Big Red Car here on a nasty, gray ATX day. Ahhh, but we love our rains in the month of May. May and September are the wet months in the ATX.
So, I’m listening to an excellent sermon on Sunday and a thought is sprung free from my brain by something the pastor says.
It is this: “We think with our fingertips.”
What the Hell does that mean, Big Red Car?
Well, dear reader and CEO — talking to you CEOs — we tend to tap on the keyboard without THINKING and thereby limit our thinking to whatever is the available wisdom of our fingertips at that instant in time. Worse, we may be long on emotion.
Fair comment? I know it is when you consider Big Red Cars though I am conscious to temper it.
Part of critical thinking is weighing things.
Critical thinking — the preparation for rendering a decision or an opinion — takes time. Banging away at the keyboard does not.
We have previously spoken of the conflict between critical thinking v emotion (feelings) here.
Uhhh, can you real world that, Big Red Car?
Certainly, dear reader. Your Big Red Car was advising a crackerjack CEO some time ago about an issue she had brought to his attention related to an employee, an important employee, not a co-founder, but important.
The employee was creating issues, failing to meet admittedly high expectations that suggested that the company and the employee were not fitting well. Not being contemplated to be terminated, mind you, but a problem that had to be dealt with — her opinion.
Bit of angst crept into the CEO’s voice, so it was something to be dealt with indeed.
When a CEO faces such a problem, often there is emotion involved. [Wow, what an insight, Big Red Car. Haha.]
Said your Big Red Car, “Let me ponder that.” Your BRC was in the middle of something and was not putting her off.
The CEO hadn’t pressed for a specific recommendation, but that was the direction the convo was headed.
Your Big Red Car lay himself down to bed for that night and suddenly a thought jumped into his mind.
The company was contemplating relocating that function and the employee at issue would have to relocate. Was relocation in the cards?
Next day, BRC poses to the CEO this question, “Is your employee going to relocate if and when you move?”
Answers the brilliant CEO, “Never thought of that. That solves the problem. The employee cannot move.”
You may also file that under “serendipity” and, admittedly, we were not contemplating the intimate details of cold fusion, but when the entire fish was filleted, the answer was in the entrails.
What was needed for that situation to resolve itself — as it did — was the space to think, the leap of thought into one’s noggin, and the snatching it away from one’s fingertips.
Are you making decisions, rendering opinions with your fingertips or are you engaging in critical thinking? Are you giving yourself the space to make a better decision?
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Be good.
