The key to transformative thinking

This article delves into the concept of quiet leadership, originally introduced by David Rock in 1976. It explores the art of enhancing information processing within the brain without explicitly instructing individuals on what to do.

Furthermore, it outlines a comprehensive six-step approach to transform the performance of individuals and employees. The article culminates with a focus on the critical skill of active listening.

The concept has been rigorously tested and has had a profound impact on thousands of individuals in countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and various others.

Quiet leaders are masters of bringing out the best in people without telling them what to do by unleashing the thinking capabilities of others.

The Iceberg model describes how our performance or results at anything is driven by our set of behaviours or habits. These are driven by our emotions, which in turn are driven by our thoughts.

In order to utilise the above concept we have to motivate the thinking part that occurs in the brain. The brain has around 100 billion neurons. Each neuron may have up to 100,000 dendrites.

The connections between our neurons, connected by the dendrites, are the maps that guide our thoughts, behaviours, and actions. The brain makes over a million new connections every second between different points of thought and some of them are solutions from the inside.

The newly formulated ‘aha’ moment gives energy to people so that they are motivated and take actions resulting from their own processing.

Perhaps you have noticed that when we are for an idea we are more likely to allow tenuous links to become fact, and when we are against an idea we see even strong evidence as irrelevant as highlighted by David Rock.

Given the fact that changing the way of thinking is one of the tough activities to be done by leaders, the six steps for a quiet creation of new habits is a good tool to ensure that.

First, the aim of the leader is to empower others to think about the thinking process. This is done by letting others do the heavy thinking and figuring out the exact issues they want to solve themselves.

The second is about listening for where people are heading when they describe the issue, rather than for what might not be working. In this step, it is essential to have an active listening ability so that potential pain areas are well spotted.

The third is to work on improving the quality of every word we use when we are trying to improve others’ thinking. Research shows that we speak an average of one hundred words per minute, but think at much higher rates, about six hundred words per minute.

So speaking with intent and succinctly are key skills to visualize the situation.

The fourth step is called ‘Dance Toward Insight’ where a leader asks a very relevant insightful question so that individuals generate solutions themselves.

Sometimes having insights means allowing subordinates to reflect from the unconscious mind and do less logical thinking. One of the enablers in this step is to ask the employees for permission to go deeper into their thoughts.

The formation of patterns in answers forms the base of a new thinking process which is the fifth step. In this step, people have ‘aha’ moments that form higher thoughts. It is just like an electron that jumps to a higher orbit around the atom. The most important element in this step is to help individuals turn their insightful thoughts into actions.

The final step is follow-up. This step is about making sure people’s new thinking becomes reality, closing the gap between an idea and implementation plans.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate the importance of active listening. This skill will drive quiet leadership because hearing keywords formulates the direction of the discussion and offers huge insights. History provides a good lesson learned to be implemented in our day-to-day practice.