Are You A Great Thinker?

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Judy Laws, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

I recently met someone who told me that one of his qualities was that he was a great thinker. As I listened to him talk I confirmed that he truly was. A thinker is defined as one who thinks; especially and chiefly, one who thinks in a particular manner; as, a close thinker; a deep thinker; a coherent thinker. A great thinker, in my mind, is someone who has this as part of their “DNA” i.e. everything they do and every interaction they have involves great thinking. Examples of thinking skills include: strategic thinking, web thinking, critical thinking, creative and innovative thinking.

Some of the characteristics of great thinkers include:
• Are great learners – they never stop learning
• Listen proactively, strategically and intuitively to people and ideas
• See problems as opportunities and find solutions
• Are capable of putting in place strategies and plans that address challenges head on with a big impact
• They have the ability to think differently – they don’t settle for incremental thinking; they challenge the status quo
• Do not speak, create or act solely with their own interest in mind; they seek positive change that affects wider society

There have been many who have been identified as great thinkers including: philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Rousseau, Voltaire, Kant, Foucault, Locke, Machiavelli, Sartre, Proust, Beauvoir, Fayol, Confucius; scientist & inventors such as Faraday, Marie Curie, Einstein, Copernicus, Edison, Newton; writers & authors such as Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Woolf, Maupassant, Tolstoy; explorers & pioneers such as J. Cook, Lindbergh; composers – Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert; artists such as van Gogh, Matisse, Goya; innovators such as Da Vinci, Freud, Jung; historians & teachers such as Boulanger, Montessori; impresario such as Sergei Diaghilev, Cousteau; business & management gurus such as Drucker, Fayol; and world leaders.

With the passing of Steve Jobs, another great thinker, and my experience of workplaces, I question how many living great thinkers there are today. Great thinking seems to be lacking in workplaces today. Barriers to thinking can include:

• Habits and learning – our well-learned and habitual ways of thinking and responding. For example, when was the last time your tried a new restaurant? Was it exotic and creative?
• Rules and traditions – we cannot function without rules, policies, and traditions that guide personal, social and institutional behaviour. An example of this in many organizations would be status hierarchy – lower status persons are reluctant to suggest ideas to those in higher positions due to insecurity and fear of evaluation.
• Perceptual blocks – we perceive things in certain ways. Perceptual barriers lead us to “kick ourselves” for not seeing a solution sooner. Perceptual blocks can prevent one from identifying “the real problem”.
• Cultural blocks – social influence, expectations, and conformity pressures, all based on social or institutional norms. An example of this would be, we have always done it this way; our procedure is to do it this way.
• Emotional blocks – interfere with clear thinking, sometimes by preoccupying and distracting our creative minds, other times by making us “freeze” in our thinking. Some examples are anger, fear, anxiety, hate and even love. These could translate into a fear of taking risks, fear of uncertainty and ambiguity.
• Resource barriers – An organization block to creative thinking includes a shortage of people, money, time, supplies, or information.
• Association Barriers – by simply hearing a word or seeing an image, the mind unlocks a whole string of associated ideas, each connecting to the other. These chains of associations tend to be clustered around domains related to our own experience thus inhibiting our ability to think broadly. This causes us not to question assumptions readily; jump to conclusions faster and create barriers to alternate ways of thinking about a particular way of thinking.

Reflection: If you are a great thinker, how are you contributing your “thinking” skills to make the world a better place? If you don’t think that you are, what barriers do you need to overcome and how might you improve your “thinking” skills?