How To Ignite Human Brilliance : Attention

In this series of blog posts, I will be exploring the 10 Components of a Thinking Environment® and bringing each component to life by sharing my own personal experiences and stories of how these components make a positive difference in the world.

All quoted text is attributed to Nancy Kline, unless otherwise indicated.

The 10 Components of a Thinking Environment® are: Attention, Equality, Ease, Appreciation, Feelings, Encouragement, Information, Difference, Incisive Questions^TM and Place.

Click on each component above to read a blog relating to each one.

This post explores the component of Attention.

Over many decades, Nancy Kline observed that “The quality of our attention profoundly affects the quality of other people’s thinking.” She defines the quality of attention in a Thinking Environment® as “Listening without interruption and with interest in where the person will go next in their thinking.”

As a listener, to create a Thinking Environment®, we must “be more interested in what is real and true for people than we are frightened of being proved wrong.”  And, as a thinker, “knowing we will not be interrupted frees us truly to think for ourselves”.

As soon as I started to play with leveling-up the quality of Attention in my one-on-one coaching sessions and workshops I noticed a shift towards more honesty, more vulnerability, and more growth.

I recently asked for feedback from the leaders who graduated in the latest cohort of my Authentic Leadership Program which incorporates space to think in pairs. When I asked the question “What has been the most valuable aspect of the program for you?”, here is some of what they shared with me:

• “Allowing myself the time and space to do deeper thinking.”
• “Being more present in the moment and having time to think.”
• “It's allowed me to be more honest with myself and get past the facade. I'm feeling more confident in my ability to tackle day-to-day challenges.”
• “It has helped me to recognize when frustration and fear of failure has hijacked my thinking.”
• “It has helped me to speak openly and honestly with colleagues from other departments. And I've enjoyed helping them navigate their own thoughts and feelings whilst building new connections.”
• “It has allowed me to gain perspective on things that might be barriers to being my true self at work, and empowering others to be their true selves.”

I sense that much of this feedback can be attributed to the heightened quality of Attention they experienced in the spaces we created in the program. One leader remarked “I can’t remember the last time I had 5 minutes of uninterrupted time to think!”

The distinction between curiosity and interest is an important one here. As Nancy teaches us, curiosity is subtly self-focused while interest is subtly other focused. Being curious about someone else’s thinking while in a conversation greatly increases the risk of us interrupting their thinking and inserting our own thinking.  

As part of my training as a coach I was encouraged to use the question “I am curious, can you tell me more about…”. In the past this has felt like a pretty clever coach-ey sort of question. I thought it was something a ‘good coach’ asked. That was before I learnt about the Thinking Environment®.

Now, that question feels like the equivalent of holding up a flashing neon sign part-way through a coaching session that reads “Wait! Hold that thought! Remember - This is all about me and what I determine to be important and relevant. After all, you’ve paid me to guide and improve your thinking!”

The more I practice listening with sincere awe and interest in where my friends, family members and coaching clients are going to go next in their thinking, the more faith I have in our innate brilliance as humans.  And the more I see the truth in Nancy’s observation that the mind that is struggling with a challenge is also the best mind to develop a viable solution.

Many organisations have “Curiosity” as one of their stated values. This can create a head-wind to sustaining and holding the capacity to listen with interest in how far people can go in in their thinking.  Perhaps, for the people who decided that Curiosity is what is most important, Attention might feel too passive, or too ‘soft’.

This of course, could not be further from the truth.

I was recently engaged to facilitate an executive team meeting for a large organisation whose stated values includes Curiosity, defined as “We always ask why and why not – it’s how we learn and grow and push the boundaries.”

I observed that in a room of 12 senior Executives the vast majority, given some good guidance were able to rest in a state of dynamic other-focused attentiveness. Only one of the Executives seemed to be hijacked by a ‘part’ that was determined to seize the meeting as a golden opportunity to demonstrate his intelligence and insatiable curiosity by continuing to go off script and interrupt the leader he was paired with a range of ‘clever’ questions. Being the custodian of the component of Ease, of course, I made the choice not to curb his over-eager curiosity in front of his peers.

Rather, I gently reminded the group of the power of generative Attention combined with this simple phraseology: “What do you want to think about, and what are your thoughts?” And when the thinker indicates they are done, “And what more do you think, or feel, or want to say?”

If true leadership is about activating the innate talents in the people around us, the quality of our Attention is essential. It communicates, non-verbally, important messages, such as “You matter”, “You can solve this”, “I see you” and “I believe in you.” These messages empower our colleagues, our partners, our kids, our friends – and even our bosses.  These unspoken messages embolden us to step into a more vibrant and truthful expression of all that we are and all we have the potential to become.

The more I practice holding a Thinking Environment® for others, the more genuine and stronger my interest becomes. Time and time again I have been blown away by the quality and unexpectedness of the thinking that other people can do, given the right conditions.

I am constantly reminded how disruptive it is to splash a big rock of my thinking into the flowing, bubbling, meandering waves of someone else’s thinking.

Yoda really was onto something when he said “Luminous beings are we.”

In conclusion

The only way to really understand the power of a Thinking Environment® is to experience it. The more I practice embodying the ten components, and the more people I share it with, the more natural and easeful the components become.

“We will get to a new and better world with new and better thinking. Brave thinking that dismantles denial. Thinking that is the simplicity on the far side of complexity.” Nancy Kline

Hi there, I'm Cassandra Goodman.

I'm a former global executive turned accredited Thinking Environment™ Trainer and Facilitator.I love empowering people to activate their own brilliance - and the brilliance of those around them.

Are you ready to ignite the brilliance in your team or organisation? 

The Thinking Environment is both a framework you can learn, and a way of being you can practice.

Learn about my workshop offerings here.

Or reach out to explore possibilities [email protected]