How to design a work culture that lets people think
You’ll know this situation: you’re in an office where people are rushing past you from meeting to meeting. One person asks “Do you have two minutes?”, another says “Sorry, I’ve got meetings back to back, but let’s walk to my next meeting and talk.”
Sometimes nonprofits are super busy, and we just have to jump in and swim. But many organisations fall into the trap of ‘busy work.’ Everything is urgent, everything is overdue, and everyone is running from one meeting to another.
But what if all this rushing is actually stopping us from achieving our mission? What if we’re moving too fast to think for ourselves?
We all need time to think
I’m always curious about how teams can communicate and collaborate more effectively.
A lot of guidance I’ve seen tells people to have 15 minute stand-up meetings, to limit how much people talk, and present complex ideas quicker “in the interest of time”.
But then I read Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind, by Nancy Kline, and discovered her surprising take: we need to slow down, not speed up. That’s how we unlock quality thinking.
Rushing encourages poor thinking
“Move fast and break things” was Mark Zuckerberg’s famous motto, a celebration of speed, risk-taking and learning. It spread from Facebook to companies like Google and Amazon, as well as nonprofits around the world.
Moving fast can be highly efficient, but it’s not a good way to cultivate deep thought. We end up with homogenous teams of people who think and behave the same.
“Doing what everyone else does, thinking what everyone else thinks is rewarded”
When we’re in a hurry, we’re less likely to listen to our intuition or come up with our own ideas. We’re just trying to get from task to task. And we miss out completely on the thoughts of people who like to reflect deeply before they say something.
When we slow down, we can create environments that allow people to:
ask probing questions (not just respond with soundbytes),
listen to each other (not interrupt with their own ideas),
get considered answers (not off-the-cuff remarks) and
think for themselves (not just do what they’re told to).
That’s how we get quality thinking, which leads to better and better solutions to the problems we’re trying to tackle.
“The quality of everything human beings do, everything – everything, depends on the quality of the thinking we do first”
As Kline says, “I could name almost any innovation, from howling steam engines to hallowed cyberspace, and argue that humanity might well have thought of things more elegant and nourishing if our thinking had not been interrupted so much along the way.”
How to create time and space to think
If you want to unlock quality thinking in your team, here are four practical ways to start:
1. Let your team make decisions
Nobody likes being told what to do.
“The brain wants to think, not obey”
As a coach, I often work with people who dread going back to work on a Monday. Everyone’s reasons are different, but a theme that comes up again and again is lack of autonomy.
One of the best ways to create happy teams is to give them the freedom to make their own choices.
That means stepping back and letting them decide for themselves how to solve a problem. It’s tempting to rush people (“You’ve got until the end of the day”) or try to steer the outcome (“You decide, but, just so you know, this is my preference”). But nudges like these won’t help your team develop. You have to genuinely give them the power to decide.
Try these tips:
Step back. Don’t watch over people’s shoulders while they make a decision, or ask them to report back endlessly.
Give them time. Forcing a quick choice won’t encourage them to develop their thinking. With enough space and time, they’ll be able to listen to their intuition.
Trust them. If they choose to do something different from what you would have done, you need to be OK with that.
2. Listen without interrupting
When was the last time you spoke to someone without being interrupted? It’s surprisingly rare.
According to research by the Gottman Institute in Seattle, the average listening time of professional listeners, like therapists, used to be 20 seconds. Now it is 11. Just 11 seconds! And they’re professionals.
We tend to interrupt each other because we want to prove our own importance.
Kline points out how flimsy our excuses for interruption often are. We think “I must clarify; I must correct; I must look smart right now; I must enrich; I must follow my own curiosity; I know where you are going with this; I need to take you elsewhere; your unformed thought will be less valuable than my formed one; I am more important than you are; I look stupid not talking; no one needs to listen this long; you will never stop.”
Practice listening without interruption. You may be surprised both by how difficult it is, and how transformative it can be.
3. Ask open questions
Open questions are extremely powerful. They help the person answering them think deeply.
Open questions are questions which can’t be answered with yes or no.
For example “have you thought about talking to X about this?” is advice dressed up as a question. Ask “what are your options?” instead.
Another useful practice is to use someone’s exact words when asking a question. If they say “I’m not clever enough for my manager to take my ideas seriously”, you can shape a question around their own words. Ask: “How do you know you’re not clever enough?” or “How do you know you aren’t worth listening to?”
Often when people hear their words spoken by another person, they hear more clearly. They can judge more accurately what is true and what isn’t. We often say things about ourselves like “I’m rubbish with money” or “I’m not good at communicating with people”. These are all limiting beliefs which need investigating. Ask:“What’s the evidence that you’re rubbish with money? “What does ‘not good at communicating with people’ look like for you?”
Next, help the person to find solutions. Ask: “What are your options?”, “What have you tried already?’, “What else can you try?”, “Is there someone who can help you?”, “How can you strengthen yourself so you can deal with that situation next time?”
4. Create spaces where everyone can speak
It’s rare for people to be allowed to speak their mind. At work, a few people tend to do all the talking, while the rest never get a chance.
It’s incredibly powerful when everyone gets time to talk. I recently tried it with a team, and it’s wonderful to see the trust that’s created in these meetings.
If we are constantly interrupted when raising our concerns, we never get the space we need to start thinking about solutions. But when we are allowed to voice what’s on our mind, we can find clarity. Then we can move on to looking for solutions.
Many of us are worried that if we create an open forum for discussion, we’ll lose control. Will people start talking, and never stop? Letting everybody speak can be scary, but we should lean into it.
Start small. Let people speak for just a few minutes, once a week. You could start in sub-teams or teams, or other groups with a limited size and shared focus.
Everyone means everyone. The loud people who are always talking? They get to speak. The quiet people who never speak? They get to speak.
Set a timer and make sure everyone gets the same amount of time.
You’ll save time by slowing down
It’s normal to feel like time is scarce. How can we make the time to slow down, as well as getting through our neverending to-do lists?
But the paradox of slowing down is that it can help you achieve more. Deep thinking, listening and a slower pace lead to better solutions and more innovation. So take time, and make space, for thinking. You’ll be amazed what you can discover.
