42 The Goldilocks Effect, Cognitive Load, The Positivity Delusion+ Ladders of Thinking

1. Thinking Tools: Ladders of Critical Thinking

Here is a short reading based on a concept called The Goldilocks Effect. Yes, you read that correctly! James Clear[1] is a motivator who specialises in helping people create what he calls atomic habits, or as the book says, tiny changes with remarkable results.[1] He highlights great lesson and insight that he calls the Goldilocks Rule. The Rule is about sticking to your good habits and matching task with talent. To maintain motivation and achieve peak results, we need to work on tasks that are of ‘just manageable difficulty’.

Motivated people love challenges. The best ones are those that are within what Clear calls an optimal zone of difficulty. Too challenging and we are frustrated, and too easy and we bored. Just right and we have a good chance of success if we really try. We become more focused and able to brush aside distractions, and we become invested.

[1]

The basic idea is that if a challenge or project is too difficult, we feel deflated and too easily, we become bored.

Here are the steps to make this work. To begin, keep it simple and make it easy. Then start advancing in small steps. Add small challenges that keep you engaged. Sports coaches use this approach: working on challenges of just manageable difficulty, small noticeable steps that are celebrated and made visible. Eventually we can get to mastery. When this principle is consistently used in teams, on purposeful work, amazing things can happen. Remember ‘small wins’ and the Batteries of Change.

Cognitive load

Now there is a little more nuance to this story. Two innovations experts, Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao, have worked as consultants on some of the great technological projects in Silicon Valley in the US.[2] They always talk about cognitive load and the necessity to build cognitive capability. What do they mean? Simply put, too much drain on the brain, over too long, creates fatigue. Similar to the Goldilocks Rule, the right amount of cognitive effort produces the best results. As teams progress, they develop capability. Projects and innovations that require deep thinking work best when the cognitive capability grows over time, when the challenges are of just manageable difficulty, the progress principle is in place, and the work is purposeful.

The Positivity Delusion

Ben Horowitz puts a little dampener on this mindset.[3] Horowitz has helped launch Airbnb, Facebook, Twitter and also works in the military intelligence space. The title of his book, The Hard Thing about Hard Things, says it all. He cautions against what he calls the ’positivity delusion’. This is the act of accentuating the positive and ignoring the negative. Reality requires the truth, and shared truth.

By sharing the problems and challenges, everyone can put their minds to work on creating solutions and being motived by the challenge. Three things are necessary:

Trust that enables communication

Great brains working on the hard problems

A culture that shares the good news and the bad!

This brings us to end of this Topic. Here is your reflection and wrap up activity.

Carefully review your insights about comparing what you are learning with with what you already know: Your Problem  Walkaround #1; Asking good questions; and thinking tools. We then introduced a series of concepts, processes and tools that help you to understand ‘what is going on around here’. These are so useful as approaches to show what needs to change, why and also how.

Your Reflective Journal is also likely to have many tips and tools to help you. If you use mind mapping techniques, make a mind map. You might like to start a strategy journey map,[4] or if you are a wordsmith, write a page about how all these things fit together.

Do this so you have a ‘how to’ guide as you move to the next topic.

[1] Ibid.

[2] Sutton, R. I., Rao, H., & Rao, H. (2016). Scaling up excellence: Getting to more without settling for less. Random House.

[3] Horowitz, B. (2014). The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers. Harper Business. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=620pAgAAQBAJ

[4] Peloso, A. (2020a). Strategy Journey Mapping: Pathways to success.  https://blogs.qut.edu.au/qutex/2020/02/25/strategy-journey-mapping-pathways-to-success/

[1] Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. Penguin Random House. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/543993/atomic-habits-by-james-clear/

Extra Activity

Critical thinking ladder

David Hawkins and his team[2] have developed a ladder of critical thinking. The ladder helps us to understand the stages and styles of thinking development. Their work comes from clinical research. We think that clinical research is a very useful context to use to understand critical thinking. In many ways it is, like yours, a context where lives and safety are among the main concerns.

Note the stages of the Critical Thinking Ladder read the descriptions of the stages.

In your roles you will be dealing most likely with those who are thinking at Critical thinking level 4 and above. This suggests that you will be working to influence those who have the following mindsets:

Practising thinkers understand that there are mechanisms and short cuts that lead to flawed decisions and they work to assess and critique their own conclusions, beliefs and opinions.

Advanced thinkers have insight and understanding of problems at deeper levels of thought. They are self-aware and they work to be to be fair-minded. They look out for bias in their thinking or if they change their reasoning according to context.

Accomplished thinkers are problem solvers who bring people together, seek out alternatives, display sound judgment and lead through example.

As you read these key insights you will realise that you could and should structure your communications in such a way as to challenge your teams and stakeholders to question and reflect. These thinkers are able to see multiple sides of an argument and they are typically aware of the differing needs and perspectives of the stakeholder environments. They will also be likely to challenge and debate, albeit in a fair and reasoned manner.