Have you noticed that leaders don’t think in limiting “either-or” scenarios? For example:
“I don’t know if I should invest now during this pandemic or if I should stop until the economy recovers.”
“Should I go to graduate school or not?”
“Should we continue with this project as is or scrap it.”
These three questions are samples of questions we can hear all the time. Do you see what they have in common? They all limit our answers to two scenarios.
I don’ know what you call this, so for simplicity let’s just call it binary thinking. That’s binary thinking. And leaders don’t think in limiting “either-or” scenarios because they create and envision multiple solutions.
The statements and questions we make are so important because they determine how much thinking or non-thinking we get to do. If you’ve been following my blog you know how much I love questions (by the way, I’m making a journal with 365 awesome questions; coming soon). And that’s because the quality of our questions determines the usefulness of the answer.
How many sides does a coin have?
I’ve noticed that sometimes we, including myself at times, get stuck into this “either-or” thinking which I compare to a coin. If you said a coin has 2 sides you’re incorrect. A coin has three sides, but we’re condition to only seeing the front and the back (heads or tails).
I don’t know why we so easily limit ourselves to two options. Why do we instinctively limit our options? I don’t know the answer, but I would guess it’s due to lazy thinking and social conditioning. We’re so satisfied with the two most obvious scenarios that we don’t look for more alternatives.
But what would happen if we always looked for three, four, or five scenarios?
I read once that in a meeting an employee of Walt Disney said, “We have to think outside the box.” This employee presented two options- thinking inside the box or thinking outside the box. Unsatisfied with the limits of this way of thinking, Walt Disney responded by saying, “There is no box.”
There is no box.
Walt Disney
What would happen to our way of thinking if we just eliminated the box?
Our environment and culture also try to limit our thinking. The media wants us to see the two main political parties as either good or bad. When you ask someone about wanting to start a business they say not to because it’s too risky. Most ideas are either this or that. They’re all limiting.
Look for the third side of the coin and don’t let influencers, your environment, political leaders, or the media force you to pick one of two options in their scenarios.
Good leaders see beyond their environment and create more options and solutions. They don’t allow others to limit their thinking.
So, what can you do to train yourself to see more than two options?