How well do you remember middle school or high school math? Was it something you enjoyed? Something you found challenging? Maybe both? A surprising joy for me in recent weeks has been sitting with my eighth grade son as he works on algebra.
His work is all done online, so sitting alongside him helps him to not get distracted by the many other more exciting things he could be doing on his computer (maybe we all need someone to sit alongside us sometimes!). But it has also turned it into a fun challenge for us both. It instinctively turned each equation into a competition (or coopertition) of sorts – not that either of us ever said that out loud. When one of us reaches an answer, we wait for the other one to be done, and then compare our outcomes and the steps we took to get there.
Quite often, we find we have the same answer as each other, but the steps we took along the way are entirely different (the beauty of math – I wonder how many other parts of life are similar?). More often than not, though, I find I have jumped several steps ahead – I intuitively “know” something to be right, without really knowing why. Sitting with someone who reached the same answer and hearing their thought process of how they got there forces me to think through and articulate how I reached my own answer. And by articulating it out loud, I’m able to understand my own thought processes more. How am I reaching the answer? Are there other ways to reach the same answer? If I reach a different answer by using different steps, how do I know which one is correct?
This might all sound very simple to you, and in many ways it is. Articulating your thought process – even after reaching your decision – allows you to poke the tires on your answer, and helps you to feel more confident in your decision. It also helps you to challenge your assumptions and notice short-cuts you’ve made; in the algebra homework example, both my son and I got tripped up by a question that did not follow the pattern set by the others in the series, and arrived at the wrong answer before we realized our mistake. How often in life do we think we recognize a situation, act without giving it much thought, and then realize this situation did not fit the pattern you thought it fit?
Of course, this relates to Chris Argyris’ Ladder of Inference model, which we’ve written about before. Argyris relates the steps that go into making decisions to the rungs of a ladder. He suggests that anytime we find ourselves making decisions – especially those based on strong emotions – we might be well served by taking a breath (or a break) and stepping back down to ‘ground level’ to learn more from the pool of observable data. Mapping your own decision making onto the steps of the ladder of inference (data, meaning, conclusions, beliefs, actions) can help you to think clearly about where you may be making your own incorrect assumptions.
This Week’s Tips:
- If you have (or know) a child with algebra homework, sit alongside them and work in parallel – and if you don’t, try some algebra by yourself! Articulate your steps to put words to your thought processes.
- With a handful of decisions you make this week – especially consequential ones, but perhaps even with a few small ones – take a few minutes to articulate to yourself the steps you took to make that decision. You might use the Ladder of Inference as a model to map your steps onto: What data was available?; What data did you select?; What meaning did you add?; What conclusions did you reach?; What beliefs did you form?; What actions did you take?
- With one or two decisions you make this week – large or small – ask someone you trust if they can listen to you walk through the steps you took to get there, and ask if there’s anything they see that you’ve missed or should consider thinking about differently.
Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes. We’d love to hear from you!
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Building Bridges Leadership 