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Thinker
About the Preference
There are two dominant ways of processing knowledge within our brains. What we refer to as Associative and Sequential thinking.
Associating Thinking is our rapid integration process. It involves the ability to link thoughts together based on similarities, patterns, or shared characteristics, often leading to creative problem-solving or new insights.
Sequential Thinking is our slow systematic process. It’s a cognitive process which allows us to slow ourselves down, screen out and ignore the stuff around us so we can put the full weight of our attention on one thing in order to follow it through to completion.
Most of life requires us to access both of these dominant systems. We need to access our sequential skills to understand the rules and processes of complexity and we need our associative skills to kick in when we’re confronted with an unexpected detour.
About You
This assessment indicates you’re Cognitively Ambidextrous.
While more than 95 percent of us settle into Associative or Sequential Thinking, you appear to stay in flux. Your brain stays in motion evaluating and re-evaluating.
Analogous to handedness, you don’t favor one preference over the other. You engage rapid integrative thinking and hierarchical, step-by-step thinking equally. This ability allows you to move easily to a deep level of nuance.
The more complicated and the more moving parts involved, the better you perform. You should use this to envision engagements in advance.
At the same time, your advantage of quickly integrating different modes of thinking can lead to cognitive fatigue or decision-making challenges.
Advantages
- Having an exceptionally high quality standard
- Connecting with and understanding diverse perspectives
- Holding opposites and resolving paradoxes
- Context, experience, rule and process are equally obvious to you.
- Recognizing that opposing viewpoints can both hold validity
Challenges
- Finding the endpoint of a decision process
- Wanting it all: the context and experience of the Associative and the rule and processes of the Sequential
- Decision fatigue
- Feeling the loss when you make a decision
Opportunity
Honor your high quality standard. If you need to make a decision, respect the process to get there.
When the head of a trauma center was asked what she needed most from her staff, she replied, "I need people to slow down." If people working in what is literally an emergency room need to slow down, the rest of us surely can.
In most cases, a decision doesn’t need to be made quickly. Take time to let decisions incubate. It can be two-hours or two years.
When you take time to ponder, you'll experience more eureka moments, the decision process you've been holding will resolve itself unexpectedly and insightfully.