Nancy Klein on Helping Peope to Think Better

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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[i] Klein, N., More Time to Think,

Notes from book called 'Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman

I’ve typed up notes I made when reading this book and then organized the points under the following questions. This is a long post and really only for those who have an interest in this topic and want to read a summary of the whole book. 

The main points covered in the book fall under these questions:

- What is emotional intelligence?

- Why is emotional intelligence importance in the workplace?

- What is the link between emotional intelligence and children (parenting, schooling)?

- What is the psychology and science behind various psychological states? What are some of the key emotional difficulties people face?

- What is the science behind emotional intelligence (biologically and neuroscientifically)?

What is emotional intelligence?

·         Emotional intelligence = being able to motivate oneself; persist in face of frustration; control impulse; delay gratification; regulate mood; keep stress from swamping thinking; self awareness; managing emotions; recognizing emotions; handling relationships.

·         Emotional intelligence can be learned and improved

·         High IQ doesn’t = unhappiness or success.

·         Evolution has not caught up with the times we live in. Emotions can override rational judgement. The stronger the emotion, the more likely to make rational ineffectual. The two interact and affect each other.

·         Language – ‘emotion’ means ‘movere’ (to move) and the ‘e’ connotes move away. This suggests that to act is implicit in every emotion.

Why is emotional intelligence importance in the workplace?

·         Workplace are putting premium on ‘on the job’ success

·         Guide to effective feedback at work: Be specific; offer solution; be present; be kind. Guide to receiving – don’t take it as a personal attack; take responsibility where you can rather than getting defensive; ask to resume the meeting later if you need time to digest.

·         Prejudice or bias is not trivial and needs to challenged straight away so tacit consent is given. Diversity courses should include perspective taking – telling from the other side so people realize what damage it does.

·         By end of 2100 - 1/3 of workforce will be knowledge workers ie. Adding value to information.

·         Groups have a collective IQ and the group cannot be smarter than the sum but it can be dumber if talents not maximized. People too eager can be a drag on the group.  Too domineering.

·         Most important was groups internal harmony – more friction leads to not maximizing talents of particularly good people – when lots of social or emotional static – people cannot do their best.

·         Being able to work in formal networks helps determine on the job success

·         Rapport with key network of people; cultivating good relationships with those that might be needed; informal networking key for handling unexpected problems

·         Social ties strengthen when people communicate, then solidify into stable networks

·         Highly adaptive, informal networks work more diagonally and elliptically to get things done

·         3 varieties of informal networks: who you talk to; experts; and those you trust. Stars have thick networks in all three areas.

·         Stars co-ordinate team work; they are leaders in building consensus; seeing things from another perspective; persuasiveness; taking initiative; self management.

·         State of flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihaly- when emotions are contained and chanelled, energized and aligned on the task at hand. Being absorbed in the task,.  Unconscious of self. It might be slightly taxing but there is harmony between anxiety and demand of the task. Howard Gardner sees this important for children – its important for them to know what they like to learn and how they like to learn so that they can get into a flow.

What is the link between emotional intelligence and children (parenting, schooling)?

·         Childhood is key to setting emotional habits. Massive survey shows that trend is for kids to be more emotionally challenged than ever before. Emotional intelligence needs to be taught at school.

·         Howard Gardner done a lot of stuff on multiple intelligence theory – there is more than the standard intelligences tested on standard IQ tests and tested at school (reading, writing, arithmetic) and we should embrace all of the intelligences that children have.

·         The marshmallow test – 4 years old are offered a marshmallow but they get 2 if they wait 20 mins – they can have 2. Those that managed to got better SAT scores at 12. ‘goal orientated, self imposed delay of gratification’. This ability helps in later life to succeed.

·         We are born with temperament but these can be shaped by parenting etc.

·         The programme for kids on anger management has a lot of mindfulness in it.

·         Studies have shown that girls with eating disorders have less ability to tell the difference between feelings and control them.

·         Emotional learning was done 2^nd and 3^rd graders and they ended up being middle of their class socially instead of outcasts. They learnt how to make playing games more enjoyable.

·         Self science classes, or social development or social and emotional learning are growing in popularity in schools. This is not affective learning which uses emotion to help learning but it is actually affecting learning itself  - ie learning about the emotions and how they are dealt with

·         Emotional learning is done over time – it is about neural habits. It is better when done in school, community and at home.

·         SOCS stands for situation, options, consequences and solutions. It is something that is used with teenagers when trying to teach them to deal with things better.

·         Family life is first schooling for emotional learning. We learn how to feel about ourselves; how others will react to our learning; how to think about feelings and what choices we have; and how to read  and express our hopes and fears. They learning this by how parents are with them and they are with each other.

What is the psychology and science behind various psychological states? What are some of the key emotional difficulties people face?

·         We can’t control having emotion but we can control how long we have them

·         One of the challenges is dealing with everyday bad moods – not the ones you medicate or see the psychiatrist about but just bog standard daily mood shift

·         What matters is whether negative thoughts are followed by a cycle of others

·         Anger is seductive – energizing – can fuel self righteous thoughts – quick release catecholomines

·         Anger usually physical threat – threat to self esteem, dignity, being treated rudely

·         Second thing that happens is an amygdala driven release through adrenocortical branch of nervous system which create tonic background of readiness which can last for hours of days.

·         Anger builds on anger and every thought or event releases more catecholomines. The earlier the cycle stops the better. If already in a rage then attempts to mitigate fail as the person is cognitively incapacitated. It helps to cool off physiologically and take a break where anger wont be triggered – exercise, being alone, driving etc can help to shift to a low arousal state. Reading or teaching can stop the train of thoughts – but not eating. Self awareness can help us as long as we are not in rage.

·         Venting doesn’t have prove helpful in tests unless it helps to change situation

·         Worry is the rehearsal of what might go wrong and how to deal with it (create positive solutions, anticipates dangers). In excess though it is uncontrollable, steady hum of anxiety, impervious to reason).

·         It can help to shift attention off thoughts but worriers often don’t want to as they feel attached to worrying as a way of solving problem but worrying is not effective so ends up being rumination in danger itself. The key is that worrying gets the credit for averting the danger (as usually about things that are unlikely to happen. To help chronic worry 1) awareness of thoughts and physical response; 2) relaxation; 3) healthy skepticism as early in the process as possible (practice relaxation everyday) – it helps if it is not chronic e.g. a phobia

·         In depression, people worry about being depressed which makes it worse

·         Behaviour therapy helps the brain to relearn – literally it changes the function of the brain over a period of time – e.g. people with OCT to keep doing action like going to the sink without washing their hands and talking about their fears.

·         Mood heavily affects thoughts – some thoughts are linked to mood and are heavily wired and harder to suppress.

·         Worrying reduces ability to learn or carry out tasks effectively. Worry takes up attention so it becomes self fulfilling to do less well.

·         Some anxiety at the right level helps to improve performance as it motivates the person to prepare (called hypomania – mildly elated state).

·         Laughter can help with creativity and problem solving.

·         Memory is state specific so when in a good mood we are more likely to remember good things.

·         Hope is significant in predicting success. Hope is believing you have both the will and the way to accomplish your goals.

·         Optimists see failure as something that can be rectified next time. Pessimists see failure as something wrong with them. Optimists more likely to learn and try again.

·         Self-efficacy – believing one has mastery over their life and can meet challenges.

·         People’s beliefs about their abilities has a profound effect on them.

·         Emotions can be contagious – partly due to motormimicry where we copy the visual cues of the other. The transfer is from the one who is more forceful is showing their emotion. Politicians and evangelists work to entrain the feeling in the audience. Emotional entrainment is at the heart of influence.

·         Social chameleons can copy the emotions of others to be loved rather than be true to themselves.

·         Women are more emotional – they feel range more and with more intensity. Men learn to minimize emotions to do with guilt, fear, and vulnerability.

·         The way couples talk about their problems is more important than the problems themselves.

·         Flooding is when a person is highly susceptible to emotional distress and anything can trigger it. Men stonewall to avoid this. Women want to talk about it. One option in arguments is to call time and count heartbeats to check in with emotions. Doing something else for 20 mins helps to calm down. Helps to watch thoughts and not just take them as truth. Could look for evidence to refute them rather than getting carried away with thoughts.

·         To help people learn after PTSD they help people to  understand that the way they feel is part of the PTSD so they need to understand it better and understand how they feel inside which people often feel they have lost control of – they make them mindful of emotions and thoughts.

·         Second part of relearning is retelling what happened at a pace that they are ready to which needs to be bearable.

·         In psychotherapy where you learn to build a new relationship into an event they have shown that there is likely ot be still be a trigger but the response to the trigger is better, quicker , more helpful. The trigger often doesn’t go away. They did tests on babies to show that those that cried show more reactivity – right side of the  brain when mum left the room and those that didn’t more in the left. AS positive outlook is more associated with left prefrontal lobe.

What is the science behind emotional intelligence (biologically and neuroscientifically)?

·         Biology – the top of the spinal chord is oldest part of the brain – a rudimentary sense of smell came first. The limbic system is where emotion is stored. Limbic = limbus (ring shaped). Neo-cortex = thinking part. The neocortex associated with mothering young (reptiles have no neo cortext and young are left to fend for themselves)

·         Science – fear = blood to large muscles; anger = blood to hands; happiness = inhibit negative feeling – increase in energy – rest and readiness; surprise = raised eyebrows to take into more information; sadness = slower metabolism, energy (potentially keeps people nearer home where they can be safer)

·         We have two amygdale and they are important for the emotional memory, personal meaning, recognition of feeling. Tears are triggered by the amygdala. Being stoked, held soothes are tears. The amygdala can respond faster than neocortex. Triggers fight and flight hormones. Send commands across the brain. Neural pathways (what eyes, ears take in) – goes first to the thalamus then there is a circuit to the amygdala then to the neocortex. It doesn’t go direct to the neocortex so it means that we start preparing the response before we process life in the rational mind. We can also store a memory of this in the amygdala so we can react again like that in the future without thinking with the neocortex (only small part of the response goes to the amygdala but this is key). Other experiments show that along with receiving information unconsciously (something coming in to our attention before we realize it) – we also decide whether we like it or not ‘cognitive unconscious’.

·         Hippocampus is associated with providing context, significance, perceptual patterns,  and providing emotional meaning e.g. it recognizes differing significance of bear in the zoo than in the backyard. Hippocampus = dry fear. Amygdala = emotion.

·         Memory – we remember high emotion moments like death of Diana because of imprint on emotional memory which involves the amygdala.  The brain has two memories: facts and emotional . Triggered by similar experience – there are sloppy connections. And many are made early in life. The hippocampus is crucial for narrative memory, the amygdala for whether memory has emotional valence. But amygdala is formed quicker in early life than the hippocampus. We may not have words or stories for why we feel these emotions because some are laid down in early childhood.

·         Normally prefrontal lobes determine the emotional response. They make sense of things and are the seat of planning. A lobotomy on prefrontal lobes used to be done to stop people being in emotional distress but it cut off all emotion. Left prefrontal lobes – neural thermostat – it regulates negativity on right side.

·         Pre frontal lobes are responsible for working memory. Connections between limbic brain and pre-frontal cortex can affect ability to learn as ‘neural static’ can happen making you feel like you cant think straight. 

·         Emotional trigger is important so without it, we can trouble making decisions. It is balance between reason and emotion and working with this balance is emotional intelligence. 

Being Happier at Work - It's not what you think

When we don't want to do something at work - our tendency may be to do it quickly and pay as little attention as possible, or to do two things at once to tolerate doing the one thing we don't want to do.

Dr Stephen McKenzie challenges this saying that focusing more on what we are doing and only doing that one thing - even if we don't like - can help us to feel more connected to it, see new things we didn't before and we may even enjoy it. You might feel ready to 'gag' at this and dismiss this as wishy washy psychobabble but what if I change the situation and turned it into us needing to do something with a child that we didn't want to do, or with our partner - it's the same principle.

Let's return to the work situation and take an example of making a phone call we don't want to make. Personally, I usually delay it as long as possible and sometimes, it drops off the list for a few days (usually making the situation worse, and me dread it more!). Sometimes I  have to say hard things, and potentially then hear hard things or I know that a call will sometimes lead to a load of work for me to do which I don't feel like or don't enjoy doing. If only work was filled with just the things I like doing!

The point Dr McKenzie makes, which is made by all mindfulness teachers, is that actually deciding to give something 100% of your pay attention can change the experience. Imagine you dial the number and you start thinking - 'I don't want to be doing this', 'don't answer', 'this is going to create me so much work' etc. Your thoughts start jumping from one negative statement to the next. You start checking other emails while dialling to distract you from these negative thoughts. The phone answers. You rush through what you have to say and then dreading the response, you don't fully listen and the whole experience feels stressful. They are bound to have picked up on this too.

What is the alternative? One option would be to commit to just doing that task. Pick up the phone and dial. As negative thoughts come into your head as they are bound to - you just observe that they are there and draw your attention back to the fingers dialling the number (i.e. don't get on that train). You hear it ring. You listen to it ring. You feel the pen in your hand as you prepare to take notes. Your mind wanders to negative thoughts and you bring your mind back to the sound of the dial tone. The person answers. You speak - without rushing - just saying what you inevitably have to say. You then listen to each word the person says back to you. You may hear things that you don't want to hear but you also may hear things you didn't realise before, you may sense something in their tone, you may find ideas, thoughts, conclusions come to you which hadn't come to you before. Either way, the way you approached the call can shift the whole experience. And paying more attention can be better overall than paying less.

Mindfulness isn't anything extraordinary - it's just showing up, paying attention, acknowledging how our minds work and making a choice of whether to focus on their sometimes unhelpful trains of thought or whether to pay attention to other things happening in that moment like the touch of something, the sound, the message someone is trying to get across, the way our body is reacting etc.

Sometimes it feels like 'I don't like to do this and I'm not going to enjoy it and that's just the way it is' but believe it or not there are some choices here - we might not look forward to something but we can more pay attention to thing itself than to our minds telling us that we don't like it or suggesting ways to 'avoid' it - and that might change the way we experience it - it might even take the edge off it or surprise us. Given the alternative, isn't it worth a shot?

For the article follow this link:

http://m.afr.com/p/national/work_space/how_being_mindful_makes_for_happier_PDnauj8loTfGFp6J1c1BNK



 

Mindfulness and Sustainability - the future?

For reference, I have just read this really good article from 'Action for Happiness' about mindfulness and sustainability and the increasing understanding and engagement of business leaders in mindfulness. Google, Procter and Gamble, Apple, General Mills, a number of business schools. They are all at it! Is this the start of a revolution?

http://www.2degreesnetwork.com/groups/managing-sustainability/resources/could-mindfulness-hold-key-unlock-sustainable-future/

Inspiration from Steve Jobs - a Zen Buddhist

This morning I watched Steve Job's commencement address at Stanford. Never has a 15 minute speech resonated with me so much. He tells us - 'Don't settle!', find what you are passionate about, don't let other's opinion drown out your inner voice, follow your heart and intuition.

Many have said things like this before, but the reality is that this is hard to do. It takes heaps of courage. Inner strength. Confidence. Balls.

It doesn't surprise me that Steve Jobs is Buddhist. Or that he felt strongly about incorporating mindfulness and meditation into Apple. He believed in investing in people - and investing in their mental health.

We easily spend time and money on our bodies, our appearance, exterior things. But the strength to follow our passions, our hearts, our intuition and not settle for anything less - can only come from investing in our minds.

It is an inspiring 15 minutes.

Mindfulness in Organisations

Research Post Only:

Some of my posts like this one - are just for me to store and share some links and resources to various themes around mindfulness. I won't have time to write about all of the links and resources but if you are interested in researching these areas further then hopefully these links will help. I will keep adding to this post as I find things.

• Tons of articles and other resources on mindfulness in the workplace can be found here: http://www.mindfulnet.org/page9.htm
• 'Presence' by Peter Senge et al (explains 'Theory U' which has a lot of similarities with mindfulness - I will write more about this in the future)
• Caudron, Shari. (2001). Meditation and Mindfulness. Workforce, 80(6), 240-245.
• Chang, V. (2004). The effects of a mindfulness-based stress reduction program on stress, mindfulness self-efficacy, and positive states of mind. Stress and Health, 20, 141-147.
• http://www.instituteformindfulleadership.org/

What else are we missing?

"It is easy not to spot the the small changes because you already know what to expect. Did you spot the second 'the' in the previous sentence?" (Teaching Mindfulness)

Most of us are well versed in the key to communication being listening and we talk about it in courses on management and relationship building. What we don't necessarily talk about is the way our minds work and the effect they have on our ability to be fully present and aware. Our minds often make judgements about what is being said which can lead to an internal dialogue. They tend to move into the future - thinking about what to say next or move into the past, thinking about what was said before and not what is being said now.

The act of listening is also an act of quietening our own minds - lessening the internal chatter and making space for whatever is being communicated to us - verbally and non-verbally. From this, we widen our understanding of the other person, we gain new insight into what they are communicating - picking up on subtleties, and we can respond more spontaneously.

This takes practice and the first step is perhaps just noticing the judgements as they arise and/or noticing whether we are drifting into thoughts about the future or past as someone speaks. Once we have, we can then tune into what is actually being said and spot the difference.

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/catnipcat/7157542418/">Catnip Cat by Jeff Hoyle</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/">cc</a>