Just like all things in life, there are parallels to different parts of our lives. One of the most interesting parallels I have discovered recently is the power of deep thinking and the power of deep conversation.
In the corporate world, deep thinking is often the catalyst for change.
In connecting with family and friends, I tend to drift towards deep, meaningful conversations as a productive use of time.
So how connected are deep thinking and deep conversation?
Exhibit A: When writing my second book Your Best Decade, the best chapters that I wrote came after already writing for two or more hours. My initial writing wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t incredible. It wasn’t until my mind had fully immersed in the writing experience for more than a couple of hours that I truly created masterful content. Other authors have said the same thing. It is deep thinking which leads to deep writing which then adds to outstanding results.
This all seems easy, but it isn’t.
Research shows that many people struggle with getting to a place of “deep thinking”, especially at work. In fact, a recent study revealed that only about 10% of people actually get to a point of deep thinking at work. This is likely due to constant messaging, information/content curation, and distracted, surface-level thinking.
Deep thinking has become a trainable skill in a distracted society that values productivity over thought leadership and the time needed for creative ideation.
Many of us work in the sphere of, “produce now and worry about creative thinking later”. Shareholders don’t care about measured hours of deep thinking time their company employees have each week. They care about money, the bottom dollar and the next fiscal quarter.
I have noticed the same thing to be true for deep conversation. Just as it remains challenging for us to get into a state of deep thinking, it is equally as hard to get into deep conversation.
I also see this in my own relationships. For example, my wife and I were watching the last NASCAR race of the season last Sunday afternoon. We hadn’t spent much of the past week in the same space for more than a few hours so we had dedicated and protected this time to be in the same space enjoying each others’ company while taking in the last race of the season.
We talked for the majority of the race, but it wasn’t until the last hour of the race (yes these races are long) that we really struck gold through deep conversation. We began diving deeper and deeper in such a comfortable, natural state of conversation flow. It was as if all of our conversations from the previous hours had built to an epic conversation during the closing laps of the race.
The same is true for work. Often, I cycle through meeting agendas with specific timelines because I have so many things to cover that I inherently forget to block off time for deep thinking and deep conversation.
Getting to deep conversation on a topic, Organizational approach, or innovative idea typically does not come within the first 30 minutes of a meeting. It doesn’t surface until well after items are cycled through, dots are connected, and comfort levels rise within the cohesive group do I see thought leadership and deep conversation, which ultimately leads to innovation.
It is said that necessity is the mother of invention but I believe that in 2020 and beyond, time is the mother of innovation.
We need time to dig deep into our thinking and to dig into deep conversations to produce the most innovative results.
We need to give ourselves permission and time to get to a point of deep thinking and deep conversation. As an example professionally, I need to find ways to allow my thoughts to percolate so that the most innovative thoughts rise to the top. At home, I build ‘chunked’ hours of time with family to facilitate the environment which leads to deep, meaningful conversation.
—
Previously Published on Medium
—
.