In the next 2 minutes you could:
- clean your teeth
- brush your hair
- boil the jug for a cup of tea…
Or you could switch your mode of thinking from say critical to creative thinking.
Or logic to imagination.
Or analysis to intuition.
Or looking at the parts to seeing the whole (i.e. systems thinking).
Or thinking slow to thinking fast.
Or thinking in words to thinking in pictures or images (i.e. visual thinking).
I call this Switch Thinking.
What do I mean by switching your mode of thinking?
These are examples of various types of thinking.
Much like a Swiss army knife has many different features for different situations.
You can develop different ways of thinking to meet a variety of situations.
To make it easy I have developed 2 modes of thinking I call Box Mode and Ball Mode.
Box Mode:
As the name suggests, Box Mode is structured, solid and rational.
It’s your habitual way of thinking based on your experiences, assumptions, knowledge, beliefs and expectations.
Box Mode is efficient because it is based on what has worked before.
It feels safe and secure.
Box Mode approximately equates to the Brain’s Central Executive Network.
Ball Mode:
As the name suggests Ball Mode is more of a free-flowing, creative and playful mode of thinking.
It’s a way to play, have fun and explore what is possible.
Ball Mode is unstructured, imaginative, emotional and more collaborative.
There can be big rewards but big potential risks using this mode of thing (all the time).
Ball Mode approximately equates to your Brain’s Default Mode Network.
The key point is that these are modes of thinking not types of people.
Switching from Box Mode to Ball Mode
To recap.
With Switch Thinking there are two Modes of Thinking i call Box mode and Ball mode which roughly equate to different networks in our brain.
This means that these Modes or networks are available to everyone.
Each of these Modes have strengths and weaknesses,
For example, being in Box Mode in a rapidly changing environment can sometimes mean that you get stuck.
Being in Ball Mode whilst it’s creative can mean that you generate lots of big, new ideas that are commercially unsound.
Hence a more effective and efficient way to change, solve problems or create new growth involves switching back and forth between Box Mode and Ball mode.
Think yin and yang as a complete, integrated whole.
Switching between Modes only takes 2 minutes.
I have found that switching between modes of thinking can be done quite quickly.
And with practice can become automatic.
Much like being able to switch between the details and the big picture.
Ot to examine the foreground in an image or painting then switching to seeing the background.
For example:
In considering a new customer experience idea you could generate a range of effective 1% improvement ideas.
Then you could switch.
And for a few minutes consider any ideas that might potentially make a 100% difference.
Then switch back to Box mode to evaluate these bigger solutions.
See how easy that was?
It only took a few minutes to switch back and forth between the different modes.
But why 2 minutes?
A few years ago i developed a concept which I called Speed Thinking.
My insight was that giving people only a few minutes to generate an idea stopped them filtering their initial ideas.
This meant that they could build on their raw ideas and help develop the ideas of others.
Speed Thinking also encouraged them to make a start without procrastinating and falling victim to analysis-paralysis.
Switch thinking builds on this idea.
It helps you create, change and adapt @Speed.
The other big advantage of 2 minutes is that it creates a safe space for people to switch to Ball Mode.
If you know that you are only playing in a mental sandbox for a few minutes most people are willing to give it a go.
This makes Switch Thinking a more complete, integrated, creative, efficient and dynamic way to think.