Thinking quality
Over lunch this week with my friend and consulting colleague, Deb Pascoe, our talk turned to the best questions we’ve ever heard people ask.
We ended up at Nancy Kline’s “Thinking Environment” approach, a central part of which she calls ‘incisive questioning’. How this works is that you (a) find the limiting assumption that is stopping you from reaching the desired future state and (b) insert a question that removes/ negates the limiting assumption with a positive, liberating question. Examples are:
If you knew that you are vital to your organisation’s success, how would you approach your work?
If things could be exactly right for you in this situation, how would they have to change?
If you were not to hold back in your achievements, what would you be doing?
You get the picture.
But, Deb and I went further. We talked about the quality of the listening to the answer. Kline believes that the best quality thinking occurs when you can speak out loud, knowing you won’t be interrupted.
I use precisely this approach within the Reflective Practice work I do with boards and executive teams. We start by agreeing on a ‘hard’ headline question on which the future of the organisation is staked (e.g., “How would we use our strategy to make the best decisions possible?” or “What would we want to know about our customers to serve them ever better?”).
I have only three rules. Firstly, every individual has 5 minutes to speak, in turn. Second, they must use the whole time. Third, they know they won’t be interrupted.
This is categorically different and produces faster, better quality thinking than we could possibly imagine. Indeed, Kline says that giving one another our palpable attention while the other is thinking out loud is a generative, creative act – the quality of your listening has a direct and substantial impact on the quality of the thinker’s thoughts.
The listener not uttering a word, or asking a question, let alone making a rebuttal is the most potent thing they can do for the thinker.
Deb is so passionate about this work and its impact that, over lunch, she said, “Andrew, if any of the non-profit or for-purpose readers of your newsletter want a half-day Thinking Environment workshop, I’ll lead one for them, free of charge”. Now, she’s only got a limited number of these, so if you’re intrigued and would like to know more, she’d be happy to hear from you at www.phronesisfoundation.com.
And, if you’re interested, Deb’s vote for best question is this one, from Susan Scott: “What is it you are pretending not to know?”
Question: How can you set up incisive questions, and uninterrupted responses, in your team?
Why nudging works
Um, sorry to talk about urine, but this is such a good story, I have to share it. Urine spillage in particular. Here we go.
At Amsterdam’s Schipol airport the cleaning director was dismayed at the inability of peeing men to aim properly at urinals. It was costing his staff time and money to clean up every day. He decided to put tiny photorealistic stickers of flies onto the urinals, right near the drainage hole. He guessed that men would aim for the flies, figuring that they’re a nuisance. He was right. Aim increased (spillages were down 80%). Cleaning costs went down (8% in fact).
The reverse nudge occured in India, where village men were peeing on walls outdoors. The town heads had the bright idea to stencil images of Hindu gods onto the walls (even though they hadn’t read the study on Schipol airport, I don’t believe). The peeing abruptly stopped, as nobody wanted to deface an image of Shiva or Lakshmi.
Both are clever examples of nudges used to encourage — or discourage — behaviour. Richard Thaler has an entire book devoted to this phenomenon, which is a big feature of behavioural economics.
Question: What nudges could you create to increase compliance amongst your customers — or staff?
Deliberate deprivation
Marc Randolph is the co-founder of Netflix who’s well known for controversial practices. One I’ve written about here is his counter-intuitive approach to testing bad ideas. Another is using deliberate deprivation as a tool for self-discovery.
This is how it works.
Randolph was part of a group of experienced outdoors adventurers who wanted to be exposed to something that pushed them outside their (already very large) comfort zones. Sleeping in the rain wasn’t going to do it. Nor was climbing a high cliff, or fording a rapid, or having to forage for food in a forest. But their group came up with something that terrified all of them: drop them in the middle of an unfamiliar city without money for 3 days.
Let them fend for themselves.
Randolph’s own experience was initial fear, followed by a burst of energy and resourcefulness. He tried begging (without success - although he suggests everyone tries this at least once in their lives). He tried surreptitiously eating discarded meals at a food court (with some success, but he felt humiliated). Finally, by the second day, he tried just being honest, walking up to people, telling them he’s hungry, and asking whether they could spare some money (and, yes, many could).
Years ago, I had a disability support organisation as a client whose directors had discussed with me their desire to gain greater insight into the ‘lived experience’ of their customers. They wanted to understand, deeply, how disempowered and disindividuated these people felt. When one of their 5-person residential units was going to be vacant for a month prior to a renovation, I saw their big chance. I suggested that directors should move in for a night, in a couple of groups. They could eat communal meals cooked by staff, watch TV together, and be helped to bed. For those brave enough, they could be shaved, or dressed the next morning.
Can you guess what happened when faced with deprivation of liberty? They unanimously refused. In my opinion, they passed up a stellar opportunity to experience a different life, just for 24 hours.
Question: How could you artificially, but challengingly and purposefully, deprive yourself of something you take for granted?
Thanks as always for reading. I love knowing you can use the questions above to stimulate your own strategic insights, or those of your colleagues or teams. Do drop me a line to let me know.
And, of course, please click below to like or, even better, to pass on 5MSM to others in your network.
Have a great weekend, and see you next Friday,
Andrew
Great 5MSM Andrew...
I smiled a lot when reading the piece about the directors of a DSO (not really!?) wanting to gain first-hand insights into lived experience!
You know how much I love questions Andrew, so this edition has been my Christmas gift from you 🎁 thanks!