Who
– might we ask – is thinking?
“The quality of everything we do,
everything, depends on the quality of the thinking we do first.”[i]
So who is doing the thinking in our
organizations? How many of us? And could we think better? There is plenty said about
organizational learning in our sector, but Nancy Klein, author of Time to
Think and More Time to Think, gives us a new perspective to consider. She challenges organizations to
think about how we help people think for themselves and create environments
where we can do our best thinking. With the multitude of global challenges we
face, can we afford not to?
She proposes 10 components that make for a
productive thinking environment. It’s not rocket science – most good ideas
aren’t – but how do our organizations in the development sector shape up?
1. Attention:
How well would you think if you knew you weren’t
going to be interrupted? Klein argues that when a person knows they are about
to be interrupted, or that the other clearly wants to speak, their thinking
slows down. We need to get interested and place our attention on three things:
the content of what someone is saying, our reaction to it, and the thinking
environment we are creating. All three need our attention. Are you listening to
reply or listening to help ignite the others thinking?
2. Equality: Do we
really believe in being thinking equals? Klein proposes this analogy: if each
person’s mind cost £1 million, then would you only have three brains on full,
and 7 at low capacity? Of course not, and yet how much do we value everyone’s
thinking in practice? As professionals, we feel justified and perhaps even
obliged to think better than others – what else are we being paid for? Yet
studies show that when people seek advice or support, they want to be asked
what they think, who they are, and what matters to them. We need to regard them
as equal and show them that regard by giving them equal time and equal
attention.
3. Ease:
Klein reminds us that rushing kills creativity. In the developed world, we
tend to make assumptions that rushing = important; tense = focused; and
pressured = alive. What about being at ease as opposed to dis-eased? Ease =
quality. Giving full attention, and being at ease are great conditions for high
quality thinking. We spend time learning how to use tools like the SWOT. What
about learning about being at ease? People want to feel it, and people want to
be around it. Perhaps this accounts for the interest in mindfulness these days.
If this is how to get the best thinking out of people, is it not worth
investing in?
4. Appreciation:
Neuro-imaging has shown that appreciative thoughts and feelings help blood
flow to the brain and stabilize the heart. Apparently the best appreciation to
criticism to motivate and support creativity is 5:1. We all know it feels good
to be appreciated so how can we factor more of this into our daily
interactions?
5. En-couragement:
“What would happen if we build people’s courage to go to the unexplored
edge of their ideas by eliminating competition between thinkers?” Klein warns
that being ‘better than’ is NOT always a good thing because what you are
‘better at’ could be not particularly good in the first place. Creative
thinking needs trust to not be judged. Competition often leads to not listening
for very long, and then not proposing adventurous solutions. We get energy from
being able to be ourselves – and use our minds – rather than always trying to
be better than.
6. Information:
Denial of what is true is dangerous. Distortion (e.g. it happened but it
wasn’t that bad) is similarly concerning. And even more scary is when denial
leads to events and facts being rewritten and what is ‘bad’ somehow seems
‘good’. Klein argues that thinking dies in denial and information resurrects
it. We need to supply facts and accurate information to aid good quality
thinking.
7. Feelings:
Someone said to me recently that ‘emotional intelligence’ was really big
over 10 years ago. How is it that a fundamental aspect of human intelligence is
no longer ‘en vogue’? How we feel, and how we manage our feelings, has a critical
effect on how well we think individually and collectively. Fear constricts
thinking; strong feelings can make our heads foggy. Kindness, clarity, ease,
genuine interest, and not apologizing for emotions when they arise, can help
our minds do better thinking.
8. Diversity:
Reality is diverse, yet in society untrue assumptions about people’s
identity (age, race, gender, nationality etc) limits our thinking and our
collective progress. Too often we objectify people and see them as ‘other’, and
even in the extreme, as less human. We play lip service to diversity that in
reality means, ‘we value diversity as long as you think, act and feel like we
do’. It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting others to think like we do or
thinking like others as it will please them. The objective needs to be to
encourage everyone’s finest thinking and
accept and make the most of the diversity that comes from that.
9. Incisive
questions: Untrue assumptions play a huge role in the quality of our
thinking. Asking incisive questions can help work through them: what are we
assuming? Is it true? What is true? And if you know that to be true, how can
you move forward?
10. Place:
Physical environments that say that someone matters will help them think
better. What sort of environment are we creating for ourselves and others to
think in? And what about our bodies? They are an important factor in the
quality of our thinking. If you are healthy, guilt free, not in denial, showing
respect to it – then the thinking is likely to be better.
So how can these components of the thinking
environment be integrated into the way we work so that we give each other a
framework within which to generate our own ideas? In ‘Time to Think’ various
activities are explained in depth that can support better thinking. Here is a
brief summary of the some of the main activities:
1. Thinking
partnerships: Thinking partnerships (two people) are a form of coaching
where a ‘thinking goal’ is set for the session and then a structure is followed
to help to break down untrue assumptions, replace them with liberating ones,
and use incisive questions where necessary to move towards the goal. The
thinking environment described above is created throughout. Questions like:
What assumptions are stopping you from achieving X? Is it true? What is true
instead? And if you believed that to be true, what would you do?
2. Time to think mentoring process: This
combines elements of the structure used in thinking partnership, with the
addition that the mentee can interview the mentor and the strong held belief
that ‘the mind of the mentee matters most’.
3. Group
thinking environments: How much better would we
think as a group if we genuinely felt empowered to think for ourselves, able to
make mistakes, at ease with ourselves, listened to, encouraged? Speaking in
rounds helps with this, where everyone is given a chance, and equal time to
speak – uninterrupted.
“People are sucked in by the flipchart.
They act as if it is about to say something profound. It isn’t!”
|
At meetings, Klein suggests the following
ways to create better thinking environment in meetings:
·
put agenda items as questions
and send them round in advance (differentiate between when we need a decision,
a new idea, consider implications, need updates). This gets people thinking
right from the star;
·
don’t use powerpoint or
flipchart unless using visuals (or max of 5 slides if necessary) – these tools
don’t have brain and they take our attention away from the person talking;
·
do an unbroken round to get
everyone’s thinking;
·
have an open discussion where
interruption is not allowed; ask further probing questions and do another
round;
·
use dialogue pairs to generate
more ideas – again without interrupting and only feedback best, freshest ideas;
·
summarise, make decisions and
agree next steps.
6. Time
to think councils: This is similar to the above except that the aim is to
get everyone’s views whilst the individual needing the council is still able to
think independently. The idea is for the presenter to have around 10 mins to
share the issue, and their thoughts around it (uninterrupted) and then to use
rounds to get everyone’s thinking around the particular question and then for
the presenter to summarize.
What
can we take away from this approach?
Again, this doesn’t seem like rocket
science – we have all been at training courses where we learn about active
listening, and good communication skills. What Klein argues is that it is not
enough to pay lip service to these things. Setting up activities to encourage
thinking may seem to take longer, or be too structured to suit everyone, but in
her experience, it saves time in the long run. How many wasted ideas aren’t
heard? How much talk happens after meetings when people need to find a channel
to share their thoughts and feelings with someone? How many ideas fail or take
longer than expected and perhaps could have been better thought through from
the start?
If you are interested in the ideas here,
then I highly recommend, ‘More time to think’ by Nancy Klein. She puts people –
with their incredible capacity to think and be creative - at the centre, and
shares a wealth of wisdom about how we can support others to think for themselves.
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