Collaborate Better

Leveraging thoughts from your conscious mind

Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

Lately, I have been exploring my mindset a lot. What I have found is the mere act of exploring your mind can be tremendously impactful in ensuring your thoughts and actions thereof are effective. But it needs to be done in a way that you are exploring your mind in order to find something. That act, of exploring with a goal makes the connections that you need in order to search and find that thing that you are looking for.

Let me explain…

Say you are at your work, in a meeting with your team. You are all working through a problem that your team is trying to solve. The problem is ambiguous, that is, the root issue isn’t known, and the solution therefore is not clear at the moment.

In this situation, people are suggesting ideas, and/or giving feedback on others’ ideas. Some ideas are bearing further discussion, and others are being discarded. There is a lot of mental activity going on, sometimes more, sometimes less, but all the time moving along forward.

What can one do in this situation, using nondual principles, to make the brainstorming session more effective? Consider the following:

1. Realize that each member of the team participating in the discussion is part of the same human consciousness.
2. Also, realize that the “problem” being discussed, is but a gap in the common understanding of the team on a particular subject.
3. Last, but not the least, the act of “understanding”, is but a mental state, and therefore in our power to influence it.

Armed with the above three points, here is an action plan one can follow while being in the midst of discussion, to get maximum effectiveness towards “solving the problem”:

1. Pay attention to the current state of the understanding of the problem.
2. Pay attention to your current state of mind, while contemplating your current understanding of the problem.
3. Ever so slightly, have the intention to embody a different state of mind, which is closer to that of “understanding”.
4. Pay attention to the ideas that spring forth. Consider these thoughts and assess their applicability to the current problem.
5. Put forth your best ideas to the group, and in the form of a question, so as to trigger further discussion.
6. Listen to the best feedbacks or counter point to the idea, and “update” your understanding of the problem. Go back to Step 1.

If you do this a few times, you will see very soon, that you and your team have rapidly accelerated the understanding of the problem and perhaps, have even come up with a viable solution! I have personally tried this method multiple times and it always seem to work. I invite you to try it in your next brainstorming session.

Let me know your thoughts and how this has worked for you! I will be delighted to learn about how you solve problems effectively and fast!

Peace.⁠