[Neurons] 2020 Neurons #10 THINKING FOR A LIVING

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall 

2020 Neurons #10

March 9, 2020

Thinking for a Living Series #1

 

 

THINKING FOR A LIVING

 

Some people think for a living.  Actually lots of people do.  They are
knowledge workers.  Are you?  Depending on how this is defined, it is now
predicted that somewhere between 25 to 50% of people think for a living.
They are called knowledge workers.  From teachers and professors, to leaders
and managers, to people in IT, architecture and engineering, scientists,
legal, healthcare practitioners, arts, design, entertainment, and the list
goes on and on.  Even front line people who deal directly with customers
cannot leave their brains at home- to be effective they have to think about
what they are doing and how they are doing it.  The same is true in
manufacturing and other industries that once only needed able-bodied
workers.  All of this is especially true for the cutting-edge companies who
have integrated structures for self-actualizing.1

 

How about you?  To what extent do you think for a living?  Or conversely, to
what extent could you get by by being "on automatic?"  Increasingly as
automation is replacing many low-level jobs and even more complex jobs- the
jobs that are left are for knowledge workers.  Today, knowledge workers are
the ones responsible for sparking ongoing innovations as they invent,
design, and create new approaches, new strategies, new possibilities.
Knowledge workers are also the ones who are able to customize products,
services, and information to individual needs.

 

All of this highlights that we are increasingly moving to a knowledge
economy where thinking is of a premium and the context is more and more
knowledge-intensive.  This is not just a Western or an American trend, it is
a world-wide trend.  Yet many, if not most, people are not ready for this.
After all, thinking for a living is a new challenge and it poses numerous
challenges- challenges which for many are not equipped to handle.  

 

In the process of becoming effective as a knowledge worker-as a person who
thinks for a living, there are two primary requirements- willingness and
ability.

           First, is the willingness to think clearly.  This requires
personal development and maturity so that when you find an error, you
rejoice.  You do not take it personal, you treat it as something about
"thought"- something to adapt and adjust.

           Second, the ability to think clearly.  This requires having
developed the back thinking-skills and the ability to avoid the common
thinking errors.

              

For both of these prerequisites for thinking for a living, most people are
not ready.  For the first, a person needs to learn how to separate person
and behavior, distinguish who they are and what they think, and develop a
great relationship to not-knowing, to errors, to mistakes, etc.  For the
second, a person has to learn the many expressions of non-thinking and break
out of reactionary thinking, automatic thinking, lazy thinking, agenda
thinking, etc.  The person also has to learn to identify cognitive
distortions, cognitive fallacies, and cognitive biases and be able to detect
in real time and step out from them.2

 

In both of these, where there is stress, threat, danger, pressure- a person
will not be able to think so well.  Here's an occupational hazard of
thinking- staying calm and cool while under pressure.  Yet what normally
happens is that a basic human instinct arises so that instead of thinking,
we set out to defend ourselves.  And when that happens, clear and accurate
thinking goes out of the window.  We then fall victim to cognitive fallacies
and distortions.

 

In this new knowledge economy, knowledge management becomes a central
competency.  This is essential given the information overload that we're all
exposed to.  How do we manage all of the information?  How do we determine
what's relevant from what is irrelevant?  How do we process the information
so it becomes knowledge and then comprehension for practical action?  How do
we make time for reflection so that we can effectively learn?  How do we
best use our cognitive powers to create common sense?  These, and many other
questions, will be our focus in this series of posts of thinking for a
living.

 

 

 

References

1. See Unleashing Leadership (2009).

2. See Executive Thinking (2018).

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com   

 

The stunning new history of NLP--- NLP Secrets.  

Investigative Journalism which has exposed what has been kept secrets for
decades. 

http://www.neurosemantics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/NLP-Secrets-2_sml2.
png

 

 

 

 

 

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