Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind

by Nancy Kline

When your partner has nothing more to say, ask: ‘What more do you think or feel or want to say about this?’

If the Thinker becomes quiet, but their eyes are alive, relax. They are still thinking. Leave them to it. The fact that they are not talking does not mean they are not thinking.

‘What do you want the session to achieve at this point?’

Part 2: ‘What do you want the session to achieve at this point?’

Remembering the Thinker’s exact words is the impressive way to be active here.

Between the Thinker and their goal is a limiting assumption.

after listening in Part 1 and determining the Thinker’s goal in Part 2, ask: ‘What might you be assuming that is stopping you from achieving your session goal?’

When they have no more assumptions to reveal, ask them to choose the one that is most in their way.

‘Of these assumptions which do you think is limiting you most?’

The Thinker does not need to hear all of their assumptions again just so you can prove that you were listening. They simply need to be asked which is the most poisonous one.

this is what you will have: their goal; their key assumption.

The Thinker will articulate one of three kinds of assumptions. You have to determine which kind it is. It will be one of the following: a fact (‘I am not the boss; he is’); a possible-fact (‘The boss might laugh at me or think I am stupid’); a bedrock assumption about the self (‘I am stupid’) or about how life works (‘It is not all right to get it wrong’).

Limiting Bedrock Assumptions: Perceptions of Self I am stupid. I do not have a right to say what I think. I am not worthy of good outcomes. My ideas do not matter. I cannot handle it. I am trapped. I have no choice. I have no power.

Limiting Bedrock Assumptions: How Life Works It is not all right to get it wrong. I have to have all the answers. It isn’t possible. Change is always difficult and takes a long time.

Why Distinguish? Whether the Thinker’s assumption is a possible-fact or a bedrock assumption determines what question you ask next.

In a Thinking Partnership (as opposed to a business meeting) you are usually looking for the bedrock assumption. It is the core culprit blocking the Thinker’s next thoughts. It is also the force that can prevent the Thinker from taking action, so it is worth the search.

You listen beautifully through Part 1, asking when appropriate if there is anything more the Thinker thinks or feels about the topic.

Then you move into Part 2 and ask them what they want the session to achieve at this point. They tell you their session goal succ...

you move to Part 3 and ask, ‘What are you assuming that is stopping you from achi...

You then move into Part 4 by beginning to construct an Incisive Question that will remove the assumption and replace it with a freeing one.

we saw that underneath the possible-fact assumption was a limiting bedrock assumption. The challenge then was to find it.

we finally came up with the awkward but powerful wording: ‘That’s possible. But what are you assuming that makes that stop you?’ This question slides beneath the possible-fact and captures the bedrock culprit.

What the Thinker needs now in order to keep thinking is to get rid of the limiting assumption and to find ideas on the other side.

‘If you knew that you are intriguing, what would you do in this situation?’

I now systematically ask the Thinker before I construct the Incisive Question to tell me what their positive opposite of that word would be. And I use it. No argument.

‘What is your positive opposite of “he is better than I am in every way”?’

The Thinker looked away. Then suddenly her face opened and her eyes danced. She turned back to the Thinking Partner and said, ‘I am blindingly stunning in every way.’ Wow. It is always worth the asking.

The Incisive Question does one thing and does it expertly. It removes the barrier that is stopping the person from thinking further.

‘If you knew …’ questions are the most common. For example, ‘If you knew that you are blindingly stunning in every way, how would you feel around Sam?’

If you knew + freeing assumption + goal = Incisive Question.

After the complexities of 1 hearing the assumption, 2 figuring out which kind of assumption it is, 3 searching for the bedrock assumption beneath any possible-fact, 4 finding out the Thinker’s positive opposite of a limiting assumption, and then designing the Incisive question to remove it, you as their Thinking Partner can, once again, sit back and watch the elegance.

Ask the Incisive Question once and you will hear one idea. Ask it again and you will hear another.

To remove a fact, for example, merely hypothesize its opposite. Fact: ‘I am not the chief executive.’ Incisive Question: ‘If I were the chief executive, I would …’ Fact: ‘I am not a woman.’ Incisive Question: ‘If I were a woman in this situation, I would …’

These questions open the mind to all kinds of new possibilities.

Possible-fact: ‘The boss might think I am stupid.’ Incisive Question: ‘If I knew that the boss might not think I am stupid, I would …’

When the Thinker’s session goal is ‘to understand or to find out why’ about something in them, that goal will be met in Part 3.

Just ask, ‘What are you assuming that stops you from sustaining success?’

Barbara’s client had not asked to have these assumptions removed. He just wanted to find them so that he would understand his behaviour. He discovered his assumption that ‘people like him are not important’. That assumption was preventing his sustaining success.

So listen carefully in Part 2 to determine what sort of goal it is. If it is a knowing, understanding, finding-out-why kind of a goal, stop after Part 3. Go back then to Part 2 and ask, ‘Now what would you like the session to achieve?’ If they want to remove the assumption just found in Part 3, they will say so. If they don’t, the session is over.

With your attention – with your eyes, your face, the tone in your voice, in your ease and quiet, in your posture of respect and appreciation – you as the Thinking Partner are asking all of those Incisive Questions and more.

The point of Part 5 of the Thinking Session is to ensure that the Incisive Question does not get lost. Very often that same question is useful again and again, from one situation to another.

Part 5 is also a time to write down ideas for action that the Incisive Question has produced.

Some sessions lead to ‘action items’ and some don’t. For example, if the goal of your session is to feel different, there obviously will be no ideas for action.

There is only one thing on which virtually everything else in our lives depends. That is the quality of our thinking.

Most of us most of the day do not take time to think for ourselves and we don’t pay attention to others well enough for them to do it either.

we rarely decide to sit down and think. To stop, sit down and think for ourselves, especially with someone paying attention to us expertly, is worth the time it takes. It returns time to us many fold.

Some people have told me that they have spent years undoing damage and starting over again because they acted without thinking well first.

Larger, complex issues respond to this practice too. Take the time to think about them clearly and for yourself before you decide what to do, and you will gain time.

We need to value our own minds enough to put time to think into our diaries, to be willing to build other things around it. Those other things will be better, richer, smarter as a result.

Judy Small when she says, ‘Time is what it takes to build a dream that’s worth the while.’