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Thinking Talents
A strategy to build your collaborative intelligence: Use thinking talents. And this is really understanding the specific ways of thinking that light you up. The brain uses an immense amount of energy. 30% of our total energy is used by our brains. And the only way to give your brain energy is thinking in the ways that are most natural to you, that actually excite you. This is what prevents burnout.
We live in a culture where we expect everyone to be good at everything, and it’s just not true. So the more you can understand about the specific ways that your mind generates energy, the better appreciation you will have for the value you bring. But also you’ll begin to recognize, again, diversity with other people because they may be so different from you.
Four Domains
There’s four general domains in which we’ve organized these thinking talents into: Analytic, Procedural, Relational, and Innovative. And you may have a high concentration of thinking talents in one or two of those domains. And you also may have a blind spot. So for me, for example, a blind spot may be procedural thinking. This is where I can recruit support. I actually know who to hire, who to have next to me in order to help fill that blind spot.
So by understanding your thinking talents, it not only helps you identify the ways in which you’re brilliant, that make you more alive, bring more vitality to you and your work. It also helps you identify the areas that are more challenging for you and where you may need additional support.
It’s a really important skill to have as we try and develop ourselves is, “Who do I need to think with in order to make this happen?” Right now, we may choose a person that we just happen to like. That may not necessarily be the best person to help us address a problem. If I want diversity, if I want to understand something from many different perspectives, I perhaps need someone who thinks very opposite and who has very opposite thinking talents than mine. Because with that, I will have a better sense of what’s needed to create a thinking breakthrough.
Mapping the Room by Domains
One of the most incredible tools for any team leader is to map the thinking in their room. We spend a lot of time looking at the bottom line, but in this way, you’re actually seeing visibly the thinking capital that you have in your room. And by mapping a team’s thinking talents, you understand not only where you have huge dominance that perhaps, for example, you may have a ton of people with innovative thinking talents. And so your team is perpetually coming up with new ideas, new ideas, new ideas. But you’re noticing that perhaps getting those ideas into action, into implementation is a challenge for your team. Perhaps there is no one with thinking talents in the procedural quadrant on your team. By mapping a team’s thinking talents, we see these quadrants and these different ways of thinking show up. With that, we can then address that and execute on all these great ideas that we’re coming up with.