{"id":3345,"date":"2024-03-13T19:49:30","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T23:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/?p=3345"},"modified":"2024-03-13T19:49:33","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T23:49:33","slug":"thinking-in-pictures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/thinking-in-pictures\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking in Pictures"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the basic techniques that we teach in our flagship course \u2013 Fundamentals of Structural Thinking – is to think in pictures.\u00a0 There are a few reasons for this.\u00a0 One is that a visual language is dimensional.\u00a0 In other words, you can see various levels of information at once.\u00a0 That\u2019s a good thing because it lets you understand the relationship of things quickly.\u00a0 Another way to say this is you can see how things connect, influence each other, and, from that, understand, see what the structure is and why it behaves as it does.<\/p>\n

Another advantage thinking in pictures gives us is clarity.\u00a0 Often people think they are being clear, but too often they are vague. \u00a0But when we translate what they are saying into a visual realm, we can see where we need to fill in information, test assumptions, separate concepts from facts, and clarify what is not clear.\u00a0 For the consultant, coach, manager, and person in the helping professions, this is an invaluable skill to have.\u00a0 From this technique, new insights and understanding become possible, and lives change.<\/p>\n

Most of us, even the most visual, do not actually think in pictures to the degree that we teach it in the FST.\u00a0 Even the most visual people tend to talk to themselves while they are picturing what is being said.\u00a0 They process information in two domains: visual and verbal.\u00a0 When this is the case, the verbal tends to obstruct the visual.\u00a0 Words are easier to process and so the pictures take a back seat.\u00a0 One of the techniques we teach is the ability to be visual without any sub-dialogue \u2013 to see the pictures without \u201cgabbing to yourself.\u201d\u00a0 As you can imagine, this is quite a discipline.\u00a0 But, through it, you increase your comprehension enormously.<\/p>\n

We have been taught to think in verbal language.\u00a0 The limitation to this verbal language is that it is linear.\u00a0 It is hard to see things dimensionally.\u00a0 Information is processed in sequence \u2013 one thing at a time. That means you can\u2019t easily understand how things connect.\u00a0 Without that understanding, it is hard to see the underlying structures that drive behaviour.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t see what is causing behaviour, it is very hard to enable change and have that change be sustainable.\u00a0 That is why so many change efforts first seem to work, but later, revert as if the change never happened.<\/p>\n

Neuroimaging such as PET scans of the brain have shown that children with learning disabilities often have problems with their visual centers.\u00a0 In other words, if we compared most children to those with learning problems, we would find that most children have active visual centers, but the ones with learning problems usually do not.\u00a0 Their visual centers are much less active.\u00a0 But, when they learn to think in pictures, there is tremendous improvement.\u00a0 When their visual centers become more active, their comprehension goes up dramatically.\u00a0 Much of this work has been pioneered by Nancy Bell through her company Lindamoodbell<\/a>.\u00a0 In their process, children first learn to picture single words.\u00a0 After that, the next step is to visualize phrases.\u00a0 Then complete sentences, then paragraphs.\u00a0 This visual training enables the students to increase their learning skills and it makes a dramatic difference in their learning process.<\/p>\n

In a similar way, training in structural thinking has a series of exercises that increase visual fluency.\u00a0 As part of that development, your learning to picture allows you an increased ability to listen to information, translate it into a visual form, and study those pictures, non-verbally.\u00a0 In other words, you are able to shut off your intrusive verbal mind for a period of time.\u00a0 Because of that, you can suddenly see how things relate to each other, what tendencies for behavior exist, what it would take to change the structure leading to those tendencies, and why things are the ways they are today.\u00a0 This type of insight is not usually available.\u00a0 But when it is, it changes everything.<\/p>\n

Another FST technique is how you translate words into pictures.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if you have a little film crew in your head making a movie of what is being said.\u00a0 The pictures tell the story.\u00a0 And, when you are listening to others, especially in a professional situation, there will be some missing pictures.\u00a0 These missing pictures lead to targeted questions, and laser like penetration into unexplored areas.\u00a0 This is transformative and life changing.<\/p>\n

Often there are pictures that contradict other pictures.\u00a0 People are not always consistent.\u00a0 The job of the structural consultant is to sort out these discrepancies. \u00a0There are only two possibilities: one of the two contradictory ideas is incorrect; or there is information we don\u2019t have that explains the apparent contradictions.\u00a0 For example, what if your client said, \u201cLast year was a great year.\u00a0 All of our sales were down.\u201d\u00a0 These statements form two pictures that are contradictory.\u00a0 Perhaps one of the statements is not accurate.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can last year be great if sales were down?\u201d
\n\u201cOh, did I say last year.\u00a0 It was the year before that was great.\u00a0 Last year was a disaster.\u00a0 Sales were down.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, did I say sales were down.\u00a0 They were up.\u00a0 It was a great year.\u201d
\nOr there is information we don\u2019t have that we need to have to understand the apparent discrepancy.
\n\u201cSales were down, but we got the patent on the technology, so it didn\u2019t matter about our sales.\u00a0 We make royalties on everyone\u2019s sales.\u00a0 What a great year!\u201d<\/p>\n

Positive and Negative Space<\/strong>
\nFrom art there is a technique called negative space.\u00a0 This is when the artist does not try to draw the object, but the space around the object.\u00a0 Of course, the result will be a picture of the object, but it can look so different.\u00a0 In the FST and in structural thinking, we have a similar technique.\u00a0 If something is filling the positive space, such as \u201cthe door was on the right,\u201d in the negative space, there is a left.\u00a0 We may not need to know if there was anything on the left of the door, but, in our picture, there is a left.\u00a0 There has to be because if you didn\u2019t have a left, you could not have a door on the right.\u00a0 Another example is if the statement someone made was, \u201cShe finally got it right.\u201d\u00a0 In the positive space we can picture a \u201cher, getting it right.\u201d\u00a0 We don\u2019t know what she got right yet, but we can ask about that later, and fill in that picture.\u00a0 But there is even more information in the negative space.\u00a0 The word \u201cfinally\u201d gets us pictures of other times in the past when she did not get it right.\u00a0 That is what the statement implies.\u00a0 But people don\u2019t always agree with what they are implying.\u00a0 So we can ask a very targeted question based on our pictures.\u00a0 \u201cHas she gotten it wrong in the past?\u201d\u00a0 We expect a \u201cyes\u201d answer.\u00a0 But if we get a \u201cno,\u201d we can change our pictures, knowing the word \u201cfinally\u201d did not fit into the statement.<\/p>\n

Often, people assume a lot about reality.\u00a0 When we apply the technique of negative space, reality becomes clearer and in more focus.\u00a0 Impressions may or may not stand up to scrutiny.\u00a0\u00a0 Often, people are reacting or responding to concepts that turn out not to be true.\u00a0 This can lead to very bad decisions, ones that are not based on reality but a wrong impression of reality.\u00a0 Through structural thinking, we can back up and study reality as it is, independently from our previous concepts.\u00a0 This change is profound.\u00a0 It is also very practical.\u00a0 When you know what reality is, you can make better decisions on behalf of those things you want to create.\u00a0 You can\u2019t play the violin in tune if you can\u2019t hear the pitch.\u00a0 You can\u2019t create the life you want if you can\u2019t get a fix on reality as it is.<\/p>\n

Start with Nothing<\/strong>
\nOne of the techniques in the FST that takes some learning is step one: start with nothing.\u00a0 Our entire educational system is based on an opposite notion, start with knowledge.\u00a0 In fact, it is the job of education to fill our heads with knowledge so we can compare what we know with what we see.\u00a0 This process works pretty well if you are going to train the masses to negotiate the world.\u00a0 But the down side is a \u201cthis looks like that\u201d mentality.\u00a0 People think they know what\u2019s going on before they look.\u00a0 They jump to conclusions, theories, speculations, models, past experiences, and other frames of reference that distort their view of reality.\u00a0 What we were taught about the so-called \u201cscientific process\u201d was to:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Generate a hypothesis
\n\u2022 Test the hypothesis against reality
\n\u2022 From that, reject those things that didn\u2019t fit
\n\u2022 And accept those things that did fit<\/p>\n

So, it starts with a theory that we either prove to be right or wrong.\u00a0 But that is NOT how true creative scientists work.\u00a0 They start with nothing, in other words, no theory, or other frames of reference.\u00a0 Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most gifted geniuses who almost single handedly invented physics and calculus, said, \u201cHypotheses have no place in science.\u201d\u00a0 And Rene\u2019 Descartes said, \u201cTo understand some set of phenomenon, first rid yourself of all preconception.\u201d Einstein was said to have his revolutionary insights from two traits he had.\u00a0 One, he thought visually, and, tow, he was able to start with nothing so he was not influenced by past concepts.<\/p>\n

Our minds want to jump to an answer in light of not knowing something.\u00a0 That is natural.\u00a0 The discipline we learn in the FST is how to not fill in the empty spaces of our understanding with speculation, theories, models, conjecture, and biases.\u00a0 This is not easy at first, and takes real training and practice.\u00a0 But the rewards are superb.<\/p>\n

Starting with nothing, and then thinking in pictures is one of the most important fundamentals of structural thinking.\u00a0 With that foundation, a new world opens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the basic techniques that we teach in our flagship course \u2013 Fundamentals of Structural Thinking – is to think in pictures.\u00a0 There are a few reasons for this.\u00a0 One is that a visual language is dimensional.\u00a0 In other words, you can see various levels of information at once.\u00a0 That\u2019s a good thing because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3345"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3347,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3345\/revisions\/3347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robertfritz.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}