{"id":1235,"date":"2018-09-12T00:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T00:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/?p=1235"},"modified":"2019-01-03T00:29:15","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T00:29:15","slug":"the-biggest-thinking-mistake-you-dont-want-to-make","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/2018\/09\/12\/the-biggest-thinking-mistake-you-dont-want-to-make\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s a hairball: the thinking mistake you don&#8217;t want to make"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1236 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/siel_knitting_dew_knot_knotted_woven_close-901552-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/siel_knitting_dew_knot_knotted_woven_close-901552-300x200.jpg 300w, http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/siel_knitting_dew_knot_knotted_woven_close-901552-768x512.jpg 768w, http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/siel_knitting_dew_knot_knotted_woven_close-901552-1024x683.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/siel_knitting_dew_knot_knotted_woven_close-901552.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>One of my oldest and dearest friends, Bob Boiko, is a ferocious question-asker. I can count on hearing one phrase from him any time I\u2019m running a business or philosophical idea by him: \u201cOK Joe, let\u2019s tease that apart.\u201d It\u2019s Bob\u2019s gentle way of saying, \u201cI think there are some assumptions here you haven\u2019t examined.\u201d What we usually discover is that there\u2019s some bias lurking in my thought process that needs to be brought to light.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTease it apart\u201d \u2013 I like that phrase. It brings to mind a tangle of hair that needs to be carefully sorted through. If you\u2019ve had the task of teasing apart a tangle of your child\u2019s or your spouse\u2019s hair, you know that it is a slow, painstaking and laborious process\u2026and you have to watch out that you don\u2019t pull too hard. Sure, you can just cut the offending lump off, but if you keep doing that you\u2019ll wind up with a bald kid.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of workplace ideas turn out to be like tangled hair that never gets teased apart. Either teams swallow the ideas whole (and we know what happens to hairballs), or they get cut off without examination. Teasing apart means creating space in the densest places, so the structure can be seen more easily. System diagrams, mind maps, and other heuristic tools help bring clarity to the density, by defining terms and surfacing contradictions. And having a ferocious question-asker or two involved doesn\u2019t hurt a bit.<\/p>\n<p>So whatever tangle you&#8217;re confronted with, don&#8217;t take it as it is, and don&#8217;t eliminate it without investigation. Tease it apart.<\/p>\n<p><em>Try It:<\/em> Consider a recent proposal that you or others have been suggesting. Find some ways to tease it apart: asking questions, challenging your assumptions, being aware of your mental predispositions, finding others to workshop the idea with. Examine it from different angles. Look closely enough to see where the key assumptions are located. Carefully untangle until the logic starts to move more freely\u2014or begins to fall apart. It might take some time, but if there\u2019s beauty and flow there, that\u2019s the only way to find out.<\/p>\n<p>Photo:\u00a0https:\/\/pxhere.com\/en\/photo\/901552<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my oldest and dearest friends, Bob Boiko, is a ferocious question-asker. I can count on hearing one phrase from him any time I\u2019m running a business or philosophical idea by him: \u201cOK Joe, let\u2019s tease that apart.\u201d It\u2019s Bob\u2019s gentle way of saying, \u201cI think there are some assumptions here you haven\u2019t examined.\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-openmindedness","category-tips-for-your-at-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1235"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}