I’ve participated in two panels in the past few weeks: one about agile approaches and the other about management. In each case, my fellow panelists echoed each other for several questions, thinking alike.
I did not. Not only did I disagree with the other panelists—I explained my claims with data. I thought differently. And because I explained my perspective, my colleagues could choose to reexamine their thinking.
Let’s examine when different thinking might help the situation.
Great Minds Might Think Differently
Have you ever seen a team or group stuck on a problem? They have too-similar ideas and zero solutions. The people think too much alike.
However, an outsider or someone with a different perspective might help the team see the problem differently. The outsider does not have to be correct. Instead, the person acts as a rubber duck, freeing the people to create options.
The different thinking allows people to break their inability to solve the problem. They can generate alternatives. And decide how to select one or more as an experiment.
According to Sam Kaner’s Diamond Model of Facilitation, we have:
- Discomfort with our inability to solve the problem. (The stuck part, where we tend to think alike.)
- Then, more discomfort as we create alternatives. (This “groan zone” is the divergent zone, where we tend to think differently.)
- Some comfort as we decide how and what to choose. (The convergent zone, where we settle on enough alikeness to proceed.)
We use both alike and different to solve problems. That’s because alike and different can create better conversations.
Alike and Different Can Create Better Conversations
The management panel question was: “Why don’t people want to learn?”
My colleagues had several ideas, all focused on the person who supposedly did not want to learn. I heard suggestions that not everyone wants to learn what the managers want them to learn. Or that the manager should discuss what each person wants to learn.
My colleagues were not wrong—but I thought their thinking was incomplete.
I took a different perspective—that the problem was not with the individual, but in the organization. I suggested the organization’s culture emphasized and rewarded individual work. When organizations do that, they focus on short-term outcomes. Instead, learning is often about how to prepare for the long term.
I suspect that my colleagues and I were both correct for different organizations. However, my comment allowed us to create a much more nuanced and respectful conversation. With any luck, that nuance helped the audience reconsider their environments.
Create Opportunities for More Nuance and Respect
I often take an unusual perspective. And I hope those perspectives allow you to reconsider what you think. The more we learn from each other, as in differences, the more likely we will come to an even better conclusion, the alike.
We have great minds. Let’s consider when to think alike and when to think differently. We can gain much more when we do.
(See the Diamond Model of Facilitation in Kaner’s in Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making . That’s a universal book link.)
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Till next time,
Johanna
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