By Alison Wynne, founder of Connecting for Talent
Nancy Kline is a great woman, an inspirational woman. I trained with her. She started ‘Time to Think’ which is an international leadership development and coaching company specialising in the process of the Thinking Environment. Many of you may have heard her speak or read her books.
This leadership framework can be used in many different ways. At the heart is the belief that ‘the quality of everything we do, depends on the quality of thinking we do first’. There are ten components to a thinking environment – to create the space where people can do their best thinking. These are: attention, equality, ease, appreciation, encouragement, feelings, information, difference, incisive questions and place. It is a simple and beautiful framework.
I’ve had the pleasure of sharing the learning from a Thinking Environment over the years with many NHS staff, both clinical and non-clinical. They have loved it. They love that it allows everyone’s voice to be heard, they love that it stops some people's voice from being heard all of the time, they love that it is based on the premise that each and every one of us matters.
Some of the techniques really do challenge the way we operate. For instance, in ‘Thinking Pairs’ we pay absolute attention to the person we are thinking with and we don’t interrupt, nod or encourage, nothing – not even for a second. Imagine that! Thinking and knowing that you won’t be interrupted. Believe me, it takes time to get used to. And we don’t interrupt because we commit to the belief that the person we are thinking with is our thinking equal, so why would we interrupt? We listen out of fascination for where they will go next. It’s an amazing experience, so different to what we’re used to.
Imagine a working world where we knew we had the attention of the person we are talking to, that they won’t interrupt us until we’re finished, that they appreciate many things about us; what ‘ease’ that would create in our interaction. And imagine how that would facilitate our best thinking.
Envisage our meetings. Set and run within the principles of a Thinking Environment. Meetings where everyonegets the chance to talk, whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert. Where people feel listened to, know that they are equals in the room, know that they matter and that time is cherished and not wasted. Where the agenda is well planned and the only things on there really do need to be on, where we’re totally focused and understand the question that we need to answer. Just imagine that!
As senior leaders we’re so busy we can brush this aside, and things like it, as being for those with more time, those who like the ‘fluffier’ things rather than all the difficult stuff we have, the hard decisions we have to make. Truth is though, we need it. We need it to manage ourselves, our interactions and our meetings more effectively so that we can facilitate better outcomes and decisions.
Our staff want it, our staff would thrive with it because they would feel heard. We just need to look at the number of CQC reports where staff say they don’t feel listened to consider that there may be a better way.
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