Five things I learnt from... #001

Five things I learnt from Nancy Kline's book "Time to Think"

For the first newsletter, I'm picking one of my favourite books. It taught me so much and stopped me in my tracks several times. It has made me a much better listener and has helped me to appreciate the value in creating space for thinking.

Here are five things I learnt from Time to Think:

1. We prefer thinking for ourselves over following rules

In times of high stress, threat and emergency we are good at obeying. We follow signs, we listen to instructions, we go with the crowd.

Most of the time, we are in more safe circumstances though. When we are safe, we prefer to do things our way. We prefer to think, rather than to follow the rules and directions that others set out for us. Even if the actions or outcomes are exactly the same, we prefer to think it through and make our own choices.

We see this in children, where telling them what to do and what not to do can result in them doing the exact opposite.

Nancy Kline says is so clearly

... the human mind wants not to obey. It wants to think...

2. We think best when the environment we are in is set up for thinking

There are lots of things that contribute to thinking. There are lots of things that detract from thinking.

The environment that we are in can have a significant impact on the things we think about and the way that we think about them, the things we feel and the way we feel about them, the things we act on and the way that we act on them.

As we have seen already, threat and fear reduce our ability to think. Parts of our brain 'shut down' in emergency circumstances so that we can focus on survival.

When we want to think at our best, we need to be free of threat, fear, distraction, interruption and pressure. We need safety, securing and control.

Finding or creating these environments for ourselves is essential to our ability to think.

3. We can create an environment to help others think

Create a particular environment and people will think for themselves. It is that simple. - Nancy Kline.

In everything that we do, we are creating an environment for those around us, whether we are conscious of that or not.

The way that we set up our environments will influence whether people think that they matter or not. The extent that they feel they matter will be reflected in the amount that they are able to think and the quality of that thinking.

This is true in the office and it is true at home - especially if we are working from home.?

Think about the way that your working environment is set up and think about what that says to other people about whether you care about them or not.

Simple things to consider which influence whether others feel "I matter" or "I don't matter"

- whether you have your headphones in all the time

- whether your door is open or shut

- whether you are holding your phone or not while speaking to them

- whether or not you have music playing when they are trying to talk to you

- how you use a swivel chair - you can swing to them, but you can also swing away

There are two sides to this - some things give the impression that the people you are talking to don't matter as much as they could and these need to be avoided, and some things give the impression that people do matter and these need to be included.

4. Appreciation and recognition helps us to think better

If we are given tough constructive feedback, it can have a significant impact on our thinking. We can be very focused on the feedback - ruminating on what did we do wrong, what should we have done differently, asking ourselves what people think of us. This is useful if it is balanced. It is unhelpful when it takes over our thinking.

When we receive positive feedback or recognition, it can free up our thinking. We get a release of positive chemicals and feel good about ourselves. When we feel good about ourselve we can think more clearly.

If someone is struggling to think clearly, take a step back and give them some appreciation first - tell them about something that you respect in them, unrelated to the thing they are struggling with.

5. Thinking results in creation. We value the things we make more than the things others make.

When we think we make new connections, we unpack ideas, we solve problems.

When we think we create.

We value those creations and ideas much more than we value the creations and ideas that others come up with.

This reminds me of the Ikea Effect, where we value something we have built more than something that someone else has built.

Getting people to come up with their own ideas, action plans and approaches makes them much more likely to follow through on them - they don't like obeying, but they will follow their own thinking!

Do you value your ability to think?

How do you nurture it?

How do you helps others to think and create?

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In this newsletter I share my top five lessons from some of the books I've been reading, the podcasts I've been listening to, the people I've been talking to, the courses I've been on.

I love learning, and condensing what I've been learning into 5 key things helps me understand it better and hopefully helps you gain from it too!