5.3.4 Leadership And Processing Speed

If we work in an organisation that aspires to include people in our Focus Group, and particularly if we are committed to not being dominated or overwhelmed by the Pillars it is interesting to consider processing speed in the context of leadership.

When I was a young man, I was not that good at team sports.  I always felt that I’d have been brilliant if everyone else on the field stood still on the rare occasion when I got the ball.  This would have been a big ask for my teammates not to mention the opposition.  But it would have been very helpful to me!

Crucially, it would have given me time to process what was going on around me and deliver a fantastic pass to a teammate and I’d have been loudly praised rather than, as was the norm, shouted at for making a mistake as my hit-and-hope pass drifted harmlessly into empty space, or worse, went to an opponent – (Hail Mary passes, as they were called for some reason).

I had no idea why I was bad at team sports until I came across, later in life, research that claimed we possessed different kinds of intelligences, and that some are more dominant than others.

The research suggested that these different intelligences – described very simply in this link – have an influence on our path in life, our career, our choices of activities/hobbies/interests, our happiness in doing what we do, whether or not we are in the wrong box etc.

According to this theory which is often criticised (usually for being too simplistic) there are eight different intelligences.  But criticisms or not I like the theory because it makes a kind of sense to me, and fits in with my experience of life and in particular my experience of learning.

The speed, within the particular intelligence, that the individual has at making connections separates out our abilities within the boundaries of the intelligence.

For example, I have a reasonably high musical intelligence but I know other friends and acquaintances that have far more musical intelligence than I – i.e. their brains make connections a lot faster than mine in the area of music.  A casual observer would probably recognise that they are better at music than I.

And sometimes we have talent in one context but it’s not really transportable into another context. There are people who have great compassion, people who are highly academically intelligent, and people who can see something inauthentic immediately. 

It can cause us a lot of distress in life if we are forced by circumstance, parental pressure, peer pressure etc. to try and excel at something that we are not naturally gifted in.

Many years after I first read about multiple intelligences, I came across the quotation attributed to Albert Einstein (him again) about how pointless it was to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree which kind of fitted in nicely with the concept.

High in the cognitive-logical intelligence – Albert!

I have not seen it specifically mentioned in many articles about different intelligences, but I am convinced that if a person is not naturally endowed with intelligence in a certain area, the speed at which information is reaching the brain exceeds the speed at which it can be processed.

I imagine this to be a bit like pouring fine sand through a funnel.

If we pour it slowly it will flow nice and smoothly but if we increase the flow, no matter how fine the sand, it will eventually stop flowing through the funnel and start backing up, and eventually won’t flow at all.  If we shake the funnel or put pressure on the sand it may flow in a lumpy, inelegant kind of way or maybe in sudden bursts, but it will not be smooth and effortless.

The result of overload of processing information on the brain is that the individual, no matter how hard they try, will never really shine in that particular area.  Their funnel opening is too narrow.

If they are naturally endowed with intelligence in that particular area, their funnel opening will be bigger so more can flow through without getting blocked up.

That is why I couldn’t play field games that well (no matter how hard I trained – and sometimes I trained very hard) but I need only hear a tune three of four times and I can not only memorise it, but unless it is very complicated, am usually able to bang it out on a musical instrument a short time later.

While I have some sympathy for those who have to listen to me, I myself know that my brain can process musical information quickly but the bodily/kinesthetic information required for team games backs up like the sand through the funnel, or, indeed, like traffic backing up at a junction where the lights don’t stay green long enough to let enough cars through.

(Of course, practice, practice and more practice will always widen the funnel. However, I believe that if we are naturally endowed in the particular skill we are practicing, the funnel will widen a lot quicker than if we are not).

Now to the important bit!

it’s easy for those who process things quickly to behave in a superior manner to those who don’t, if they are of a mind to do it.

An obvious manifestation of this is in the example I used, i.e. sport, where men and women who are endowed with high levels of both spatial and bodily/kinesthetic actually set out to be superior to others so that they can win the match.

If, for example, other parameters (such as fitness, weight, age, gender etc.) are generally equal, those who are fast processors will be better at the most important aspect of decision making, that is, in the split-second that is available, imagining what might happen, not only in the immediate future, but in the future that is a few steps beyond the immediate.

Another manifestation of superiority (this time in the world of linguistic/cognitive intelligence) is the highly competitive, win-at-all-costs world of the points system and subsequent college education where superiority is highly prized and those who can’t keep up are jettisoned.

Now let me go back to the Chapter on Cause and Effect here briefly.

If I do something, I probably know that something else will happen, and can usually predict the most likely something else from a relatively small number of options. This is one degree of separation between cause and effect.

However when the predicted something else happens it is likely that there will be a number of other possible somethings else to consider after the first something else. 

And so on – with each step getting more complicated.

A good example which might be familiar to you would be playing draughts or chess.  Selecting the best option from the first action (the first cause) to a few steps downstream, and determining what might happen depends on selecting the most likely effect from many different potential somethings else. The accuracy of our prediction will be based on:

~ Our ability to process the information (the width of the funnel).

~ Our experience – i.e. how we have integrated knowledge gained from doing the same thing, observing and taking mental notes of the effects.

~ Our ability to stay in touch with the reality of previous experiences, their effect on us and our environment.

~ Our ability to make connections between what happened in the past and what might happen in the future.

While it is obvious in sport, because it is played out in public view for our entertainment, or mainstream education, where people are graded into A, B, C etc. I believe that it is true throughout all the intelligences.

And here’s another important bit!

If we find it difficult to process information quickly it is probable that every decision will be influenced by what will offer immediate success in the first step, rather than what would be the best option to ensure – or at least optimise – success in the long term.

I have no doubt that the most prominent intelligences in business, academia, education, media, manufacturing, banking, politics, that is, the Pillars, are the linguistic and the mathematical-logical, or a mixture of both (which I will call L+M/L from now on for convenience). 

They are deemed to be so important that there are conditions that are diagnosed for those who struggle in both, called dyslexia and dyscalculia.  If, (nowadays anyway) either are diagnosed at a young age efforts are made by teachers and psychologists to assist those affected so that they will not be disadvantaged in reading, writing, numeracy and mathematics, exams and in life in general.

There is not, however, (to the best of my knowledge) an equivalent condition for not being good at sports or music, or caring for others, or even spatial awareness. Nor is someone offered psychological assistance if they are not good at those things.

This is, of course, because such attributes are not deemed by the educational institutions – that are influenced hugely by the Pillars – to be essential to one being independent, getting a job, and having a successful life, whereas literacy and numeracy are. (I’m not saying that being bad at sports, music etc. are conditions that should be diagnosed – I’m merely pointing out the Pillars’ bias in this respect).

Following approx. 20 years of formal education, almost all of it immersed in the world of L+M/L, our processing speed in both develops considerably. The years of studying, interspersed with exams, is the equivalent of the practice, practice and more practice that I described in the previous post.

After all, we are naturally endowed with L+M/L skills (or we wouldn’t have thrived in school) and then they are reinforced as being of great importance all the way through our education – almost to the exclusion of all the other intelligences, many of which will be seen as non-essential, or at least of lesser importance.

However it is the slowness of processing in L+M/L (akin to my slowness of processing in sports) that cause many people to lose out on mainstream education, and end up with lower marks in academic subjects and subsequent exams.

In my days in school such children often ended up at the back of the class, and eventually dropped out of school. Thankfully, in most schools nowadays pupils who are not L+M/L inclined have other options to choose from and manage quite well.  (I still contend, though, that those who excel in the L+M/L end up in the more important jobs and eventually dominate the world that we live in as they rise through the ranks in the Pillars).

Now it is a well-known fact that children who have a lot of worries and high anxiety are not as good at concentrating and learning in general – so we have many children who are endowed with high natural L+M/L but do not learn, or concentrate, because there might be so much going on at home.

Or there may be children very highly developed in other areas e.g. musical, spatial or bodily/kinesthetic but their inability to have the patience and concentration to learn results in continuing frustration and eventually anger.

If you have clicked on or looked up the link about the different intelligences above, (and if not, here it is again) you will have read about interpersonal intelligence.

This is the ability to form relationships with others and be empathic.  This is an important one because of how highly we esteem relationship – a root foundation – in our lives in general.

Sometimes children have a low natural ability in this and it may be a bit of a worry for parents and other adults responsible for their development when they are young.  But with understanding, affirmation, and appreciation of their gifts in other areas (as well as acceptance), it is not usually a problem in their lives as they are growing up.

But if the child’s lack of natural ability is combined with low self-esteem resulting from insecure attachment and the effects of trauma it is a different story – very often the child will believe that good relationship is okay for others but not for her – bringing on a lot of distress and deepening the low self-esteem.

So our speed of processing of information depends not only on our natural tendencies or gifts, but what we make of those natural gifts, (i.e. our success in translating our gifts into behaviours that are advantageous to ourselves).

And what we make of them depends on our emotional wellness.

It is emotional wellness [1] that gives us the discipline and patience to use the information that we are processing (or have processed) to attain our goals. This is the same whether it is L+M/L, musical, bodily, interpersonal etc. gifts/talents that we are endowed with.

For example if I wasn’t emotionally well enough to have the patience to practice music my musical information processing speed would probably not increase as much as someone of equivalent talent who does have the patience, no matter how gifted I was. 

When working with young people in distress I met many who were very naturally talented and highly creative in many fields but did not have the emotional wellness to accept the discipline that is a necessity for success in those fields.

[1]. Once again I refer to Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence which is well worth a read.

The title of this post sounds like the name of a science fiction film where supercomputers take over the world but I will describe what it means below.

I refer once again to the Chapter on Important Descriptions, and how work in the community becomes dominated, over time by the methods chosen by the Pillars.

I propose that, in respect of our different intelligences, the ability of academically trained practitioners to process linguistic and mathematical/logical (L+M/L) information at a high speed is a causative factor in domination of communities in general and in particular members of the Focus Group.

I believe that this happens unwittingly even by the most well-meaning and sincere practitioners.  The primacy of fast processing is so ingrained in our consciousness that we do not think that there is any other way to get things done.

Fast processing does indeed get things done, and more importantly, it wins arguments! 

Using a mixture of logic, articulation, language and quick thinking, there is no contest – really, in an argument, between the academically trained practitioner and someone who might have left school early, and not have been exposed to years and years of honing L+M/L skills.

Where there is a win and lose, people who process things slowly can get tongue tied or confused and shut up, or else have an irrational outburst born of the frustration of being dominated by fast-processor logic – not only in the current argument but in a myriad of previous ones.

Of all the taking on the values of the oppressor [1] tendencies, (and, you might remember, I am substituting mainstream for oppressor) using fast processing to impose one’s opinions, judgments and views is top of the pile. 

And, of course, in the long term, leaving people behind and feeling inadequate, and excluding them because they cannot think quickly enough has a consequence.  In my many years’ experience I have observed, sadly, that there are many fast processors in community leadership who jettison (or at least sideline) people when they can’t keep up, or consign them to roles where their full potential is not realised.

True inclusion of vulnerable people and acknowledging that processing speed is just one of many, many qualities helpful in community work will certainly slow down the speed at which we get things done but I truly believe that it will enhance the sustainability of change.

The opposite will mean that change is cosmetic, not adaptive [2] and is often, more than anything else, responsible for most of the very subtle exclusion that accompanies so many well-meaning initiatives that may cost a fortune.

And I’m going out on a bit of a limb here (again) but I believe that some people, no matter how hard they try, will never feel that their opinions will be valued because they cannot match the processing speed of the L+M/L trained professional. 

Therefore they either don’t express their views at all (so that they will not be proved wrong or excluded and end up frustrated) or express them irrationally or incoherently and they end up proved wrong again, sidelined or excluded – and still end up frustrated.

One of the results of the power of the quick-thinkers/fast processors is that we are conditioned to believe that, in an argument, silence is a bad thing. Yet most harm has been done to humanity by the quick-thinking-good-with-words people – not by those who remain silent!

Very often, if we want to resolve things by talking things through we want the outcome of the resolution to advantage us in some way. Our motivation is not usually to advantage the person who doesn’t appear to display as much interest in the resolution.

As an aside, here, I hear you ask what about two parents, when children are involved. It goes without saying that it is good for children to see their parents resolve their differences in an equal and fair manner – but I don’t believe that it is good for them to see resolution always down to logic and favouring the quick thinker and fast processor.  (I distinguish logic from reason here).

To sum up, doing things quickly can hurt people!

But if we really think about it, inclusion enables us to get a lot more done in a different way.

Actually I believe in our working life in general – getting away from community leadership for a moment – process, which is generally neglected, is actually a lot more important than product.

Most industrial relations problems which lead to low morale, poor attendance, a lot of sick leave, strikes etc. are due to product being totally dominant over process.  Sometimes lip service is paid to process, where management listens and consults but then do what they want anyway – which is arguably worse than none at all.   

[1] This phrase comes from the book also referenced here; The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere

[2]. Cosmetic change, as the name implies, is change that looks different but nothing really changes. Adaptive change on the other hand means that the organisation has to adapt to real change. I am indebted here to the writing and practice of Prof. Tom O’Connor which promotes a criminal justice system that has compassion at its centre.

Let us say that we are leaders with aspirations to lead organisations tasked with supporting families in our Focus Group. When we feel under pressure, or we want to get something done, we might find ourselves thinking quickly, with fast processing becoming dominant in our decision making. Perhaps we find ourselves getting irked by someone who asks an awkward question, or proposes an alternative view, or is oppositional in some other way. Sometimes we listen attentively because, as community leaders, we’re supposed to listen, but our mind is made up anyway.

That, in my view, is when we need to slow down.

But because of our belief in the virtue of fast processing, bolstered by the seductive power of achievement – not to mention the superior attitude that we might have from years of formal education – slowing down is not that easy!

I believe that all leaders have a lot to learn from being in the now. The Power Of Now, (the title of a book by the German spiritual teacher EckhartTolle), promotes process – but not fast process – over product, or, (to put it another way), being in the now over getting things done.

In the corporate world, it’s the other way around. Getting things done, or product, (which is what convinces fast-processors of its virtue) is the priority. This is encapsulated in the saying the end justifies the means. In other words, we process quickly, getting whatever we have to do done – even if that means hurting someone else – to achieve a greater goal.

Since the Pillars are influenced by the corporate world to the extent that they are, product often finds its way into supporting people in distress. It is the norm in schools and hospitals so it is only natural that it filters into community work too. It is manifest in focusing on how many clients are seen, how much it costs, how long something takes to get done, how efficient it is, what are the outcomes, outputs, goals and achievements, i.e. how productive we are.

Reflection on whether or not someone can or can’t keep up (i.e. is left behind) or even a genuine enquiry into how they feel is generally omitted. In fact, reflective practice is often undertaken so that more can be achieved – a kind of reflection on product, rather than reflection on self, or the speed of process and its effects on the work. Or, indeed, embracing two-way knowledge flow; i.e. an enquiry into what we are learning from the other and/or the impact that we are having on other people (and in particular vulnerable people) in our environment.

I associate traits such as humility, empathy, sharing power, listening, democracy, equality, compassion with slow process, or, as I said above, being in the now.

Consider, for a moment, the well-known statement attributed to the activist Marianne Williamson ‘as we let our own light shine we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same’ [1] a bit like the Bible exhorting us not to hide our light under a bushel.

I certainly encourage leaders to ‘let their light shine’, but I add a word of moderation, or caution, because I have sometimes found myself in the presence of brilliant people whose light was shining so brightly that it was dazzling others.

The dazzlers were often people who may have had the benefit of 1): years and years of formal education, or, 2): natural gifts in their chosen area, or both.  Others were often so awed in their presence that they afforded them something akin to guru status.

While they might come up with very wise sayings or even great truths, dazzling is, I believe, harmful to the project of empowerment. It often arises from an irresistible temptation on the part of the fast-processer to show off the clever answer that popped into his head (and is usually right) and that is beyond contradiction.

The reason why we need to allow staff to be is mainly – as I said above – because the values of the corporate world (remember corporate closed-ness) are deeply embedded in the Pillars and thereby, by propagation, are so influential in middle management and leadership in the community sector.

Fast processor leaders often find it difficult to allow people to be. I’d find it easier to say ‘be themselves’ and that is important too – but being comes before being myself. It is through being that we get to know ourselves, and we can’t really be ourselves if we don’t know who we are.

Comedies that poke fun at hierarchical organisations sometimes have scenes where a junior speaks to a senior in a permission to speak freely – sir kind of way, prior to giving an opinion that differs from what he knows intuitively that the senior person might want him to have. (This is called parrhesia – and I have no idea where I first heard or read that)!

I believe that true inclusion involves creating an environment where people are invited, and feel able to speak freely without fear of sanction, being put down, being proved wrong, patronised or even punished, or that their opinion(s) will have any negative consequences for them.

There is an old saying (some sources say it’s African) ‘If you want to go fast, travel alone, but if you want to go far, travel together’.

Africa is a big continent and I don’t know what part of it this saying came from, but whoever said it first obviously was aware of the likelihood that those with fast processing speed will generally travel alone and probably struggle a bit with travelling together.

Sometimes it reminds me (or I link it to) the old Irish saying about journeying, ‘Gioraíonn beirt bóthar’, which means, in English ‘two people shorten the road’.  The Irish saying does not discourage us from going on long journeys, but suggests that if we’d like our long journeys to appear short; bring a companion.

Both, however, imply that relationship is important to us on our journey if we want to be leaders that look to the long term.

[1]. I always thought that Nelson Mandela said that until I looked it up on the ever-reliable Internet. Some websites claim that Marianne Williamson said it first. Perhaps they both said it.

I will finish this Sub-Chapter on Leadership and Processing Speed with a little story to stimulate a bit of thought about this travelling alone-travelling together theme.

One morning, many, many years ago, long before newsfeeds, social media, instant communication and the like, I opened the local paper and I read about a man whom I had known some years previously.  He had spent time in prison for violent crimes that hurt many people.  For many years he was homeless, and his crimes arose from his desperate need to feed his drug addiction and continue his street drinking.

My memory of previous reports about him, written by reporters in court, had been very disparaging, referring to him in very insulting language. But that morning the article about him was glowing in the extreme.

He was described as a hero, and a man of outstanding bravery.  I read how he had displayed amazing speed of thought when he intervened in a potentially tragic situation and saved someone’s life.

When the emergency services (including the Gardaí, who – obviously – knew him well) arrived, he was praised for his quick-thinking and his courage.

Sadly, the courage that he displayed in those few moments did not act as a spark to change his life for the better and he is now no longer with us, his body having yielded to drugs. 

After I read the article I pondered (not for the first time) on different forms of courage. Because it takes one kind of courage to do what he did – and it takes another kind of courage to give up drink and drugs.

What is common to both, is, however, fear of the unknown.

Very often, when we choose to act (because it is a choice) in a high-risk situation we do it so quickly that our assessment of what to do, and indeed what might happen if it all goes wrong needs to be done so quickly that if we consulted with others and/or sought their support it would be too late and the moment would have passed.

We know, intuitively and instinctively – what will work and our brief assessment tells us that it has to be done as fast as possible.  So we do it alone and, actually, if we thought too much about it we mightn’t do it at all.

This is an example (albeit extreme) when it is necessary and appropriate to move fast and travel alone.

Whereas when we give up drugs we do get the chance to think – and when we think what we’d have to lose (our crutch – our means of survival, our emotional life-line, our best friend) the fear is so great that we need support and relationship to travel together – because this will be a much longer journey!