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HOW TO
RECOGNIZE AND DEVELOP YOUR REAL THINKING "HOME BASE"
By
Dudley Lynch, President, Brain Technologies Corporation
©2005
Dudley Lynch. All rights reserved.
As an entrepreneur, you
are going to be reminded time and again that many people aren’t very skilled
at recognizing ability. Specifically, your abilities. What can you do? Be
clear at all times about exactly who you are. Then, be ready to spell it out
ability by ability for anyone who needs to know.
The
unrecognized-abilities problem plagued three-time Super Bowl winning coach
Bill Walsh right up to the spectacular finish of his professional coaching
career. “I was forty-five before I even had an interview for a head coaching
job in the NFL,” says the man who would eventually transform pro football as
an offensive wizard. And that interview didn’t get him a job. Nobody wanted
anything to do with the Walsh ideas that were later destined to get him
labeled as a football genius.
The Bengals interviewed
him, and rejected him. Then the Jets.
And the Rams.
Until the 49ers put an
end to his apprenticeship of 21 years as pro assistant, college and semi-pro
coach with a head NFL job, Walsh was saddled again and again with this
professional put-down: “Good technician. Not a head coach.”
The home-based
entrepreneur is destined to notice this kind of unfair and inaccurate
dismissal time and again. Competent enough. But works out of the house. Or,
Talented pair. But it’s multi-level marketing. Or, Passionate person. But
doesn’t have the track record. And getting decision-makers and action-takers
to recognize your special talents and skills is only the beginning. Much of
your success as a Power of One will depend on how adroit you are at
recognizing ability when you see it—or when you don’t! Then finding exactly
how to fit your own or someone else’s special gifts—or less-than-obvious
weaknesses—into your winning formula.
Be forewarned: turning
yourself into an abilities expert doesn’t even show up on many
entrepreneurial coaches’ list of essential skills. And I can understand most
of the reasons. In admitting that there are some things you may not do well,
you risk being seen as a negative, anti-can-do-type thinker. But that’s
simply not so. You are being a realistic thinker—and that’s something very
different, and smart.
Some persons take
umbrage, too, at believing you can learn to size up in a heartbeat how
another person thinks. New Age audiences—and some positive-thinking groups,
too—condemn the idea because they say it pigeon-holes people. My reply:
Nothing is more manipulative and calloused than refusing to recognize
another person’s clues to what will help them feel more at ease, be better
understood, be more productive.
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Not paying close,
organized attention to how people think—yourself and others—is an
invitation to trouble. Here are risks:
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You don’t know how to
tell people what you are—or can be—really good at.
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You don’t know if
this (whatever it happens to be) is the right thing for you?
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You don’t know what
parts of you are going ignored—to your detriment.
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You don’t know what
you need to make you truly happy and productive.
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You don’t know how to
optimize yourself.
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You don’t know how
you will react under stress.
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You don’t know what
is liable to blindside you.
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You don’t know who to
partner with.
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You don’t know the
full range of your negotiating strengths and weaknesses.
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You don’t know what
there is about yourself that turns other people on—and turns them off.
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You don’t know what
psychological games you are most vulnerable to.
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You don’t know the
best methods and routes to changing yourself—for developing new thinking
skills and strengths.
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You can’t tell if
your purpose in life is in sync with how you think most of time.
The idea that each
person has a special set of personal thinking skills that equips him or her
to do certain things well and not others is much rarer in business than you
might think. A more likely assumption is that “one size fits all.” When temp
agencies test for typing skills, the answer they want is “60 words per
minute” (or, better yet, 85!). But how long is that person willing to sit
still and type? If you have the insights you need into how that person
thinks, you can probably make a judgment that’s so accurate and on-target
that it’s scary.
Why aren’t these
important thinking skills sets more obvious to us? My answer: they get
covered up by all kinds of things. The behaviors your parents rewarded and
encouraged in you, and those they didn’t. Things you tried once—and failed
at. Things you’ve trained yourself to do, without really thinking about
whether it is you. Things you’ve never tried because no one ask you to or
thought you could.
The available experts
don’t always help that much, either. There are so many kinds of motivational
and growth-technique consultants trying to tell you how to think and what to
think about. So many models and viewpoints, often in conflict. So much so
that, by the time we grow to be adults, it can be very confusing to
ourselves and others to understand exactly how we do think.
I’ve spent nearly 30
years studying the thinking skills sets that people in business use. Before
turning to my findings, let me say that I appreciate that we are each, in
our own way, uniquely original creatures. It is a quality that I celebrate
and respect. But I also know that underneath each of our distinctive
personas we share common thinking systems. I call them “home bases.”
For example, depending
on their thinking home base, different people react differently to
information. Do you gravitate toward what you don’t know? Or prefer to focus
on what you do know? Do you go immediately with what fits? Or postpone
knowing so you can come up with more complex answers.
Are you more
comfortable preserving the past? Or do you lean more toward the future? Do
you build community? Or do you ignore community to get better results from
the parts?
My home base model
looks for clues to how you personally handle these kinds of issues. The
bases—eight in all—aren’t everything about a person but they give a focus
and a tone to nearly everything a person thinks, feels and does. Your home
base describes what you can be expected to do with who you are. The result:
when you know your home base, you get a mirror unlike perhaps any into which
you’ve peered before. Your home base can become a wonderfully instructive
guide to your future growth as well as help you deal with many of the
current practicalities facing you in your business.
If you recognize the
home base someone else is operating from, you know much of what you need to
know about whether partnering with them is a good idea, or is a potential
disaster. Whether you can do business on a handshake or need a detailed
contract and a lawyer. Whether your prospect needs more space, more
information, a push or a hug to close a deal, or whether there is likely a
deal there at all. Whether someone is a good candidate for home
entrepreneurship or probably should get a job. Whether they are likely to
let things fall through, or can be depended on to follow through.
“Know then thyself,
presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man [and woman],”
opined Alexander Pope. That’s generally the idea behind the home bases
model: knowing yourself, knowing others and making better business and life
decisions using your potent new knowledge. Look closely and I think you’ll
discover that one of these fundamental thinking positions or bases serves as
the bedrock for how nearly everyone you’ll ever encounter—yourself
included—goes about their business:
The
Mobilizer
You can feel it the
moment you arrive in the presence of these individuals. The energy. The
can-do spirit and attitude. The commitment, the determination. My real
estate salesperson has it. Buying a home with his help was both a revelation
and an education. For him, nearly everything is negotiable, or so it seems.
When he meets an obstacle, he instantly repositions his thinking to view it
as an opportunity or an alternative—or several. Nothing is written in
concrete.
When you need quick
results, it is good to have a Mobilizer’s abilities on hand. The Mobilizer
needs to make sure that others appreciate that he or she:
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Is swift to size up
possibilities.
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Can remove
bottlenecks quickly.
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Enjoys deal-making.
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Can focus intensely
on goals.
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Uses hands-on
approaches.
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Can often get results
when others can’t.
Of course, most
Mobilizers occasionally crash, too. (What millionaire entrepreneur can’t
tell you a story or two about first having gone bankrupt?) If you are a
Mobilizer or must deal with them frequently, a good thing to work on is
recognizing when to back off, let go, chill out. Otherwise, there may be
blood in the water—yours.
The
Trailblazer
Have you ever sat in a meeting that was going nowhere? Serious issues
remained but the ideas had turned stale. The
suddenly, out of the blue, someone threw out a possibility that was pure
electricity. It was so different, so novel and unexpected and yet so, so . .
. right, appropriate, useful.
Welcome to the
abilities of the Trailblazer. These are idea people, through and through. If
you are a Trailblazer, you need to understand—and to make sure that others
are aware—that you have these abilities:
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Likes to create new
possibilities.
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Thinks a lot about
the future.
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Seeks variety and
novelty.
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Targets “being all he
or she can be.”
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Is intrigued by
life’s mysteries.
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Often takes on
unpopular causes.
If dealing with others who are Trailblazers, it’s wise to be aware that
can’t always count on these individuals when it comes to the details—seeing
the new product through to roll-out, making sales, paying the bills,
collecting debts. So probably you shouldn’t.
If this is your home
base, it may be a good idea to partner with a Mr. or Ms. Right whose
thinking abilities are more structured. You be the idea person; depend on
your partner to keep things on schedule. One additional tip: Credit card
companies love variety-seeking Trailblazers, so be careful with the plastic!
The
Task Commander
When I tested the
professional staff at the largest personnel recruiter in my city, virtually
everyone used the abilities of the Task Commander. “I want to hire more
people like them,” the firm’s owner told me. “I have this system, and if my
people will use this system, they’ll make us all rich. The system works.”
Task Commanders usually
do have a system in mind—have it down pat, in fact. And use it effectively
to finish the project on time, on budget, on quota. To deliver consistently.
If you operate from this home base, you need to make sure that others are
aware of these abilities:
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Is a take-charge,
go-to player.
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Gets consistent
results—on deadline.
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Is good at follow
through.
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Will make tough
decisions.
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Targets what works.
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Makes resources go a
long way.
As you probably
suspect, the Task Commander’s vulnerability is trying to do to much. Or
continuing to use “the system” when the need and time have arrived to do
things differently. At such times, it’s a useful idea to perhaps show a
little more humility. Listen this time, instead of barking orders, as usual.
Gear down, instead of gearing up.
The
Ideals Crafter
It was years before I
fully understood why my friend had walked away from a thriving career as a
scientist for Texas Instruments. First, I had to develop a real appreciation
for the depth and passion of his idealism—that is, I had to truly understand
his thinking home base.
Today, my friend is a
licensed therapist. Also, he spends a lot of time—for free—counseling
ex-prison inmates, building houses for the poor, volunteering at his church.
But using the abilities of the Ideals Crafter doesn’t mean you prefer
poverty over prosperity. My friend is also an astute investor (he started
with all that TI stock). If you are an Ideals Crafter, it is important that
you make sure others notice and value these abilities in you:
A surprising number of
individuals who go into home businesses excel at the Ideals Crafter’s
abilities. And almost immediately, they get into trouble. In the
marketplace, reality isn’t always gentle with idealism.
Often, my advice is
this: create a hybrid life and work style. Draw on abilities elsewhere in
the home-base thinking model. Then use the proceeds, contacts and influence
you gain to further your ideals. It’s a powerful combo for the person who
“wills” it to happen.
The
Evaluator
When observing the
abilities of an Evaluator, I sometimes think of the little boy and his
Grandpa.
“Gramps, why don’t you
get a hearing aid?” the child asks.
“Don’t need one, son,”
Gramps replies. “I hear more now than I can understand.”
I felt that way
recently while in a room filled with attorneys. At first I was intrigued by
these lawyers’ extraordinary appetites for information and detail. Question
after endless question. Answer upon answer. But eventually, I wanted to
shout, “Enough, already.” My own mind boggled from information overload.
Of course, that’s the
way we want our lawyers to think. And our surgeons. Our airplane pilots. And
maybe closer to home, our bookkeeper and our computer consultant! If you are
an Evaluator, you can benefit from helping others to see these abilities in
you:
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Can meet exacting
standards.
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Good at organizing
information.
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Holds out for
quality.
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Very logical, will
follow through.
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Is a sponge for data,
for details.
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Responsive to
schedules, deadlines.
If the user of the
Evaluator home base has an Achilles’ heel, it is the danger of becoming too
pessimistic. After all, it nearly always requires less effort to be negative
than positive. If I sense that an Evaluator client is taking the easy way
out, I sometimes share this Chinese proverb: “Person who says it cannot be
done should not interrupt person doing it.”
The
Early Resolver
Remember the TV
commercial where people fall silent and the announcer intones, “When E.F.
Hutton speaks, everyone listens”?
There is a thinking
home base like that, too. I call it the Early Resolver because that’s what
its users do: think up quality solutions or approaches to difficult problems
quicker than the rest of us.
One Colorado company I
know about has taken the time to identify employees who are Early Resolvers
and put them on special problem-solving teams by themselves. No matter how
difficult the problem, they get only one day to come up with a workable
solution. The leader of this team told me that the company’s return on
investment in Early Resolver teams runs from 10-to-1 to 50-to-1. “One team
saved us $29 million in a single day’s work,” he reports.
If you realize that you
are an Early Resolver, it is wise to help others appreciate these abilities:
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Can quickly apply new
knowledge.
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Listens closely to
others.
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Has a knack for
spotting patterns, trends.
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At home with complex
issues, situations.
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Likes to experiment
with new approaches.
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Good with people;
also with technology.
If you are lucky enough
to have an Early Resolver around, it’s a good idea to listen up when they
speak up. If this is your own home base, you’ll want to guard against the
“assumptions”: Assuming that if you can do something, anyone else can do it.
Assuming that if someone says they will do something, that they will do it.
Assuming that when you speak out and get put down, there is no value to your
idea.
The
Gatekeeper
Former IBM chairman
John Akers knew about Vince Lombardi’ s quote: “Winning is not the most
important thing; it’s the only thing.” But he said he much preferred another
Lombardi quote. “He expected his players, he once said, to have three kinds
of loyalty: to God, to their families, and to the Green Bay Packers, in that
order.”
Loyalty may be out of
fashion these days, but it’s not out of order. Show me any company,
organization, group or family that is proud of itself, is healthy and
cohesive, and I’ll point out some people in their midst who are operating
from a thinking home base I call the Gatekeeper. If this is home for you,
here are abilities about yourself you need to publicize:
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Creates good reasons
to be loyal.
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Can turn people on to
their traditions and history.
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Good at explaining
the right thing to do.
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Willing to defend
important values.
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Genuinely cares about
people.
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Can be a patient
mentor and teacher.
My instincts tell me
that the ranks of the home entrepreneur are bulging with Gatekeepers. People
fiercely loyal to what they believe—and to others they believe in. One word
of caution only: vigilance. Not everyone who asks for your loyalty deserves
it. Not everyone who promises you theirs will give it. And you can’t be
loyal to everyone and everything to same degree. To paraphrase Henry Clay:
“Loyalty is no substitute for judgment.”
The
Instinct Player
My wife, Sherry, is an
Instinct Player (when you factor in my own Early Resolver home base, it
makes for a lively mix at our house!). Recently, we put our house up for
sale—a very unusual house, a Shar Pei in a neighborhood of Spaniels. And we
quickly turned up a hot prospect … but one, it turned out, who couldn’t make
up his mind. Days passed. More visits, more inspections, more questions,
more indecisiveness. Finally, I said, “Enough is enough. I don’t want to
mess with him anymore.”
“We’ve got this house
sold,” she reassured me. “This man is frightened. Scared out of his wits by
paying this kind of money for this kind of property. I want to talk to him.”
She did—for almost an hour. And he signed a contract the next day.
I’ve long since quit
asking her questions about how she knows certain things—like what’s going on
inside a person. If I do ask, she usually answers, “I don’t know, I just
know.” If you share the Instinct Player’s home base with her, you have these
abilities to showcase:
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Can cut straight to
the core issue.
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Able to point out
fundamental things others are missing.
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A contagious,
energizing playfulness.
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Likes immediate,
total involvement.
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Enjoys seeing what
can be made of a mess.
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Will roll up his or
her sleeves and go to work.
“Above all, try
something,” said FDR. That’s the core ability of the Instinct Player: Having
an innate, sometimes uncanny sense of what might work and then trying it.
The greatest danger of this way of thinking is that sometimes you can run
the skein out too far. It is good to step back occasionally and tote up the
costs. Take stock of where you are. And where, as an Instinct Player, you’d
really like to go.
The descriptions I’ve
provided here are merely the tip of the iceberg of what we’ve learned over
the years about the thinking home bases.
In the next few days,
put this information to the test. See if one of the bases seems to mirror
you more than all the others.
When there is only
you—a home-based entrepreneur—to make it all work, there is much value in
being able to size up people, opportunities, circumstances, options, and
odds in a hurry by using yourself as the primary yardstick. You owe it to
yourself to be able to say, if it is true, “I know who I am and what I do
best, and this isn’t a good fit for me.” Or, to a prospective partner if
necessary, “Please don’t take it personally, but I would be oil to your
water; we’re not meant to be mixed.” Or, when you’ve eyeballed an
opportunity and found it doesn’t feel right, to say to yourself, “I won’t
stay the distance on this, so why waste time and energy now?”
Of course, there will
be all those times when the answer is Yes! This is Me! It may be
because you can feel your heart and soul and mind endorsing an opportunity
to the fullest. But it may also be because you have taken time to size
yourself up. You have become closely acquainted with your thinking skills,
preferences and expectations. You know better than ever how to help people
appreciate that you have abilities that can take you from twinkle star to
superstar.
To me, this is the real
value of knowing where your thinking calls home.
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