Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking with People Who Think Differently

by Dawna Markova

Intentional inquiry reminds you of what is important to you.

Use intentional inquiry to gain clarity about what really matters to you.

Influential inquiry uses questions to help you identify where you have natural strength and competency for influencing people and where you need support.

Inquire from all four of the compass directions: Analytic questions: thinking about “Why?” Procedural questions: thinking about “How?” Relational questions: thinking about “Who?” Innovative questions: thinking about “What if?”

The challenge of every team is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another. Because the question is usually not how well each person performs, but how well they work together. —Vince Lombardi

“What is my intention here?”

“What matters to us all?”

I heard Maya Angelou give a speech in which she quoted what a woman named Anne Herbert said: “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”

create thank-you cards to strangers who had performed a random act of kindness, some senseless gift of beauty that helped them believe that anything could be possible again.

Random Acts of Kindness.

The Kindness movement began with one inspiring idea that pulled me toward what could be possible by redirecting my attention, intention, and imagination.

TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SHIFT FROM A MARKET-SHARE TO A MIND-SHARE MINDSET

MIND SHARE Uses influence with others to connect.

MIND SHARE Leads as a host.

MIND SHARE Dignifies differences as a resource.

“The more we share, the more we have!”

Asks what can be possible.

Considers value to be created by and carried by exchange of ideas and connections.

Values interdependence.

ATTENTION, INTENTION, AND IMAGINATION Attention, intention, and imagination form the connective tissue of the human mind.

Attention connects you to the present moment, where you have the power to act.

Intention identifies what really matters to you. Imagination explores how you can rea...

When you direct your attention toward your purposeful intent, you find yourself serving what you love, and what you love serves you.

Living your dream doesn’t necessarily mean it is the source of your income or that you do it every minute of every day.

It means you identify what makes you feel most alive and purposeful.

imagined that, as a result of today, all of these kids might be able to do better tomorrow and then five years from now.

Jacki Zehner, CEO of Women Moving Millions,

What is one thing you’ve done to shift the limiting mindset of others? • What do you know that you want others to know about collaboration? • To increase your collaborative intelligence, where could you grow?

As a leader, I am in service to them. Collaboration makes it possible for you both to serve each other’s success.

Collective intention inspires collective excellence.

• Create a multi-dimensional representation that unifies all the diverse intentions. For example: a collage of images or photographs cut out of magazines, or a model or sculpture using the available materials in the room.

C—Create ideas. A—Analyze ideas for effectiveness. R—Refine your best ideas into an action plan. E—Execute your plan by aligning task and talent.

Create a Collaboration Handbook • Each person fills out one page on how to best work with him or her. This might include thinking talents, mind patterns, cognitive styles, and whatever helps to think together with others. Be as specific as possible. (See the example below.) • Combine them all to create a team handbook. • In the group, ask each person to explain the information on his or her page.

COLLABORATION HANDBOOK Name__________________________ • My best guess of my mind pattern (VAK, etc.): • My thinking talents are: • My inquiry style is: • My blind spots are: • If you want to treat me with respect: • How I prefer to receive information (e.g., email for short messages; phone calls for longer issues; never voice mail; etc.): • How I prefer to receive difficult feedback: • One thing I’d like you to know about me is:

Collaboration handbook form

“Randori” is a term used in the Japanese martial art of ki aikido to describe freestyle practice. It literally means “grasping freedom.”

“What can we make possible together?”

Your Best Working Environment

Your Best Learning Process

KVA • People who use the KVA pattern tend to be very independent workers who can grasp physical and technical tasks quickly.

Because people who use the KVA pattern have such sensitive ears, communicate visually as much as possible or while walking in nature. Do not expect them to be able to tell you what is going on for them.

Kva sensitive

KVA PATTERN Best Ways to Focus Your Attention • You are most logical, detailed, and organized when doing something or in movement. You like doing many tasks at once.

Best Ways to Explore Options and Think Through Confusion • Writing helps you to assess what is most important to you and what you really want to do. • If you find yourself vacillating in an “either/or” situation, try dividing the issue between two columns and writing out the options. Then get up and move around and notice how each option feels in your body.

Best Ways to Innovate or Create • Listening to evocative music or being in silence helps you think creatively, as does walking in nature. • It can be very helpful to speak to a trusted friend who will let you “swirl” without trying to impose meaning or order on your words and then write them down for you. Your

Your Best Working Environment • You generally work best alone or with a small group of people you know well, with little supervision from or interaction with others.

It is also important that you be surrounded by silence or by music of your choice when you need to concentrate. Loud noises of any sort—even happy cheers—can be very challenging.

Your Best Learning Process • You learn most easily by doing and watching, while only occasionally asking questions. What this usually means is that it’s best for you to be left alone to experiment with something until you figure it out. •

Communicating with Others • You need to feel safe and listened to in order to enter into meaningful conversation. • Ask others, in writing, to give you as much room to speak as possible.

Be aware that other people aren’t as verbally sensitive as you are and try not to take their tones of voice or phrasing personally.

Whenever possible, communicate with others in writing—email, notes, and memos—especially if you w...

Suggest that in meetings with a lot of verbal dialogue, there is a time for silen...