TEN COMPONENTS OF THE THINKING ENVIRONMENT ™
Attention: Listening with palpable respect & without interruption; knowing that you will not be interrupted frees the human mind to truly think.
Equality: Giving each other equal turns, and an equal quality of Attention; treating each other as thinking peers even in a hierarchy; keeping agreements and boundaries.
Ease: Offering each other freedom from internal rush and urgency – ease generates creative thinking, urgency destroys it.
Appreciation: Practicing a 5:1 ratio of appreciation to criticism; the human mind thinks best in the presence of genuine, concrete praise.
Feelings: The appropriate release of feelings gives way to better thinking; an environment that validates feelings is one that encourages more rigorous & liberated thinking.
Encouragement: Giving the thinker the courage to go the cutting edge of their ideas, even if unpopular, free from the threat of internal competition, judgement or evaluation.
Information: Supply the facts people need in order to be able to think well about the topic; dismantle individual and organizational denial.
Diversity: The human mind thinks best in the presence of reality – reality is diverse; seek to ensure diverse group identities are represented and welcome divergent thinking.
Incisive Questions: The liberation of the human mind lies right inside the crafting of questions that enable the removal of limiting assumptions.
Place: Create environments that say back to people “you matter: you have been thought about, and your needs are considered and respected”; when our bodies are well cared-for we think better.
Equality: Giving each other equal turns, and an equal quality of Attention; treating each other as thinking peers even in a hierarchy; keeping agreements and boundaries.
Ease: Offering each other freedom from internal rush and urgency – ease generates creative thinking, urgency destroys it.
Appreciation: Practicing a 5:1 ratio of appreciation to criticism; the human mind thinks best in the presence of genuine, concrete praise.
Feelings: The appropriate release of feelings gives way to better thinking; an environment that validates feelings is one that encourages more rigorous & liberated thinking.
Encouragement: Giving the thinker the courage to go the cutting edge of their ideas, even if unpopular, free from the threat of internal competition, judgement or evaluation.
Information: Supply the facts people need in order to be able to think well about the topic; dismantle individual and organizational denial.
Diversity: The human mind thinks best in the presence of reality – reality is diverse; seek to ensure diverse group identities are represented and welcome divergent thinking.
Incisive Questions: The liberation of the human mind lies right inside the crafting of questions that enable the removal of limiting assumptions.
Place: Create environments that say back to people “you matter: you have been thought about, and your needs are considered and respected”; when our bodies are well cared-for we think better.
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