Time to Think
by Michael Mallows
By way of a book review
Time
to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind by Nancy Kline
Paperback / Cassell Illustrated /
December 1998 / 0706377451 £9.99
This book
provides one of the most elegant and effective models for improving
communication that I have ever encountered!
So compelling is the
model, that some of the components and all of the principles that make up
the Thinking Environment now determine the structure and process of all
my training.
As key-note
speaker at a couple of up-coming conferences, I will
be demonstrating, by example, the ease and efficacy of a Thinking
Environment.
The
ten components of a Thinking Environment are:
1,
Attention
Listening
with respect, attention and fascination: Imagine (or remember) how it feels to
have the fully engaged attention of another person as you express your
aspirations and anxieties. You speak with no expectations of criticisms,
evaluations, interruptions, discounts, disagreements or anything else that, in
effect, is a judgement of some kind about your intelligence, your morality,
your wisdom, your right to dream, your urge to be audacious!
2.
Incisive Questions
Removing
assumptions that limit ideas
Imagine (or recall) after you have poured out your grand vision or
your sense of bewilderment or belittlement, being asked questions that help
you to cut through the tangled weeds of your patterned thinking and to see
something with greater clarity and focus. Like a fog dissolving.
3. Equality
Treating
each other as thinking peers
Imagine being invited, included, involved, and treated as if other people
truly value your input. That even your clumsy, inchoate thoughts are allowed
space and given respect.
4. Appreciation
Practicing
a five-to-one ratio of appreciation to criticism
Imagine - or practice - noticing what works well, that you 'catch people being
good', that you really appreciate colleagues or clients, rather than judge
them for results or failings but for their intent, for their tenacity, for
their resilience, even if, at first, they still run the same patterns because
they are still constructing and construing their world with the same
assumptions and paradigms.
5. Ease
Offering
freedom from rush or urgency
Imagine giving people the time and, perhaps more importantly in a frantic
world, the generosity of spirit, that allows them to say, to share, to be, to
feel and express where they've come from, where they are and where they hope
or fear to go.
6. Encouragement
Moving
beyond competition
Consider not imposing your disagreement, your different perspective, your need
to interrupt, to Be Right, to make them Wrong, to challenge, compare, correct,
coerce, persuade, convince, all of which are forms of competition - for space,
the moral high ground, the centre stage, the Top Dog position.
7.
Feelings
Allowing
sufficient emotional release to restore thinking
Enable and encourage affect; all too often people who work with, or, indeed,
live with (young) people do everything they can to restrict and restrain
healthy expressions of the full range of human feelings and emotions. This,
sadly and ironically, is more so with people in the helping, caring, listening
professions than any other. There will be many ways of explaining (discounting
or denying) this, so I should qualify it by saying that I base that statement
on over 30 years working with people in the 'people business' and it may only
be true of most of the many hundreds of people that I meet in an average year.
8. Information
Providing
a full and accurate picture of reality
Kline asks that we provide a full and accurate picture of reality. As I lean
toward the idea that 'there is no Reality, only Perception' i.e. we each
create unique, subjective models of the world, based on the memories and
meanings we call upon, the dreams and disappointments that move us towards or
away from ideas, people, places, events, possibilities, responsibilities,
risks, our own or other people's liberating or limiting beliefs and values.
I
would rather aim for helping people to think clearly and logically at the same
time as being aware and authentic (see Feelings, above), and able to accept,
observe and listen to other people's feelings with compassion not pity.
9.
P
Creating
a physical environment that says back to people, 'You matter.'
This has implications for the local environment. What images or colours adorn
the walls? What sounds and background noises are acceptable? Who decides? Who
gets to choose? By what criteria are decisions made? How does this person feel
welcomed by the posters? The smells? The textures?
10. Diversity
Adding
quality because of the differences between us
Diversity:
As always, and threaded through everything, are issues of difference and
diversity. Too many people say (pretend?) they are worried about causing
offence if they say or do such and such.
They are afraid to ask or to admit ignorance, or to engage in open
discussion about the obvious e.g. pigmentation, different abilities, gender or
sexual orientation. The deny, discount, dump, withdraw, silk, take umbrage or
take a stance on issues of diversity, more often than not because they see,
hear, feel that 'talking about it just stirs up problems'
- or some similar avoidance tactic.
I
see diversity as a source of abundance and enrichment. I want to explore your
maps and then, if you have the time and energy, if you can be bothered, if you
see the value, then I'd like to share my ideas and values. We may discover
that we have diametrically opposed views. We may discover that we have no
values in common, that our maps start in different places and are heading in
different directions. Each of us may leave the other, just as convinced as
when we started, that 'my map is the territory', but that we reached out to
each other, that we could be bothered to gave each other space - and maybe the
benefit of the doubt - we may have had enough emotional intelligence to have
created a thinking environment.
Incisive Questions
Removing
assumptions that limit ideas
To
return for a moment to the second point, above, and how to question and remove
limiting assumption, the
tenacious and often unconscious assumptions that limit ideas and restrict
clear and critical thinking. I am currently running a series of Clear and
Critical Thinking and Decision Making training programmes for senior managers
in a number of Local Authorities. It ought to be strange, or at least
surprising - but sadly it is neither! - that people who have climbed the
corporate ladder may never have thought deeply about, let alone had training
in what they have to do all day and every day, i.e. how to think clearly and
logically, with a rational objectivity.
When
people at every level don't think too well, and don't know how to teach that
skill to others, it is all the more difficult to teach young people - even if
only by example rather than coaching or formal training - how to question and
remove limiting assumptions. And yet, it is ever more important!
I
will be recommending this accessible, readable, enjoyable and truly
enlightening book to almost everyone and I strongly encourage you to beg, buy
or borrow it, learn from it, and become a (an even more) powerful agent of
change!
BIODATA:
Michael Mallows is a Management Consultant, Group Worker, Therapist, Supervisor, Adoption Consultant, Coach and Mentor; also an Author, Lyricist, Public Speaker, Team Builder and Workshop Presenter. [Click on any of the links to learn more about him and his activities] His website is www.mallows.co.uk and Email: michaelmallows@btinternet.com