Understanding How Teams Think

In this episode, we discuss the Thinking domain and what it looks like when the Thinking domain is dominant on teams. This is part two of our multi-part series where we discuss dominant domains to help us better understand team culture. We believe learning more about the culture of your team will lead to better engagement and help your team to really understand the nature and composition of who they are when they come together. 

The Thinking Domain

We often find that teams that have Thinking as a dominant domain are constantly absorbing and analyzing information. They help teams make better decisions and they also stretch our thinking. They help us imagine what could be. The themes in the Thinking Domain are analytical, context, futuristic, ideation, input, intellection, learner, and strategic.

How We Engage a Team with the Thinking Domain

By engaging with teams and asking questions, we can detect different components that can help make their dominant domain more life-giving to others, and help people align to something that’s bigger than them. When we work with a team that is dominant in Thinking Strengths, one of the things that we are very attentive to is the level of critical thinking that this team is engaged in. We’re asking questions such as:

• How critical are they?
• How do they think things through when they have to make a big decision?
• What are the elements in their thought process?

We’re also looking for attitude, alignment, and actionability:

• What’s their intellectual attitude?
• Is the team aligned? When you have a lot of critical thinkers on your team, sometimes alignment can be a challenge because everyone is thinking about what their critical mind is attending to. When critical thinkers are aligned, they can get more done.
• What does action look like? Teams with high thinking strengths are often thinking about very actionable things.

Bias, Boundaries & Blind Spots

It’s important to be mindful of the bias, boundaries, and blind spots of the Thinking themes. There is an inherent bias to teams in any dominant domain, including the thinking domain. As leaders, we need to help create boundaries so that critical thinkers on your team have the time and space to think critically. Be aware of blind spots in the thinking domain. How do critical thinkers take care of themselves? Where do they get their energy?

The Thinking Domain on Your Team

No matter what Strengths you have, learning about your dominant domain can detect how a group or team thinks and works. As you have people that are willing to voice questions and ideas and poke holes in old ways of thinking, you can open up and understand how a group can apply their thinking to make better decisions, to work smarter, or to work more productively. 

• How do you invite everyone into the conversation?
• How do you include what they’re thinking in your action? 

When your team culture is primarily composed of critical thinkers, the keys are to maintain alignment, have an attitude of openness, and to make sure thinking is steered so that it is actionable and applicable to the most people. 

How Can We Help?

Curious about something you heard in this episode? If you have a follow-up question to anything in this podcast episode or any of our other work, send us an email to connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com. We’d love to hear from you!