Lisa Weaver

Cognitive Slack: Creating Mental Reserves for Getting Unstuck

on October 25, 2024October 25, 2024 By Jay Gordon Cone

How do you help leaders and organizations adapt their thinking strategies to the challenges of a volatile business environment? Thinking tools and skills need to match the complexity of the problems we hope to solve. However, helping people develop their thinking skills by giving them something challenging to think about is a bit like teaching kids to swim by throwing them in the deep end of a pool.

At our core, we help people get unstuck. We focus on situations where individuals, groups, or organizations attempt to make changes, yet despite their best efforts, things remain the same. Through our work, we’ve discovered that hidden influences often play a major role in maintaining the status quo. By helping people notice what they’re missing, transformation becomes possible.

Learning to Float

Speaking of swimming, Lisa’s two boys learned to swim using the SwimRight method, pioneered by four-time Olympic gold medalist Lenny Krayzelburg. This method teaches the swim-float-swim technique, emphasizing confidence and safety as foundations for learning. Children first master floating on their backs, allowing them to rotate between swimming and resting while practicing strokes. This balance between effort and rest proves crucial for building both skill and confidence.

Recently, while discussing our approach to helping clients embrace uncertainty, Lisa suggested balancing “float” emphasis with “swim” emphasis according to what our clients need. At present, many of our clients face extraordinary change fatigue—it’s as if they’re treading water while watching the shoreline recede. In such moments, they need a life preserver more than lessons on developing stamina.

Here’s the challenge: When you’re already overwhelmed by complexity and uncertainty, you lack the mental bandwidth to consider—let alone adopt—new ways of thinking. As we noted in a previous post, early influences can grip our minds with uninvited ideas. For many, the prospect of loosening these habitual thought patterns feels like yet another problem to solve. Instinctively, we reach for familiar solutions—often the very approaches keeping us stuck.

Have you ever tried to improve your productivity with a new time management tool that you didn’t have time to learn how to use?

Have you ever tried to improve your productivity with a new time management tool that you didn’t have time to learn how to use?

Understanding Cognitive Slack

Our friend and colleague Linda Dunkel’s work with Credit Human, a San Antonio-based credit union, offers an illuminating parallel. Rather than focusing on the abstract concept of financial health, Credit Human emphasizes “financial slack”—maintaining a financial reserve that helps people stay ahead of expenses and feel prepared for the unexpected. Like having the confidence you’ll stay afloat when exhausted, financial slack provides crucial breathing room.

This concept translates powerfully to mental capacity. Just as financial stress creates a vicious cycle of difficult choices, cognitive stress limits our ability to form insights, build relationships, and identify creative options. When mentally overwhelmed, we tend to avoid challenging tasks and hard conversations, often seeking refuge in easy distractions.

This recognition led us to develop the concept of “cognitive slack”—a strategic mental reserve that helps us manage attention and access hidden influences when facing uncertainty and complexity.

Signs You Need Cognitive Slack

Common situations where cognitive stress compromises creativity and compassion include:

Work-Related Challenges:

– Finding your contributions regularly dismissed or ignored

– Struggling to complete tasks requiring deep concentration

– Focusing so intently on your agenda that you miss others’ input

Personal Stressors:

– Managing intrusive thoughts and emotions that affect work performance

– Processing information in a non-native language

– Grappling with problems that seem too complex to solve

Communication Barriers:

– Jumping to offer solutions instead of truly listening

– Redirecting conversations back to your priorities

– Avoiding difficult but necessary discussions

Creating Space: The Power of Mental Floating

Neuroscience reveals why our best ideas often emerge during breaks—whether in the shower, while exercising, or during other moments of mental rest. These periods activate our brain’s default mode network, essentially allowing our minds to float between periods of focused effort.

To build more cognitive slack into your day:

– Schedule regular “floating” breaks between intense work sessions

– Create deliberate transitions between meetings or tasks

– Allow time for unstructured thinking and reflection

Just as swimmers alternate between strokes and floating to build endurance, incorporating strategic mental breaks can help us navigate complexity with greater resilience and insight.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is float.

Unclench Your Brain; Hold Thoughts Lightly

on September 10, 2024September 12, 2024 By Jay Gordon Cone 1 Comment

In her 2021 bestseller, Peak Mind, professor of psychology, Amishi Jha recounts an epiphany she had about the powerful ways our worldviews grip and constrain our thinking. Dr. Jha and her family had been attending a birthday celebration for her mother. It was a milestone birthday and her mother’s house was packed with friends and relatives, many of them Indian men and women in their sixties and seventies. Dr. Jha and her sister took charge of serving food and drinks. Here’s how Dr. Jha describes what happened next.

When the time came to serve the cake, I was at a loss – my daughter was nowhere to be found, and my sister was busy cutting and plating the cake while I ran frantically back and forth with two plates, trying to get to all the guests. Finally, I felt a hand on my arm. My husband, Michael, was standing there with our son and my nephew

Can we help you?

Husband, son, and nephew jumped in and efficiently distributed the plates. Everyone enjoyed cake, problem solved.

Later, Dr. Jha reflected on the experience. Why hadn’t she asked her husband for help? Why was her first thought, “where is my daughter?” Shockingly, she realized that she had fallen under the spell of a deeply ingrained worldview: Men don’t serve food in Indian households!

As a woman, a scientist, and a psychology professor, Dr. Jha is acutely aware of the casual, implicit biases that regularly harm women. For example, it’s not unusual for her to receive emails addressed to “Sir.”

After her mother’s birthday party, she wanted to shout, “But I’m not sexist!” The reality, she came to realize is that “…if sexism exists in the world, it exists in my lived experience of the world.”

What Would it Take for you to Change your Mind?

Mental models are internal representations of external reality. They are the stories we tell ourselves to help us make sense of the world. Mental models help us process information, reason, make decisions, and make predictions. The key word in the definition is, “representation.” Alfred Korzybski, a Polish-American philosopher and mathematician pointed out that mental models are representations of reality in the same way that a map is a representation of a territory.

Mental models are useful precisely because they simplify reality. Like maps, mental models leave out a lot of detail. Also, like maps, unless a mental model is updated, new realities can make our rigidly held models less useful.

We can hold maps at arm’s length. It’s much harder to put daylight between ourselves and our mental models. Consequently, we confuse our models with reality, we accept our certainties as truth. What’s worse, because the mental model dictates how we process information, it can change the brain’s ability to notice information that’s not part of the model. Dr. Jha literally didn’t notice her husband, son, and nephew when she scanned her mother’s house looking for someone to help serve cake.

Noticing Stale Assumptions

Developmental psychologist, Robert Kegan writes about the transformational changes people experience throughout their lives. His subject-object theory of development differentiates between our internal assumptions about the way the world works (subject) and aspects of the world we can examine independently (object).

Kegan often asks, “Do you have the idea, or does the idea have you?” If you have the idea, you can examine it objectively. If the idea has you, you are unconsciously gripped by the idea.

Before her epiphany, Dr. Jha was unwittingly gripped by the idea that men don’t serve food in Indian households. After her epiphany, the idea no longer controlled what Dr. Jha could notice and think about her situation. She became cognizant of the relationship between an old story and its impact on her behavior. She can hold the thought lightly and decide how it will inform her worldview going forward.

Jay’s Story

I clearly remember how disoriented I felt after pitching my book to Steve Piersanti, founder of Berrett-Koehler Publishers. He pointed out that most people don’t read non-fiction books, they don’t even buy them. Bestselling non-fiction books are purchased in bulk and handed out during corporate events, conference key-note presentations, or as part of training programs. He didn’t care about my writing chops or my research. He wanted to know if I had a platform and a following. A lot of deeply held assumptions and a few fantasies about being an author lost their hold on me that day.

Lisa’s Story

Like many people, I was drawn into a professional role because it suited my personality and skills. I didn’t plan to work in sales leadership and account management, I discovered a knack for it. As I experienced success, I started thinking of myself as a sales professional. Unconsciously, I adopted a mental model that many of my coaching clients share: What I do is who I am. Since co-founding Unstuck Minds, I’ve given myself permission to reinvent my role. I’ve learned to loosen my grip on how I see myself. I recently pursued an ICF coaching certification. Now I have a portfolio of capabilities to contribute.

Loosening the Grip of Stale Assumptions

Stale assumptions don’t just grip people. Many businesses suffer from calcified assumptions about what customers want. It’s easy to imagine the proclamations below animating strategy meetings at three, once dominant companies:

The experience of scanning the shelves of a physical store is an irreplaceable part of what customers love about Blockbuster.
Quality, consistency, and value make Kodak film the best choice for all photographers and cameras.
Business professionals are obsessed with the Blackberry keyboard.

Noticing and potentially revising a mental model isn’t easy. Unstuck Minds has developed tools and thought exercises to help you pull back the curtain on influential thoughts. Here are two of our favorites:

Brainstorm terrible Ideas

Imagine you work for a retail clothing company that prides itself on personalized customer service. In a meeting someone suggests closing all the stores and selling your apparel through a third-party, online e-commerce site. It would be easy to picture people angrily reacting to the idea because it violates a core assumption about the company’s business model. Now that the assumption is out in the open, you can challenge it or recommit to it. Read our story about using “terrible ideas” to help a client identify assumptions and worldviews.

What blasphemous yet plausible idea would elicit a gasp or an eye roll in your organization?
What does the reaction say about your organization’s assumptions?

Consult future you

When facing decisions that will play out over time, we assume that the person who makes the decision (Present-Me) will think and feel the same way as the person who will live with the decision (Future-Me). It’s easier to recognize the fallacy when we retrospectively evaluate past decisions. When we look back on consequential choices we made in the past, it feels obvious that our current selves, faced with the same decision, might consider different criteria or make a different choice. Here’s a trivial example that might be relatable. It’s the middle of the afternoon and someone has brought a tray of rich, decadent cookies into the breakroom from a meeting that just ended. Present-You knows what it wants. How will ‘10-Minutes-From-Now-You’ feel about the decision to mindlessly devour the cookie?

In a lot of ways, a life gripped by our mental models is a bit like living in a dream-like state. We don’t question the strange logic of our dreams. The first moments of waking up feel disorienting.

If you no longer believe that a jolly bearded resident of the North Pole delivers gifts to deserving children on Christmas, you understand the experience of revising a mental model. And yes, letting go of a cherished mental model might be accompanied by a sense of loss. On the plus side, when you hold thoughts, assumptions, and conclusions lightly, you create space for surprising ideas to present themselves for your consideration.

Jha, Amishi P. Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day. New York: HarperOne, 2021.

Cultivate Generous Connections

on August 13, 2024August 13, 2024 By Jay Gordon Cone 1 Comment

At a pivotal moment in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, the police capture the book’s protagonist, Jean Valjean and bring him before Bishop Myriel. Valjean had spent 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Prison turned Valjean into a hardened and bitter man, resentful of society. Upon his release he had no food, shelter, or anyone to turn to for help.

The bishop had welcomed Valjean, fed him, and provided a comfortable place to stay. Despite his hospitality, Valjean stole the bishop’s silverware and the silver basket containing the silverware, and then fled in the night.

When the police captured Valjean and took him to the bishop, rather than accuse Valjean of theft, the bishop explained to the police that the silverware was a gift. The bishop goes further, offering Valjean a pair of silver candlesticks, telling him that he must have forgotten them when he left.

Inspired by the bishop’s mercy and compassion, Valjean experiences a moral awakening. He adopts a new identity. He dedicates himself to helping others.

Transactional Interactions

When we treat others transactionally, we’re only thinking about a current and temporary exchange. We have a specific need or a preferred outcome. We evaluate each interaction in terms of whether we get what we want. When we connect transactionally, we keep score. When we connect transactionally, we give little thought to the ripple effects beyond the quid pro quo exchange.

Consider Valjean’s first theft in Les Misérables. The consequence for stealing the loaf of bread was a prison sentence. The justice system dealt with Valjean transactionally, a brutal punishment for a minor crime. As the effects of his punishment rippled out, Valjean became an aggrieved and desperate man.

When we engage transactionally, we don’t know what, if any ripple effects we’ve created. If all parties are satisfied, we’ve preserved a kind of status quo. But have we missed an opportunity? If we feel stuck in a situation involving others, could it be that we’re overly focused on getting our preferred outcome in the present? What future possibilities might we attract by being more attentive to the needs of others?

Generous Connections

By contrast, Valjean’s second theft of the bishop’s silver resulted in compassion and an opportunity to walk a different path. Of course, there was no guarantee that the bishop’s mercy would trigger transformative moral growth. Some interactions defy transactional interpretation. A generous connection is one in which a person gives freely without an expectation of getting something in return.

We connect generously when we sense an opportunity to improve someone’s life. It feels natural to connect generously with those we care most about. On the other hand, connecting generously when conducting business feels counterintuitive, maybe even subversive. How often do we hear, “what’s in it for me?” or “run a cost-benefit analysis.”

The examples from Les Misérables represent extreme ends of a spectrum. Every day we encounter and interact with people, sometimes transactionally, sometimes generously. When contracting work with others, we evaluate what we’re giving against what we’re getting. When we’re moved to make charitable contributions, we look beyond the transaction to future impacts without consideration of how those future impacts may benefit us.

Every interaction provides an opportunity to connect generously. Consider the simple act of ordering a cup of coffee. We could play our roles, stay in our lanes, and perform the expected exchange. Or we could make generous, wholehearted contact with another human being. We might smile, noticing something positive about them, or sincerely ask about their day.

Getting Unstuck with Generous Connections

Have you noticed that the traditional management playbook is outdated? Particularly when it comes to how we think about our stakeholders and networks. People expect more from their organizational life than a fair exchange of work for pay. Customers expect more than goods and services from the businesses they are loyal to.

Defining success based on transactions alone carries risk. First, you’re not prepared when needs change. Second, you haven’t built relationships you can count on when unanticipated opportunities arise.

Consider an example of how a focus on keeping score can play out. You are in a business development role, it’s the end of the quarter and your sales manager is pressuring you to meet your quota. During the next meeting with a client, your training and conditioning kicks in. The meeting turns into the playing field of a numbers game. To make the sale is to win, and each win gets you closer to meeting your quota.

When you feel stress and pressured to achieve a goal, it’s difficult to access generosity. A scarcity mindset breeds fear and anxiety which undermines the opportunity to deepen your relationship. Instead of listening for the client’s needs, you narrow your focus and listen only for what serves your needs. Instead of harmonizing with the client, the conversation feels like a tennis match in which you serve up offers and volley objections.

How to Cultivate Generous Connections

The less instinctive approach is one of generosity. You choose to hold lightly the short-term goal of the quarterly quota and attend to the long-term goal of cultivating an authentic connection based on care and compassion. Connecting with the client as a human being allows unknown possibilities to emerge from the relationship.

Here are some things to try when feeling stuck between competing priorities

Acknowledge and hold the tension created by wanting to achieve your goals while prioritizing what best serves the person you’re with.
Lead with compassionate curiosity, listen with an open mind and open heart.
Pay attention to the passion you experience from the other person and delve deeper into those areas.
Seek to understand what feels relevant and important for the other person, have fun in the messy middle of the conversation with no attachment to the desired outcome you might have come in with.
Explore possibilities that arise even if they feel impractical and share your thoughts and feelings with trust and vulnerability.

You can always come back to your short-term need in the end (if it even still feels relevant). It will land differently because now it can be contextualized as one small part of a generous connection.

The Practice is What Matters

Yes, it’s ironic to extol the virtues of cultivating generous connections by listing its transactional benefits. We believe that a habit of kindness and compassion will “pay off” in the long run. We also believe that a habit of kindness and compassion rewires the brain circuitry responsible for our mindsets. Becoming a generous connector turns you into a person who attracts more opportunities.

Treating people with kindness and compassion is its own reward, so there’s that. But also, treating people with kindness and compassion is contagious. What goes around, comes around.

If your taste in examples runs more towards popular culture than 19^th century French literature, check out the ripple effects in this clip from the 1947 movie Miracle on 34^th Street when Santa connects generously with young Peter and his mom.

Are your employees and business associates rooting for you? How about your customers? Rather than keeping score, perhaps you should consider connecting generously with them?

Warning! Mental Quicksand Ahead

on June 9, 2024June 17, 2024 By Jay Gordon Cone

We help people adopt an unstuck mindset. An unstuck mindset is a healthy mode of operating when things become overwhelming. It’s an orientation to complexity and uncertainty that invites breakthrough insights and novel options. We’re like mental and emotional fitness coaches conditioning people to thrive in a world that feels out of control.

But what if you’re stuck and you don’t realize it?

We find ourselves in mental quicksand when conditions have changed, but our approach remains the same. Instead of rethinking when we don’t get the outcomes we want, we use our tried-and-true strategies even more diligently. Like struggling to escape quicksand, the more effort we apply, the more stuck we become.

If any of the thoughts below feel familiar, you may already be caught in mental quicksand.

I’m right. They’re wrong.

Being right or being wrong makes sense when dealing with math problems, documented facts, or testable predictions. Thinking that there’s a right or wrong answer to a complex issue is just a trick your brain is playing on you. Brains like simplicity because simplicity conserves energy. With a bit more mental and emotional stamina, our brains can learn to tolerate nuance and creativity.

If you find yourself framing an issue as a choice between mutually exclusive alternatives, pause and ask yourself: How do we achieve the best of both?

I’m one purchase away from happiness.

You know that feeling of anticipation when you’ve splurged on a purchase that hasn’t been delivered yet? Or maybe you’ve decided to take up a new health regimen or hobby that you imagine will improve your life. If the new item or practice has become vital and transformative, congratulations!

More often, the item you coveted is now just another bland possession. The new practice has become a half-hearted routine or something you’ve abandoned. You’re back to scanning catalogues and considering the hot new life hack.

If you find yourself eager to bring something new into your life, pause and ask yourself: What need am I expecting this thing to meet?

I don’t know what came over me.

We are often surprised by our reactions. When triggered, an emotional energy can escape that makes us unrecognizable to ourselves. That out-of-proportion response is useful information. We may need the help of a therapist or coach to identify the source. Attempts to rein in our extreme reactions or write them off as the result of a temporary malady just gets us more stuck.

When you’re surprised by your own over-the-top reaction, pause and ask yourself: What does this reaction say about my unfulfilled aspirations or aspects of my life I have yet to make peace with?

Why am I getting the opposite of what I want?

A strange thing happens when we try too hard. Sometimes we put so much effort into achieving a goal, we create conditions for the opposite of our goal to take root. Let’s say Devon is eager to feel included. He adopts a strategy of helping whenever there’s a conflict or issue. He expends a lot of energy inserting himself into situations to fix problems. Devon’s efforts to be of service end up complicating matters. Over time he develops a reputation for being meddlesome and disruptive. Eventually people start avoiding, rather than including Devon.

If you feel a sense of dissatisfaction with your situation because of the extreme gap between what you want and what you’re getting, pause and ask yourself: How might I challenge the assumptions responsible for my choices?

How did we end up with the same strategy if we agree that our world has changed?

If you’re part of an organization that periodically reassesses their strategic priorities, you may have noticed that this year’s strategy could be summed up as, “Do what we’ve been doing… better.” Of course, there’s nothing wrong with staying the course if things are working and you know how to navigate “the course.” But why would you stick with a familiar strategy if the environment in which your organization operates starts to feel unfamiliar.

Whatever process you use for setting direction and prioritizing resource investments, pause and ask yourself: What opportunities or disruptions are emerging that deserve our attention?