Your mind is a wondrous thing, an incredible processor of information that you take in through all your senses. As it happens, each person has a dominant thinking style, a specific way of processing information, taking it in, and using it in the best ways possible.
There are three basic types of information processing used in creative thinking:
Visual
Visual people think in terms of pictures, written words, images, charts, and graphs. They have to “see” the problem or information in order to understand it. They will say, “I see what you mean.”
Some people need to hear ideas, discussions, sounds, and music. They will say, “That sounds good to me,” or “That doesn’t sound right for me.”
Kinesthetic
Kinesthetic people are more attuned to their feelings, emotions, movement, or touch. They have to get a “feeling” for the problem or situation. They like to pick things up, hold them, turn them over in their hands, and feel them. They like to move around rather than sit still during conversations. The will say, “That feels right to me.”
Try Them All
When you are working to solve a problem, you should try them all, especially with a group of people who may have different processing styles. Write things down. Talk about them and invite discussion. Stand up and walk around, and encourage others to move around, too.
Looking at pictures or drawing graphs and diagrams is a wonderful way for a visual thinker to get insights and to understand the problem or situation at greater depth.
Encouraging discussion, saying things out loud, and dialoguing about a problem or a situation is helpful for an auditory thinker.
To activate the kinesthetic senses, you should write things down, talk out loud, walk around and move. Sometimes, going for a walk in the park or just getting up and taking a break is an excellent way for a kinesthetic thinker to get breakthroughs in problem solving.
Lessons from Giving Effective Seminars and Workshops
When I began giving seminars, quite without thinking about it, I would lecture, write things down on a flipchart or a whiteboard, encourage people to take notes, and then ask them to discuss what these new ideas meant to them. Inadvertently at first, I was activating the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic processing modes of everyone in my audiences.
Participants were always amazed that they would still be alert and highly energized, even after eight hours of this type of seminar or workshop. It was because their entire brains were fully activated throughout the day.
Identify Your Predominant Style
Each person uses visual, auditory, and kinesthetic thinking—but we each have a predominant or favorite way that we think. Be sure to try all three, especially when you’re working with a group of people on a problem or decision. Assume that people in the group will need to be appealed to in different ways. Sometimes you can give people pages of numbers and they won’t even look at them because they are auditory or kinesthetic thinkers, and not visual.
Give People Information the Way They Like It
Peter Drucker points out that one of the most important things you need to do is to find out how your manager prefers to process information. If your manager is a visual thinker, be sure that you write everything down in your reports so that you can discuss items, point for point, visually. If your manager is an auditory person, you can explain the situation verbally and your manager will absorb the information comfortably. If your manager is a kinesthetic thinker, he or she will probably want to touch or feel your materials and get up and physically move around during your discussions.
When you present a written report to an auditory processor, he will ask you, “Give me the bottom line; what does it say?” If you are dealing with a visual processor and you tell her news or information, she will probably ask, “Could you write that down for me?”
The more you can include all three forms of processing when you are solving problems or making decisions with your staff, the better and more insightful ideas and solutions you will come up with.
ACTION EXERCISES
1. Determine your personal preference or dominant style of learning and absorbing information. What is it?
2. Identify the dominant style of your boss and your key staff members. Ask them directly how they like to receive information, and then give it to them in that form.