In yesterday’s post I thought about whether or not we see the world as full of problems to avoid or opportunities to take. I also mentioned that there was a link to metaprograms dealing with Towards or Away From motivation.

I have spent a lot of my career dealing with change at both corporate and personal levels and can now easily recognise two different types of thinking when faced with change. There are those who look at situations and can readily list all the problems that we currently have and perhaps how the change might be able to help solve them – their motivation is to move away from problems. On the other hand there are those who will look at the situation and will be primarily motivated by the wonderful bright new world into which we are sailing – their motivation is primarily towards the future.

Away From or Troubleshooting thinking is great at identifying what is currently wrong, what might go wrong in the future and how we might prevent previous problems recurring. Those who process in this way tend to be risk averse, to excel in a crisis situation and to be good at making contingency plans. Because they are so good at this, there is a risk that sometimes they identify problems that aren’t actually there and fight fires that don’t exist or don’t need putting out. They can slow down change and sometimes this is helpful because the towards thinker can become a bit gung ho.

Towards thinking is typified by the person who still smiles even when they are up to their neck in the crocodile filled swamp. This type of thinking is extremely future focused, concentrating on achieving goals and positive thinking. However these thinkers can be so enthusiastic that they overlook actual or potential problems and pitfalls and need an away thinking colleague to complement their approach.

Perhaps you will do both of these, although experience indicates that it is rare for someone to excel at both types of thinking, or perhaps you sit closer to one end of the scale than the other. Remember that both types of thinking are helpful, the towards thinking provides the enthusiasm and drive to move forward and the away from thinking provides the caution necessary to avoid the towards thinker falling down a dirty great hole that they just didn’t see because they were focusing on their goals.

So here’s the exercise – think of a change that you would like to make. Now list two or three current problems that the change will solve and one or two potential pitfalls that you will need to be aware of. Next list three or four compelling reasons for making the change, three or four improvements that will be recognisable once the change has been made. Using both types of thinking gives you a more comprehensive view of the situation.