how to know what kind of thinker you are

How To Know What Kind of Thinker You Are

Presentation by Jason and Lakisha Williams

The advancement of new technology has been taking place since the beginning of human history.

Each new development ultimately changes the way people communicate, connect, and discover.

Today,

✤We live in a golden age of technological, medical, scientific, and social progress.

But there is a problem….

✤ New technologies for collaboration are improving faster than people’s ability to learn to use them.

“Digital Darwinism”

✤ This has been commonly referred to as, “Digital Darwinism” - an era where technology and society are evolving faster than businesses can naturally adapt. Source: http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/04/digital-darwinism-

disruptive-technology-changing-business-good/

Additionally, widespread adoption of new technologies in the workplace has significantly changed customer and employee behavior, values, and expectations.

Source: http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/04/digital-darwinism-disruptive-technology-changing-business-good/

✤ Because consumer behavior is evolving as a result of technology, businesses either compete to get ahead of it, they perpetually react to it, or they belittle it.

Source: http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/04/digital-darwinism-disruptive-technology-changing-business-good/

But in today’s marketplace, the smartest companies aren’t those that necessarily out-produce the competition.

Source: https://hbr.org/2015/11/what-kind-of-thinker-are-you

https://hbr.org/2015/11/what-kind-of-thinker-are-you

Instead, it’s the organizations that outthink them.



So, how do you do that?

✤ A year ago, two researchers from the Harvard Business Review (HBR) set out to find the answer, drawing on the collective experience of dozens of collaborative communities and learning organizations.

✤ Their findings are included in a recent HBR article titled, “What Kind of Thinker Are You”


Here’s what they found:



1. There are frameworks for how you personally think or how you influence others one on one.



In most organizations, there’s a standard set of tools we use to form, lead, and manage teams.

✤ We normally think of roles as being about what people do, such as team leader, project manager, or researcher.

✤ When you need a decision, you go to the team leader.

✤ When you want a status update, you go to the project manager.

✤ When you need something investigated, you go to the researcher. Source: https://hbr.org/2015/11/what-

kind-of-thinker-are-you


However, it is ultimately how teams think together that most determines their performance.



So after a lot of co-creation and trial-and-error, HBR says, the researchers developed a three-step method that delivers practical and meaningful results.



How to evaluate how you and your team members think:

A 3-Step Method developed by Mark Bonchek and Elisa Steele from the Harvard Business Review

1. Focus

✤ The first step is to identify the focus of your thinking in a particular context or setting.

✤ Do you tend to pay the most attention to ideas, process, action, or relationships?



2. Orientation

✤ The next step is to notice whether your orientation in that setting swings toward the micro or the macro — the big picture or the details.



✤ A good way to identify this orientation is by thinking about what tends to bother you in meetings. Are you more likely to complain about getting dragged into the weeds or about things being too general and not specific enough?

✤ These dimensions are complementary to personality, skills, and traditional roles.



3. Combine

✤ The third step is to combine these two dimensions and see the thinking style at work in whatever context or setting you chose.



For example, on the big picture or macro orientation:

✤ Explorer thinking is about generating creative ideas.

✤ Planner thinking is about designing effective systems.

✤ Energizer thinking is about mobilizing people into action.

✤ Connector thinking is about building and strengthening relationships.



Across the micro or detail orientation:

✤ Expert thinking is about achieving objectivity and insight.

✤ Optimizer thinking is about improving productivity and efficiency.

✤ Producer thinking is about achieving completion and momentum.

✤ Coach thinking is about cultivating people and potential.



In conclusion:

✤ “Just as team members today have assigned doing roles, there should also be thinking roles.”

✤ “By knowing how other members of your team and organization think — and by others knowing how you think — everyone can be more energized, more engaged, more creative, and more productive.” - Mark Bonchek and Elisa Steele, HBR



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