You Better Think!

Thinking is too underrated in our society, and dare I say, even in our workplaces. We undervalue it subtly when we criticise those with faraway eyes or are being visually less productive than we would like. Most of us have a propensity to be productive, or at least look busy, and in doing so we can sometimes fail to think or reflect adequately.

Jenny Moon (2004) writes of the importance of reflective thinking as processes of relating, experimenting, exploring, reinterpreting from different points of view, or within different contextual factors, theorizing, linking theory and practice; ‘cognitive housekeeping’, etc. This can only happen when space has been set aside for it to occur.

One of my ‘thinking practices’ is to go to different locations to enable me to ‘think afresh’ on topics. I once worked in an office opposite a park. It was not uncommon for me to go to the park, sit on the swing, and five minutes later, race back with the structure of a plan in my head that I would then put on paper. A fresh location broke me out of a spiral of seeing the same data through blurred vision, and the process only took about 10 minutes.

Roland Barthes (1967) spoke of how we often continue to read the text when we look up from the page, this is akin to the reflective thinking that Moon speaks of. How we add our own experiences and thoughts to that of the author, making the text more relevant to us and apply learnings. Once again, time is needed.

If we keep ourselves ‘busy’ we can miss these opportunities of learning. Reading information provides facts, but learning occurs when we appropriate information by processing the data through our own cultural and experiential lens. It is too easy to continue to be extremely productive at making bad widgets rather than taking the time to step back and work out how to make better widgets.

My article SWOTs PESTELs and Risk Management speaks of the magic that happens when we consider the interplay of data. Brainstorming does however take time, but we add value when we can identify the patterns in the data, develop theories and proceed to test them. Most of us don’t do this in our everyday activities.

I think J.K. Rowling gives us a hint of one of her secrets to writing in the Harry Potter series when Dumbledore introduces the pensieve. The pensieve is a basin that holds the collected memories of people who siphon their recollections into it. Dumbledore states that:

"One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.”

On the back of a pandemic, it is easy for us to think that we have all had enough time off for reflection and thinking, and now need to get back to high productivity. Of course, productivity is important. KPI’s and other processes need to be implemented for success. But we even need to rethink our KPI’s, along with everything else, in the light of new data. During the pandemic most of our reflection and thinking would have been in isolation and with outdated data. We can’t ignore the new normal. KPI’s should include face to face meetings for hybrid offices to ensure the rebuilding of culture, and opportunities for everyone to get back on the same page.

Many decades ago, we were encouraged to work smarter, not harder. The pandemic has taken its toll on all of us, but it has also given us a new opportunity to think differently. Don’t waste this opportunity to rebuild our workplaces with appropriate frameworks to work smarter.

Barthes, R (1967) Death of the Author.

Moon, J (2004) A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning , Routledge Falmer, London