Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking with People Who Think Differently

by Dawna Markova

Goal-Setting LIGHTS YOU UP • Defining and tracking daily concrete goals to work toward. • Big targets and challenging goals and assignments. BURNS YOU OUT • Absence of specific ways to measure progress. • Time off or work that is not challenging.

TALENT Innovation LIGHTS YOU UP • Creating new processes or products. • Figuring out all the new ways to accomplish something or keep them interesting. BURNS YOU OUT • Routine and standardized ways of doing things. • Looking back at how something was done before.

TALENT Love of Learning LIGHTS YOU UP • Continual learning. • Sharing what you are learning. BURNS YOU OUT • Leapfrogging from learning thing to thing without any depth. • Having to do routine things when no learning is involved.

Learning

TALENT Loving Ideas LIGHTS YOU UP • Having a new idea, concept, or theory. • Being involved at the beginning of something. BURNS YOU OUT • Having no place to contribute your ideas. • Coming in at the middle or end of a project, when you have to suppress your ideas or give input on how it could be done.

TALENT Mentoring LIGHTS YOU UP • Helping others grow their potential. • Guiding people through new situations. BURNS YOU OUT • Trying to help a struggling employee when it’s appropriate to give up. • When there is no opportunity to grow someone. For example, if the focus is only on the bottom line and not on development of people.

Mentoring

Storytelling LIGHTS YOU UP • Bringing ideas to life through story. • Inspiring others to engage through narratives. BURNS YOU OUT • Having to think with only facts and figures. • Thinking only in “why” and “how.”

Storytelling

The sum of something can be greater than a total of its parts.

Thinking talents are your innate ways of thinking. They help you understand your own potential and learn to recognize and connect with the gifts of others.

Knowing your thinking talents will give you energy, help you excel at work, and prevent burnout.

The word ubuntu means that a person becomes human through other persons. —Archbishop Desmond Tutu

you may not be able to change other people, but you can change how you perceive them and how you relate to them.

WALK CURIOUSLY IN ANOTHER PERSON’S SHOES 1. Ask questions that will help you discover what energizes the other person.

Walk shoe

“Tell me about a time in your past when you felt truly engaged. What were the conditions that allowed that to happen?” • “In your current work situation, what energizes you and makes you want to be a part of this team?”

Team .. Work environment question to ask

What would be the ideal work environment for you—one that could allow you to work at your best?”

Ideal work environment

ask yourself the following questions to recognize and engage that talent: • What specifically annoys or frustrates you the most? • Which thinking talent could this represent? • Is this related to a blind spot you or they have?

Q. Annoy or frustrate

What specific change in your thinking is required for you to blend? For example: “When I sense opposition, I need to breathe and ask questions until I understand what is important to the other person.”

A contract is what bridges business partnerships in a market-share economy. A relationship is what bridges business partnerships in a mind-share economy.

Mind share.. Relationship market share.. Contract eureka

Market-share skills instill independence, dependence, and co-dependence. Mind-share skills foster interdependence: receptivity and connection, influence and inquiry.

“Tell me about a time in your past when you felt truly engaged. What were the conditions that allowed that to happen?”

Work Environment Question.. Truly engaged

“In your current work situation, what are the positive factors that energize you and make you want to be a part of the team?”

Mapping teams online: To work with teams more effectively, we developed software called “the Smart Navigator.” Team members can do an assessment to determine their mind pattern and thinking talents and to create team maps and search for thinking talents within the entire organization. More information is available at CQthebook.com.

Team talent mapping online tool

Wisdom Trail.

“Each of us travels a path that is shaped like this spiral.

“Sometimes you may think you’re moving backward or that you aren’t making any progress at all. But that’s not true. You’ve just forgotten that the Wisdom Trail is a spiral. Each pass around, if you’ve really explored those important questions, you will have gathered more wisdom, and you’ll find that you travel with more grace.

Wisdom trail

What you need to remember is that, wherever you go on the path, there’s no way to escape those questions or what you came here to do.”

The power to question is the basis of all human progress. —Indira Gandhi

Quote indira gandhi

lifelong fascination with the relationship between great questions and expanding possibility.

Questions such as “Why do I keep doing this?” “Did I make a mistake?” “Will I never learn?” can close your mind and restrict access to the full range of your own intelligence.

Learning to inquire artfully can open your mind to wider and deeper ways of knowing. It can also transform how you talk to yourself.

Mind share, however, requires that you learn to evoke thinking and inspire growth.

The focus is on exploring the question itself rather than on being certain about your answer.

Between every breakdown and every breakthrough, there is a great question. The strategy of inquiry is the art of asking great questions.

To develop mastery with the strategy of inquiry, it’s necessary to embrace what Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset.”

Obstacles and negative feedback become learning opportunities. You approach challenges by asking yourself three simple questions: • What can I learn from this? • How can I grow my capacity? • How can I do this better?

Thomas Edison, arguably the greatest inventor of the late nineteenth century, exhibited a growth mindset in his famous quote when he was criticized for failing seven hundred times to invent the incandescent lightbulb. He said, “I have not failed seven hundred times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those seven hundred ways will not work. When I have eliminated all the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.” It took him one thousand tries. He thought of each one as a learning opportunity.

The first type is success-based inquiry; when you are stuck, this helps you access your own wisdom by focusing on what has worked in the past. The second is intentional inquiry; when you feel lost, overwhelmed, and confused in your thinking, it helps you reconnect with what really matters to you. The third, influential inquiry, helps when you feel disconnected or ineffective in your own thinking or with others.

Inquiry

How was the breakdown transformed into a breakthrough—when it all started to go wrong, what shifted to make it go right? What was your part in making this happen?

Knowing what is essentially important to you is what aikidoists call “virtuous intent.”

Intentional inquiry uses questions that help you tap in to a place of clarity about what really matters to you.

Intentional inquiry

Intentional questions are like the magnetic needle of a compass. They help you determine what is important to you in the moment and become clear about where you want to go.

key intentional questions: • What is most important to you about this? • What is surprising to you right now? • What is inspiring you? • What is challenging you?

Key intentional questions

Influential inquiry uses questions that will help you identify where you have natural strength in thinking and competency for influencing people as well as where you may need support.

THE INQUIRY COMPASS

In a mind-share environment, relational intelligence is required. Additionally, multiple studies show that both happiness and effectiveness are directly related to bringing all of yourself to work.

Pay attention to your blind spots and get input from someone who is strong in this form of inquiry. Adopting a growth mindset will enable you to ask for support, because you know it does not mean you are incompetent.

breakthrough thinking happens when we explore the quadrant we most often avoid.

if he decided that he’d rather be effective, then he would have to inquire of himself what was most important to him in that moment.

increased use of inquiry resulted in people feeling that their input was valuable.

three forms of inquiry: success-based, intentional, and influential.

Take three deep breaths that reach the center of your belly. • Bring to the forefront of your mind a challenging person or situation you are dealing with. • Ask yourself: “What sensations do I feel in my body as I think of this?”