More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Her attention was so immensely dignifying, her expression so seamlessly encouraging, that you found yourself thinking clearly in her presence, suddenly understanding what before had been confusing, finding a brand-new, surprising idea. You found excitement where there had been tedium. You faced something. You solved a problem. You felt good again.
The most important factor in whether or not they could think for themselves, afresh, at a given moment seemed to be how they were being treated by the people with them.
Why did you ask her? Because – I don’t know. That’s right. From now on, think for yourself.
boredom can set in because the person is disconnecting from the truth.
The Ten Components of a Thinking Environment 1 Attention Listening with respect, interest and fascination. 2 Incisive Questions Removing assumptions that limit ideas. 3 Equality Treating each other as thinking peers. • Giving equal turns and attention. • Keeping agreements and boundaries. 4 Appreciation Practising a five-to-one ratio of appreciation to criticism. 5 Ease Offering freedom from rush or urgency. 6 Encouragement Moving beyond competition. 7 Feelings Allowing sufficient emotional release to restore thinking. 8 Information Providing a full and accurate picture of reality. 9 Place
...more
The best conditions for thinking, if you really stop and notice, are not tense. They are gentle. They are quiet. They are unrushed. They are stimulating but not competitive. They are encouraging. They are paradoxically both rigorous and nimble.
Usually the brain that contains the problem also contains the solution – often the best one.
Aged twenty-two I was way too sure of myself and closed-minded to know how to open myself to the divine,
If I were your colleague, I would be thinking the following things: Your assumption is that you are stupid. That is an untrue assumption. I will remove that assumption by replacing it with a freeing one: you are intelligent. I will put that freeing assumption inside a question and link it to your goal of talking to Neil. The question would then look like this: If you knew that you are intelligent (freeing assumption), how would you talk to Neil (goal of the session)?
If you were to become the chief executive, what problem would you solve first, and how would you do it? If you knew that you are vital to this organization’s success, how would you approach your work? If things could be exactly right for you in this situation, how would they have to change? If you were not to hold back in your life, what would you be doing? If you found out that someone you love very much is going to die tomorrow, what would you want to be sure to say to them today? If you could trust that your children would be fine, what would you do with the rest of your life? If you knew
...more
‘What have you noticed that needs attention or change in this company that I might not have noticed?’ and ‘What do you think should be done about it?’ Then she sits down and listens.
If parents would treat their children as thinking equals and ask for ideas from them, they would hear astute things often and make better decisions. In fact, if you are a parent, do what the Staples manager did.
in most cases there is, in a complete picture of reality, far more good than bad.
Organizations operate on this negative norm. When we introduce the positive, therefore, we are seen to be challenging the norm, to be inserting something extra, intrusive, imported. Whereas, actually, injecting the positive into our picture of reality is an act of completing reality, not implanting something foreign into it.
Appreciation of someone needs to be genuine, succinct and concrete. If you fake it, they will know. If you go on and on and on, they will go numb. If you are too general, they will not believe you.
Ease creates. Urgency destroys.
For years I had been assuming that the organizational sickness of rushing everybody to death with impossible production targets, sixteen-hour working days and brief cases disgorging weekend work were an accident. I had thought, stupid me, it was a condition for which every company president would apologize and fix as soon as possible. Not so; it was policy. Well-educated people in power actually thought it was a good idea.
He said gently and slowly, the way he spoke about everything, ‘I don’t care which books you teach as long as you remember one thing. The students are learning you. They will forget about D. H. Lawrence. But you and your life they will remember. Be sure you like what they are learning.
Shirley Wardell, president of Evolve UK, said that thinking clearly and for yourself is the thing on which everything else depends.
Competition stifles encouragement and limits thinking. To be ‘better than’ is not necessarily to be good.
Diversity raises the intelligence of groups. Homogeneity is a form of denial.
Chairing Brilliant Meetings If you want people to say of your meetings that ‘they just don’t get better than this’, chair them as a Thinking Environment. As team leader or manager or chair of a meeting, consider following these nine simple guidelines: At the beginning: 1 Give everyone a turn to speak. 2 Ask everyone to say what is going well in their work, or in the group’s work. Throughout: 3 Give attention without interruption during open and even fiery discussion. 4 Ask Incisive Questions to reveal and remove assumptions that are limiting ideas. 5 Divide into Thinking Partnerships when
...more
Become known for your Incisive Questions Ask these questions often of your team or staff: 1 What do you really think? 2 If you were in my position, what would you do with this company that I am not doing? 3 What do we as an organization assume that probably limits everything we do? If we were to assume something more freeing, what would change? 4 At the end of your career in this organization, what do you want to say you have achieved here when you look back? 5 What needs improvement in this organization that I haven’t noticed? If you had to take the lead suddenly, what would you do about it?
...more
What do I assume about myself most of the time that is limiting my leadership? If I were to assume something more liberating, what would change? 2 If I weren’t afraid, what would I be risking? 3 If I already knew that I am good and admired, how would I champion others today? 4 If I were to be my real self in my leadership, what would I do differently? 5 Whom among the people most junior to me can I invite to think with me today? 6 What can I do today to create more of a Thinking Environment in the organization? 7 What would I have to do to set up dependable thinking time for myself every day?
The danger with coaching lies in the perceived need for the coach to appear brilliant, to be seen to have all the answers. When coaches are focused on looking wonderfully clever, they do not listen long enough. They summarize and interpret and direct far too early in the session. Coaches need to realize that the brilliant person is the client. The coach’s job is to help the client discover that. The real expert on the organization is not the coach, however informed and experienced they may be. The real expert is the person who is running the organization.
She said, ‘I said I want to work less, earn more and spend more time with the family. Then I said that Mark would be angry if I upset my boss. Then I said that I would not know how to handle Mark’s anger. And you said, “If you knew that you can handle anything Mark might do or say, what change would you propose to your boss?” And bingo I had an idea of how I could restructure my job. Just like that, out of nowhere. And it happened right after you asked that question.’
To determine someone else’s goal for them is an act of infantilization.
‘What might you be assuming that is stopping you from achieving your session goal?’
Facts, Possible-facts and Bedrock Assumptions There is one more thing. 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’).
‘That’s possible. But what are you assuming that makes that stop you?’
If you knew + freeing assumption + goal = Incisive Question.
In the Incisive Question use the present tense when stating the new positive truth. For example, ‘If you knew that you are blindingly stunning’ is a different question from ‘If you knew that you were blindingly stunning.’ The present tense states a truth. The past tense (technically the subjunctive tense) states a hypothesis.
To take time to think is to gain time to live.
There is so much to do. There is so little time. We must go slowly.
Another striking feature they had in common was that they all ‘refused to do unwanted favours’. In other words, they could say no; they could escape from the victim role. They could stay empowered. They could think for themselves.
Love grows when your mind is perched right on the edge of this very second.
A Thinking Environment is one dependable way to resurrect our dreams and move them step by step towards reality. As children we understood this. The frightened caution of adulthood had not yet consumed us. Our fantasies were bold.
