How do you create a thinking environment where people can be at their best? This would be somewhere they can think effectively and creatively, experiment and fail, reflect and learn, address challenges and make the best decisions.

Does this describe your working or learning environment? It could do, and arguably should do.

Nancy Kline, author of Time to Think, has spent years researching and developing just how to make spaces where people can thrive. The principles that she has identified come together to make what she calls the ‘Thinking Environment’.

“Thinking for yourself is still a radical act.”

Nancy Kline

What is the Thinking Environment?

The Thinking Environment is Kline’s concept of how to help people think better and is made up of ten components. These are:

• Attention
• Equality
• Ease
• Appreciation
• Encouragement
• Information
• Feelings
• Diversity
• Incisive Questions
• Place

How do you apply the principles of the Thinking Environment?

The individual aspects of the Thinking Environment can be explained and applied in the following ways:

 

Attention

We should be great listeners and give people our full attention. That is because great hearing leads to generative thinking, it is, as Nancy Kline says, ‘an act of creation’.

We need to actively listen to what people are saying, not interrupting or just thinking about what we want to say next. Giving people our attention demonstrates our respect for that person and gives them and their thoughts worth.

“The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people’s thinking.”

Nancy Kline

How can you improve your attention and listening skills?

Here is an exercise to help you develop better attention and active listening:

• In pairs take turns to listen to the each other speak. It can be on any topic of person taking the thinking/speaking turn.
• As a listener, when a thought comes into your mind visualise closing a door on that thought so you can return your attention to the speaker’s thoughts rather than your own.
• The listener should try not to say anything, or even make any noises, until the person has finished talking.
• The thinker/speaker should be concise in their thoughts, where possible, and then let the listener know when that wave if thinking and sharing is done.
• When the thinker has finished speaking don’t comment unless asked to. Otherwise just ask “what more do you think, or feel or want to say?”

You can learn more about listening skills by clicking on the link and reading the post Are you really listening?

Questions for reflection:

• When was the last time you listened to someone in conversation without interrupting them?

Equality

We are all different, we have different experiences and backgrounds, roles and responsibilities, strengths and weaknesses, thoughts and ideas; but we are all equal in worth. In a Thinking Environment everyone is valued equally as a thinker and everyone’s thoughts given equal worth. It is not a hierarchy or even a meritocracy; this is giving space for people to think as true equals.

This means that everyone gets their turn to speak, and while they do, everyone else listens. This helps to stop talkative people dominating conversation and encourages quieter folk to speak.

How can you develop more equality in your meetings?

• If you are more senior in position or experience then you can help create the equality by modelling the behaviours in the Thinking Environment and being open in sharing your own feelings and thoughts.
• At the beginning of a meeting or thinking session let everyone check-in. Pose a simple question and then go round all participants and give them a chance to share how they think or feel. Questions might include:
  • How are you doing/feeling today?
  • What is most on your mind right now?
  • What would you most like to think about or discuss today?

Question for reflection:

• Do you really believe that the people in your meeting/session are of equal worth as people and thinkers?

Ease

You cannot think well in a rush. If there is too much pressure people can tip into a ‘fight or flight’ response where fear, automatic responses and defensiveness can cloud or even block good thinking.

We need to develop ease in ourselves; it is a way of being as well as an absence of doing. Being calm, focussed and un-hurried will promote the best thinking in ourselves and others.

A space where people experience ease gives them the psychological safety to think, work and be at their best (Duhigg).

How can you create ease?

• If you are leading a meeting or session make sure you embody calm. Be on time, not flustered or distracted by other things. Take some time beforehand to make sure you are at ease with yourself.
• Remove electronic devices during meetings. Phones, laptops, tablets can all be stored away, switched off or put on silent at the very least.

Question for reflection:

• When was the last time you were in a meeting where you felt really engaged? How did you feel at the time?

Appreciation

Our minds latch on to negatives much more quickly and strongly than positives, about five more times in fact. Therefore it is important to give five times more positive remarks to a person than negatives or criticisms.

Being a good critical thinker does not mean to need to be critical of others. Challenge is often used as an excuse to undermine a person, rather than bring clarity to a idea.

How can you better show appreciation?

• Think about the positive things about who the person is, rather than just what they are doing. Appreciate something, some value, trait or characteristic that you admire in that person and share that. For example “I really appreciate your honesty” or “I love the depth of your concentration.”

Question for reflection:

• How many times today or yesterday have you shown your appreciation to someone else? In the same time period how many times did you correct or criticise someone?

Encouragement

Competition can be useful at times, but not so much when you are trying to think. Thinking is not a zero-sum game. A sense of competition will reduce ease and the sense of equality. Competition increases threat and forces a retreat back to the fight or flight, win-lose mentality. This comes at the expense of taking risks and being courageous in thinking, and losing focus on the idea, team or vision.

How could you encourage people to think better?

• When listening, whether in conversation, a meeting or other context, try not to share the thought or experience that pops into your head when the other person is speaking, unless they ask (unbidden) for your thoughts.
• When it is your turn to speak, pause and ask yourself, will what you want to say help to further generate good thinking or will it create a sense of competition?

Reflection question:

• Can you think of a recent conversation or meeting where you shared something to show that you had a similar (or better) idea or experience? Who benefitted from this?

Information

Thinking and good decisions are based upon having accurate information. If we have incorrect information our thinking and decisions will be flawed. The input of timely information improves our decision making cycle (see the OODA loop).

Even as listeners, there are times when we need to provide information for a thinker. If we deny someone the information they need we undermine the quality of their thinking.

Quality information helps to break down wrong assumptions and perceptions. As Kline says, it ‘dismantles denial’.

How do you provide better information?

• When someone asks for advice don’t tell them what to do or what you think is best. Rather, present your thoughts in a less directive way such as saying “In my experience…” or “I have read/heard that…” instead of “you should…” or “the best way is…”

Feelings

Many people think that showing or sharing feelings within a work context is abhorrent. For someone to show real joy or, even worse, tear up, can feel counter cultural or cringe-worthy. But if we suppress our feelings our minds us busy doing just that, rather than thinking well.

This does not mean that every meeting needs to become a hullaballoo but giving space to express feelings allows people to get them out and then, after a space, to move on. So allow freedom for feelings; there may be a few tears, but hopefully a lot of laughter too and good thinking too!

How do you help people express their feelings?

• Practical point: have some tissues on stand-by!
• If you take the courage to be authentic and share your feelings, the people you are with are more likely to share theirs.

Reflection question:

• When was the last time you had to suppress your feelings in a work context? How did it change the way you could think or act?

Diversity

We live in a diverse world full of complex challenges and wicked problems. The best thinking environments reflect this and have a diversity of thinkers. Alternate backgrounds, experiences, cultures and points of view all help the creation and shaping of ideas. The other components to the Thinking Environment ensure that everyone for every background can freely share without fear of discrimination.

Many teams build through choosing people who are a good fit for culture or chemistry but this can often be at the expense of the best ideas.

How to do get develop better diversity in your teams and meetings?

• When selecting people for a team, think more about good character and competence and worry less about chemistry or culture fit.
• When conducting meetings consider bringing in people from outside your team to encourage different viewpoints, ideas and challenges.

Refection question:

• Is your team really diverse, or is it more of an echo chamber, with few challenges or new ideas?

Incisive Questions

The best questions are the ones that help a thinker overcome a blockage in their thoughts and allow them to carry on generating ideas and solutions. We all have to make assumptions in order to make decisions but not all of our assumptions are correct. This is where incisive questions come in.

Incisive questions are questions that cut to the heart of the matter and bring release. Incisive questions free the mind from limiting assumptions and help re-frame challenges and establish new liberating statements.

How do you ask incisive questions?

• When someone feels they cannot do something ask, “What are you assuming that is stopping you from…?”
• Then ask, “Do you think it is true that (state assumption)?”
• If not true, then you can ask, “What are your words for what is true or liberating instead?”
• Then, using the liberating assumption that has just been expressed, you can ask “If you knew that (insert liberating assumption), how would you (insert outcome)?”

Reflection question:

• Can you think of a time you thought you could not achieve something due to a false assumption?

Place

Our physical environment is important. The revolution in workspace, led by companies life Google, is testament to this fact. The place we choose to live and work in gives us a sense of worth.

The environment where we choose to meet, think or discuss has a huge effect on how well we think. Picking a good space affirms to people that they matter and encourages courageous thinking.

How do you choose the best place to meet and think?

• Try to find somewhere away from the normal working environment, especially away from distractions such as phones, computers etc.
• Try going for a walk, especially if you are just in a pair. They are many advantages to thinking while walking and you can find out more by reading The Surprising Power of Going for a Walk.

Reflection question:

• Does the place where you usually think or conduct meetings support all the components of the Thinking Environment? If not, can you think of somewhere that could?

Thinking Environment Infographic

Here is a great info-graphic poster (created by Lita Currie of 3Stickmen), that summarises the 10 elements of the Thinking Environment.

“Until we are free to think for ourselves, our dreams are not free to unfold.”

Nancy Kline

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If you would like to find out more about coaching and have an initial free coaching consultation then please email us using the contact page. Just click on this link: Contact Form

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References

Currie, L (2019) How to Think Better and Help Others Think Better Too, www.3Stickmen.com

Duhigg, C (2016) What Google Learned From its Quest to Build the Perfect Team, New York: The New York Times

Kline, N (1999) Time to Think.London: Ward Lock

Kline, N (2015) More Time to Think. London: Cassell

Kline, N (2019) Time to Think Website, https://www.timetothink.com/thinking-environment/

Leading people is all about telling people what to do right? And helping people solve their problems is down to good advice, yes?

Well, no; on both counts actually.

Both research and practice have shown that while instruction and advice can be helpful (in certain circumstances) generally there is a better approach to assisting people to think and make good choices. More than 20 years as a leader and 10 years as an executive coach has certainly taught me that. Not only that, my experience as a parent has also shown the limitations of a purely directive approach to managing and decision-making. These things are not just limited to our business interactions. This is about basic communication skills.

The thing that has helped me most in turning this understanding into adopting a better approach has been the work of Nancy Kline. She has over three decades of research into independent thought and the barriers to quality decision-making. Her book, Time to Think, has impacted me more than anything else I have read in the past 5 years. It is also the book I recommend the most both professionally and personally.

Nancy Kline developed a framework called the Thinking Environment. This is made up of ten components: attention, equality, ease, appreciation, encouragement, information, feelings, diversity, incisive questions,and place. All these elements are important for facilitating quality thinking but, in my experience, there are three things that people struggle with the most and one thing that is more important than all the rest. These are:

• Attention – truly listening without interruption
• Incisive questions – knowing what to ask and when
• Information – sharing facts and experience, not advice

And the most important thing is the first. Attention.

The most empowering thing to assist people’s thinking

How many times have you been challenged with “Hey! Are you listening?” The scary thing is that you are likely to hear that from the people you care about the most. What does that say about how we appreciate the people we love? That is what attention demonstrates. It is an affirmation of our feelings for the other person. And that is because giving attention requires effort.

Sound is going in our ears all the time but that does not mean we are really hearing. That is the difference between passive and active listening. To truly give attention to someone, we must actively focus on that person and what they are saying. That means no distractions and no interruptions. Empathetic listening goes even further. We must engage our emotional intelligence to pick up on non-verbal cues. We need to engage our intuition and feelings to relate to what is being communicated, not just what is being said.

Interrupting people damages quality independent thought on several levels. Firstly, it is rude. Cutting in on someone expresses that you think what you have to say is more important than what they have to say. You may not intend to communicate that but it is what most people will feel. Secondly, an interruption also cuts into someone’s thought flow. At the very least it will cause a break in thinking and very likely whatever is said will push the flow of thoughts in a different direction.

Not saying something is really, really hard to do. I get it; I have been coaching for years and still, every time, I must fight the urge to talk. That is because our brains are not inactive. What we hear from the other person sparks thoughts, ideas, and memories of our own. These thoughts bubble up and we want to share them. We want to because they are brilliant, thoughtful, helpful things to say, or at least we think they are! But that is just an assumption. Trust me. Hold onto those thoughts and don’t say anything.

Sometimes I do a simple mental exercise to help. When a thought comes into my head and I feel myself losing concentration I picture a door closing on my idea, locking it away, so I can focus and listen once again.

Even once the other person goes quiet, do not immediately say something. Not even a question. Many times, when coaching, there has been a long silence and I have been tempted to ask another question. Then suddenly the other person has started speaking again, revealing a new – frequently deeply – cascade of ideas that would have been lost if I had spoken too soon.

So, give people your attention. Listen, and most importantly don’t interrupt them!

The most powerful type of question you can ask 

When it does come time to speak don’t share your ideas, don’t even comment on what they have said. Even if they ask, “so what do you think?” you can turn the focus back to them. I often say something like, “I think you are doing a great job thinking this through, what more do you think or feel or want to say?” This generally releases another flow of thoughts and ideas.

If the thoughts do dry up then questions, rather than advice, is most helpful. And the best questions, the ones Kline refers to as incisive questions, are ones that identify assumptions. We all make assumptions in our thinking and decision-making. We make them so often that we often forget to see them for what they are: assumptions, not facts. It often takes someone else to challenge our thinking. Our assumptions might be reasonable but very frequently we feel unable to act because we have a false assumption that is blocking our progress.

These assumptions are often tied to our internal monologues. We often don’t do something because we assume we are not beautiful enough, rich enough, clever enough, brave enough or just not good enough. We all have some negative ideas around how we see ourselves or how we expect other people to judge us.

So, ask questions such as “what are you assuming that is stopping you?” and allow the other person to list their assumptions, as there are likely to be more than one. Then you can ask which assumption is the biggest blocker. Once identified the next question should explore whether the person thinks the assumption is true or not. Quite often, at this stage, people realise that the assumption is not true, or at least not limiting, and suddenly they are free to act.

All the advice in the world is not as powerful as seeing people released from these sorts of limiting beliefs. Seeing people liberated in this way and being part of facilitating that is one of the most wonderful things you can do. Ask any coach, counsellor or psychiatrist.

Provide critical information rather than advice

Once you have listened and – if needed – asked some pertinent questions, it may be that the other person needs some information. The temptation is to provide input too early in the conversation. But there is a difference between helping people think through issues themselves and keeping people in ignorance.

If the other person gets stuck in their thinking, and it is obvious that there is some information that the other person is missing, then it is time to speak. But frame what you say.

The most helpful phrase I use at this stage is to preface what I say with “in my experience” and then go on to share what I have in mind. Just because something has worked or not worked for us does not make it a fact. If there are resources and evidence that you can point people to then great, just hold back from saying something is true when it is just what you think. You run the risk of either undermining the other person’s accountability for their actions or worse, replacing someone else’s wrong assumptions with your own.

So, hold back, but if the other person needs critical information to carry on thinking well then share it. But caveat what you share, don’t tell the person what to do.

Share the gift of creative thinking and decision-making

People are amazing. Our brains are incredible. Individuals – of all ages, educations and backgrounds – can think through their issues and come up with creative solutions of their own.

Even if we (the listener) could have come up with the same solution, empowering people to think through their challenges is much more powerful than just giving advice. When it comes to motivation and taking responsibility for a decision, the self-generated idea is best. Ask any manager, parent, or coach.

All we need to do to help others to think generatively is to provide the environment that releases this creative ability. Most importantly we must:

Give attention: listen and not interrupt

Ask incisive questions, to challenge assumptions

Provide information if it is needed. But only fact or experience, not advice or opinion.

Therefore, three key things, but if you do just one, then give people your undivided attention. This is the gift that will most inspire quality thinking. So, the next conversation you have today, do your very best to not interrupt. Just listen.