Thinking and Understanding in a Team

This week, I am returning to a topic I raised two weeks ago about team building: the nature and understanding of thinking in a team. It is about having a sense of the team's strengths and weaknesses and, more importantly, having processes to think through team issues.

By thinking, I mean how we use our whole selves to do something. I realize this is a broad definition. By it, I mean how we use our mind and our body, our cognitive thinking, and our feeling thinking.

The two are tightly interrelated. Our feelings launch our minds in a direction, and our thoughts launch our feelings. The interplay between the two is very real, each helping or impacting the other. Research around Emotional Intelligence has put the feeling side of ourselves on the same plane as Intelligence Quotient, so that is why we call it all "thinking".

We have worked for decades on how people think and how they interrelate their emotional self with their cerebral self. The tool we use at Forrest is Effective Intelligence. Developed by Philips and Jerry Rhodes, the tool gives people an understanding of the different types of thinking, but more importantly, as we have found over time, the processes to think through issues either as individuals or in teams.

This is why it is important for team building. For team building, we need common processes and a common language.

If you doubt that, ask yourself: What does Strategy mean? If you ask two different people, they will have two distinct definitions. Is Strategy akin to a decision? Is it about defining our visions, missions, and objectives? Or is it a plan to achieve something?

It goes further: When someone says we have no innovation in our organization, do they mean we have no new ideas, or are we unable to put new ideas into action? All four examples require different thinking approaches. Is it creativity or socializing? Is it decisions or planning?

To add to the confusion, as I said two weeks ago, everyone has a different thinking profile. It makes it challenging for us to get on the same page. Process and profiling are important.

Far too many team-building tools attempt to clarify who you are. We all love to gain insight into who we are and to be able to categorize, describe, and distinguish ourselves from others. However, the key to team building is not just understanding one another; it is about doing something with that understanding.

Knowing yourself and others knowing who you are builds familiarity, but the jury is out on its ability to improve productivity.

True productivity comes from doing something, and thinking is the root of doing. Process and profile work to steer the thinking in individuals and groups to enable productivity.

For example, when we have a process for decision-making, any disagreements are not about ourselves but rather about the data we are using, thereby reducing anxiety, stress, and potential conflict. That is why the process is key to team building rather than personality.

Of course, this all sounds rational and logical, and you can see it comes from that side of thinking, whereas many people prefer to rely on their feelings and the emotive side of their thinking. There is space for all, but it is a case of knowing when to use which, and again, that comes back to processing.?

Finally, ponder your own team for a moment. How much of their pay cheques is for their thinking? I argue that we are paid for our thinking because thinking leads to doing and, therefore, productivity.