BrainMap

The President from Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson

The Duke of Duval: The Life & Times of George B. Parr

Tornado: Texas Demon in the Wind

The Hereford Brand, Belle of the Prairie Press. Sixty-five years of newspapering on the high Texas plains

A History of The Humble Way: Chronicle of an Industrial Giant’s Magazine

ENDORSEMENTS

Strategy of the Dolphin is one of the most meaningful books I have ever read. Dudley Lynch has taken the work of Clare Graves to a new height with a powerful metaphor. As a leadership educator for over 30 years, Strategy of the Dolphin has become an integral part of who I am. This is a life-changing book. —David W. Cox, Professor of Education, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas

I have to say Strategy of the Dolphin has had a profound effect on my thinking. My copy is so marked up that no one else can make much sense of the pages. I use all the dolphin books every day to make new distinctions and provide levels of clarity that were missing in my life.—Kelly Ritchie, Founder and Director, Hosemasters International, Brisbane, Australia

I have read the book many times and I see new perspective every time; I bought many copies of the books for my best friends and my best enemies. I spoke so much about the life-changing effects the book had on me that all the copies in my library are all on loan and I could not get them back again.— Pekun Sikolu Tomori, Dakar, Senegal

Lynch and Kordis were indeed more than slightly ahead of their time in their exploration of the need to change the quality and quantity of our awareness of complexity and our skills and comfort level in working with it. The authors' insights are brilliant and so very relevant to the challenges most individuals and organizations faced through the nineties and still grapple with today: going for the elegant outcome; leveraging the wave; breaking set; being on purpose; seeing through the brain's 'time window'; releasing to a higher order; pushing the envelope; shifting in time. It's deep and intelligent, but not intellectual. It's a thoughtful blueprint and practical road map of useful insight.—Dr. David C. Wyld, Professor of Management, Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, Louisiana

I have found the powerful metaphor of the dolphin very enriching and also very rewarding. Lynch and Kordis demonstrate how one can learn, grow and have fun without having to fight (metaphor of the shark), be an eternal victim (metaphor of the carp) or even a rescuer/victim (the metaphor of the pseudo enlightened carp). In fact, the author's principal premise in the book made a lot of practical sense for me. The strategy of the dolphin requires that we think about how we think. A book for all those who wish individuals and organizations behave more intelligently and more significantly for optimal and lasting results.—Islem Yezza, Technical and Business Development Director, Quebec, Canada

The Dolphin book has stayed on my credenza for years! [It] has been an incredibly influential book in my career. Concepts like do what you fear and talk about HOW you're talking about it are part of my everyday thought. The metaphor of the dolphin works very well: an animal that can outsmart a shark! When something isn't working a Dolphin does something different! That's a great lesson for life.—Michael Crane, writer, Chicago, Illinois, area

I have used the many thought provoking ideas that really made an impression on me ever since I read a friend’s copy of this exciting book.—V.P.Leech, Durban. South Africa

Important business and management principles. Highly recommended.—David T. Freeman, Personal Empowerment Resources website

I read it after a conversation with my Mom, and so it was very relevant and I liked the parts I read a lot. I actually can't remember now what about resonated so deeply—it's like it went right into my subconscious and remains buried there.—Claire S., Goodreads review

I found myself just breezing through the diagrams. [The] predictions (without knowing about the internet and co.) were uncannily on the mark. The empirical justification to prove the validity of very sound ideas became a bit tiring at times. Otherwise, the book is right on the mark and is to be recommended.—Michael Boyle, readme.cc reviewer, Vienna, Austria

When I was very young and trying to navigate the relationships of business from the vantage point of being a grant consultant, I found [the advice in Strategy of the Dolphin] to be a very accessible way of handling new situations . . . I’ve probably told a hundred people about this book since then, and everyone has employed the strategy with great success.—Melanie Stewart, graphic designer, San Francisco

Of all the contributions I’ve used to generate effective results, the principles of Strategy of the Dolphin were most helpful and consistently ahead of their time!— James P. Rush, Retired United Methodist Pastor, Greenville, South Carolina

The dolphin strategy is smart, based on a win-win concept of business yet without self-sacrifice. . . .The tit-for-tat strategy alone is worth the price of the book.—Reality Marketing Associates, Coquitlam, B.C., Canada

I became a fan of Dudley Lynch many years ago, when during a stay in London I serendipitously purchased Strategy of the Dolphin. I can confidently say that his book changed my life. Since then, I have become his disciple and an ambassador for his ideas.—Carlos Salum, founder, Salum International Resources, Huntersville, North Carolina

Dolphins symbolizing the characteristic of self-reflective thinking has certainly proved a successful strategy for Dudley Lynch and Paul Kordis in their popular corporate workbook separating the savvy cetacean from the carp and shark.—Gary P. Hampson, Southern Cross University. Lismore, New South Wales, Australia

I had bought your book some 10 years ago and  had glanced at it then. Six months ago . . . I found myself picking it from my bookshelf. I read it carefully once, then twice. I typed a summary of its key messages which I since have experimented with daily, at times hourly. It has been a tremendous help in my redefinition of my way of seeing, thinking, doing, from setting new priorities to living day by day with myself and with others. I just wanted to thank you and let you know that there is somewhere in Africa, a 56-year old Frenchman who is grateful to you for this gift through your book.—Jean-Pierre Brosset, Dakar, Senegal

One of the books that impacted me most at the time I read it was the Castilian edition of  Strategy of the Dolphin, authored by Dudley Lynch and Paul L. Kordis, which was published in our country a decade ago by Ediciones Deusto. It is a book I keep recommending, often full of wonderful ideas, provocative, stimulating . . . —Mario López de Ávila Muñoz, IE Business School, Madrid, Spain

I have found the Dolphin Strategy a realistic, practical and effective daily tool and model for groups to work with. . . . Dolphins are masters in unlearning behaviours which limit them and stand in their way. They even create stress for themselves (eustress), in order to have breakthroughs. They are eager for newness and it seems that they understand the permanent state of change in this world. We could be inspired by that approach if we are humble enough to see it as a part of this planet.—Hans-Peter Kraus, business consultant, Karlsruhe, Germany

Dudley’s groundbreaking business book (co-written with Paul Kordis) Strategy Of The Dolphin . . . is one of the clearest of the competing value sets which dominate the world today.—Dennis Charles, Charles Career Mentoring, Framingham, Massachusetts

To communicate effectively you need to understand the psychology of the person you’re talking to. Our mentor in this has been Dudley Lynch, best-selling author of Strategy of the Dolphin. Much of his work has revolved around understanding how people think and what are the drivers that motivate—towards wealth, towards social success or towards being part of a greater whole. It’s not enough to have the vision of how things could be—you have to learn to pragmatically put together the building blocks that will make it so. He’s analysed people into those who want to grab what’s available, those who do what they’re told, those who want to build a better world but can’t quite hack it and those who just want to put something together that works—the Dolphins.—Dr. Alan Rae, Founder, Howtodobusiness.com

Here are ideas that . . . can liberate the people working in companies to lead more fulfilling lives by casting out the fears and inhibitions that characterize so much of corporate activity.—Milton Moscowitz, author of The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America

Lynch and Kordis, in Strategy of the Dolphin, have brought most all the concepts I’ve accepted as a practicing consultant to a near perfect point of congruence.—James L. Murphy, executive director, leadership and organization development. U.S. West, Inc., Denver

The best application of post-New Age strategies to management I’ve ever seen.—Warren Bennis, distinguished professor of business administration, University of Southern California

Strategy of the Dolphin is a practical and business-oriented manual on how to be personally and institutionally more responsive for this new world that is forming.—Richard Lamm, Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues

You might be excused for thinking that an out of print book written 20 years ago and with such a simple premise would be irrelevant in the early 21st century. Yet it is still talked about today and the basic ideas have been taken forward in a set of resources and tools for maximising the way we use our brains.— Andy Coote, writer and editor at Bizwords

A welcome respite from other management books that urge us to think like samurais, Attila the Hun or members of the Prussian General Staff. . . .A blend of the latest findings in psychology, physics, sociology and business strategy.—Executive Challenge

Years after I first read it, Strategy of the Dolphin still is one of my business and personal bibles. I read this book when it first was published because I was in an executive position with a not for profit organization. Throughout the years I have referred to it and each time it has revealed another secret in my life style. A fabulous book for anyone who is looking for a fresh perspective and genuinely useful tools for personal achievement.—Robert Porter Lynch, founder, The Warren Company, Naples, Florida and Chairman Emeritus of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals [no relation to the author]

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1 GOING FOR THE ELEGANT OUTCOME: DOLPHINS ARE AS DOLPHINS DO

2 LEVERAGING THE WAVE: THE DOLPHIN'S SPECIAL SECRETS

3 UP PERISCOPE: THE CRITICAL DOLPHIN SKILL OF BREAKING SET

4 BEING ON PURPOSE: AVOIDING THE FATE THAT ACHES

5 VISION BUILDING: STEERING THROUGH THE BRAIN'S TIME WINDOW

6 RELEASE TO A HIGHER ORDER: THE DOLPHIN'S PIECE DE RESISTANCE

7 ORCHESTRATING PERTURBATION: HOW DOLPHINS PUSH THE ENVELOPE

8 THE DOLPHIN'S AUTOCATALYTIC WORLD: CAN WE SHIFT IN TIME?

DOLPHINTHINKING TOOLS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES

A DOLPHIN'S LIBRARY: SUGGESTED READINGS

INDEX

ABOUT DUDLEY LYNCH

INTRODUCTION

At the boundary, life blossoms.

—James Gleick, Chaos

For at least forty thousand years, and probably much longer, people, their families, and their organizations, commercial and social alike, have typically pursued two kinds of strategies for coping with the world.

The strategy of the carp.

And the strategy of the shark.

This book is about a powerful new strategy: one that has sprung full blown of late from a brain that understands that the world has changed and therefore so must we. What must change is the quality and quantity of our awareness of complexity and our skills and comfort level in working with it.

In their domination of human history, the carp and shark strategies of information processing have posted severe limitations on what humans can notice and how much freedom they will be permitted in response to a changing world.

Persons who utilize only the strategy of the carp suffer from a blinding synopsis—an inability to acknowledge and accept as real very crucial aspects of the world at large.

And people who are habituated to the strategy of the shark are addicts. Their addictions and compulsions doom them to be perennial bulls in the china closets—or worse—of our societies, organizations, and families. Originally motivated by pleasure, sharks in the long run become motivated by the avoidance of pain. Living, and doing business as we do in environments with closer and closer tolerances, we find their excessive adrenaline and intolerance of comity and flexibility to be increasingly irritable if not outright dangerous.

Both the strategies of the carp and the shark remain with us because to be basic about it, both strategies are hard-wired into us. Specifically, they are hard-wired into our old, isolated, nonverbal brain structures. We can no more totally eliminate their influences and do things like run an accounting firm, operate a beauty shop, manufacture computers, command an army, or coach an athletic team than we can throw away our heads and still call ourselves living creatures capable of being overdrawn at the bank. You’ll recognize these strategies right away unless you choose not to, which is a bit of a Catch-22 situation, since choosing not to recognize something of value is, in itself, the use of one of the strategies. The strategy of the carp.

The old brain offers us the proverbial three Fs as behavioral choices for responding to external events: fight, flight, or freeze. A carp (that is, a person using the carp strategy) typically uses only two of these choices, flight or freeze. Obviously, carps get eaten a lot, although if one takes pains to stay in carp waters amid plenty of carp friends and do mostly carp work, at certain times one may be able to make a relatively safe life of it. If they have a choice, carps usually go along. However, if they can, they avoid choices entirely. George Bernard Shaw recognized the signature dynamics of the carp’s strategy. Liberty [the freedom to exercise choice] means responsibility, he wrote. That’s why most men [and women] dread it. (Shaw refused to take responsibility for acknowledging in his use of the English language that slightly more than half the human race is female. Carping out, so to speak, he used the literary man to connote the generic human. In Strategy of the Dolphin, we are going to use whichever noun or pronoun strikes our fancy at the moment. Any reference to the masculine is equally applicable to the feminine gender, and vice versa.)

There are times when it makes sense in the organization to be a carp, and we’ll discuss these at some length later on. And times when it makes sense to be a shark, which we will also discuss with genuine enthusiasm. Usually the strategy of the shark is viewed as a strategy intended to produce a personal win, whatever the cost. When you must swim in the vicinity of sharks, the rules are pretty clear:

Discover what the sharks look like and who they are (the ones with the sharp teeth).

Don’t thrash around and make a lot of noise.

Don’t hang around with the bait fish (the carps).

Don’t be afraid to scare off a shark when one comes sniffing around (sometimes all it takes is a good clout on the nose).

If you get bitten, don’t bleed.

Don’t tire yourself out swimming against the tide.

And, most importantly, find some other dolphins to swim around with.(1)

Real dolphins are some of the most prized creatures of the deep. We can suspect that they are very intelligent, perhaps in their own way more intelligent than we Homo sapiens. Certainly, their brains are large enough—about fifteen hundred grams, somewhat larger on average than the typical human brain—and the dolphin’s associational cortex, the part of the brain specialized for abstract and conceptual thinking, is larger than ours. And it is a brain, as those fervent enthusiasts devoted to strengthening ties between our large-brained species and theirs are quick to point out, that has been as large as or larger than ours for at least thirty million years.

Dolphin behavior around sharks is legendary, and probably deservedly so. Using their intelligence and their wiles, they can be deadly to sharks. Bite them to death? Oh, no. Dolphins circle and ram, circle and ram. Using their bulbous noses as amphibious bludgeons, they methodically crush the shark’s rib cage until he murderous creature sinks helplessly to the bottom. But rather than its skill at shark combat, we have chosen the dolphin to symbolize our thoughts on coping and choice-making in rapid-change times because of the mammal’s natural abilities to think constructively and creatively. Do dolphins think? Without question. When they don’t get what they want, they quickly and precisely alter their behaviors in sometimes ingenious ways in pursuit of what they are after.

If dolphins can do it, why can’t we?

We think we can.

The strategy of the dolphin requires that we think about how we think. This raises the human coping and change capabilities available by an order of magnitude. With a twist of the mental and emotional kaleidoscope, the dolphin (human variety) changes the nature, the rules, perhaps even the playing surface and the players themselves. Dolphins enjoy, exploit, explore, and experience to the fullest of their faculties the ability of the integrated, highly social (internally), fully involved human brain to second-guess itself and other brains in advance. The result is often an ocean of ideas. A maelstrom of possibilities. An awakening of potential. A suddenly visible way out of the shark pool so stunning that it is the mental equal to a punch in the solar plexus.

You might have thought that the dawning of the Atomic Age signaled the need for a drastic new thought process for managing human affairs. But that watershed event wasn’t quite drastic enough. Instead, it required something like the development of immensely powerful computers and smart phones that do amazing things and a global Internet linking them together instantaneously to etch indelibly on our minds that we had crossed a Rubicon so momentous that the strategies of the carp and the shark were obsolete when you are managing and maneuvering on the cutting edges of change. So the world that has made this kind of thinking so necessary and appealing dates realistically only from the early 1970s and 1980s, with the birth of the Information Age.

Our hope in writing Strategy of the Dolphin is that such an effort can help you avoid, regularly and with a minimum of effort, the core entrapments both of the strategy of the carp and the strategy of the shark: the maddening ability of contemporary brains to characteristically interpret their behavior as successful even if it leads eventually and inevitably to failure.(2)

The ease with which categories of individuals and their organizations can achieve dolphinization will vary. It is obvious that some will have to contend with natural barriers of the soul to make it happen. For example, users of our traditional authoritarian belief systems—and that includes most of our corporations and other bureaucracies—are going to be challenged to the hilt by the idea of