Synthesizing

This is when the information has reached a critical mass, and carefully controlled creative explosions are the art, the spark, the genius de rigueur.

This is not Assessing nor Analyzing. It is, nonetheless, a managed process - not to control creativity, but to spur it on, to squeeze out the little insights, the off-hand remarks, the shy, polite throngs of thought, or the spontaneous bursts of brilliance, all in constructive discourse.

In this stage, there is no such thing as a bad idea, but only ideas that vie for best supporting actor, acting as antecedents to brilliance. Bring them on, bring them all on. For as Jim Rouse frequently advised, "Reality will compromise us soon enough."

Experience in strategic thought accelerates the coalescing of ideas into a tightly integrated whole, one idea reinforcing the next, each contributing to the overall clear and compelling pattern.

When it is right, really right, when it comes together like a Rubics Cube, though satisfying, it is also, ironically, quite humbling, as it then seems so obvious.

But, of course...