Comments on: Thinking by talking

By: Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Strategic Intuition and Expertise || June || 2008

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:34:41 +0000

[...] to scoff at the value of typical group brainstorming sessions. I find this interesting, because I think by talking, and often get great ideas in conversation with others. If gathering a bunch of ideas into [...]

By: Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Team player || June || 2007

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:46:45 +0000

[...] like being on teams. It makes sense because I think by talking, and being on a team means I always have somebody to ping with ideas. Being part of a team means [...]

By: Sumana Harihareswara

Sumana Harihareswara — Tue, 29 May 2007 14:38:34 +0000

I talked about this with a friend last night (remembering the dichotomy as “Talkers and Builders”) and a couple of things came up. First, another book that she’d read had this same paradigm labeled as Dialogue v. Debate. Second — if a ponderer wants a talker to converse in a more ponder-y style, perhaps she could say, “I’m trying to be really concrete and specific and figure out the advantages and flaws of THIS ONE IDEA. Could you help me think about it?”

By: josakana

josakana — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 15:34:11 +0000

I’ve had this discussion with a collegage at Microsoft who’s a quite highly respected cognitive scientist. We were talking about the role of reflection, as in Schon’s The Reflective Practioner, and they just couldn’t see the point of talking about stuff to get insights: they saw reflection as a solo process, alone with one’s mind.

So yeah, I completely recognize the distinction you’re talking about. And you might enjoy throwing Schon onto your reading list: it’s totally up your alley, and it’s what you do anyway.

By: Sumana

Sumana — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 02:27:04 +0000

Oh yeah, and a tact filter analog here is the certainty/”seriousness” filter.

Another promising avenue: the perceived importance of intellectual invulnerability. Under what circumstances do you care that someone disagrees with you, especially publicly? Under what circumstances do you worry that the other person/people will think you weak or dumb if you don’t voice your opposing view strongly and elegantly? or if you suggest a half-formed thought in the spirit of the Talker? I remember one lunch break last summer when I made some germ of a suggestion about a trip and Noah found it laughable, so the idea died on the vine.

Pondering does seem amenable to critical, nitpicking conversations that tear things apart; Talkering seems more friendly to resourceful idea-growth. I find that I’m more of a Ponderer at work and a Talker at home, where I feel more secure. Context, again.

By: Sumana

Sumana — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 02:12:21 +0000

I think I must be a ponderer by this measure, even though I very much enjoy conversation. Some possible insights from the ponderer side:

The ponderer does not want to muck up the conversational channel with things that are not true. So the ponderer is used to using and hearing qualifiers of certainty, and gets confused and frustrated when a talker gives no indication of the levels of certainty they have in what they’re saying (e.g., “I’m hungry” and “Python couldn’t possibly work for this app” and “Single-payer healthcare has the best chance of solving this crisis” being said in exactly the same tone & style).

The ponderer likes telling and hearing chunks – anecdotes, claims linked to evidence — to assemble into a worldview. A ponderer very well might come back a day later and say, “you’re right,” and consider that a gesture of vulnerability — so be kind!

The ponderer might distrust someone who seems to be a Wikifriend. Rather than “you won’t make up your mind,” the ponderer might think, “you’re just playing devil’s advocate,” and/or believe the talker unprincipled and therefore untrustworthy.

Perhaps the ponderer takes pride in iconoclasm, which means decreasing the permeability of the firewall between others’ opinions and one’s own.

And ponderers take pride in their beliefs and values and knowledge, which they’ve worked so hard to earn and construct. But a talker can try to gently disconnect a conversation from a ponderer’s sense of self by explicitly labelling the conversation a brainstorming/speculation session. Or, even more radically, you could explicitly say before starting the discussion, “I respect you and your intellect deeply, which is why I wanted to solicit your ideas.” That might get a ponderer to lower the defenses a bit and feel more secure (and therefore open).

How can a ponderer get a talker to be a bit less fluid and more lawyerly?