Moving Away from Tunnel Vision When Solving Problems
A simple reframing and reminder may help you move more successfully through challenges or trouble
No one likes the driving experience when the outdoor conditions negatively impact how we see through the windshield and outside. It’s the same when trying to navigate moving in the dark without proper lighting. Or, if your eyesight is deteriorating or already poor, you know how difficult it can be to manage life as you would like.
Yet we do get comfortable with compromised vision with our decisions or we at least needlessly tolerate it.
“One of the biggest obstacles to clear thinking,” wrote Suzanne Weller, a change practitioner, is “cognitive entrenchment,” which is “the human tendency to rely on existing knowledge and familiar solutions when faced with challenges.”
Tried and true is helpful, until it isn’t. We come to believe that what has worked will always work for a particular situation or worse, any situation. We can become surprised and knocked off balance when we eventually learn differently.
We don’t have the depth of understanding to realize that another cognitive approach and response is not only better, but sometimes required.
“This is no surprise,” Weller wrote of our false assumptions, “when you consider how fast we move every day, in our race for productivity, to squeeze the most out of every minute.”
So this level of thinking is natural because it’s a habit and likely one that has produced desired or acceptable results. However, cognitive entrenchment is not reliable or best.
“Hacks and shortcuts are essential tools to save time, but they’re also limiting, creating cognitive traps where you repeatedly apply the same thinking patterns, potentially missing new and better solutions,” Weller explained.
No one likes to feel trapped yet we don’t always recognize and believe we’re just that in our decision making.
That can be a false impression because it does occur in thinking where we aren’t seeing what is possible, reasonable, practical and more helpful.
Weller, the founder at Weller Collaboration, provided what could prove to be helpful recommendations for likely potential benefits.
In her article, she wrote about escaping cognitive entrenchment. I will argue that it’s important to pay close attention to the language in the form of her word choices.
Cognitive entrenchment, she asserts, is a “trap.”
To evolve beyond it means we are “escaping” it.
That is intended imagery to drive home of the point of the problem and danger.
Recognizing Our Cognitive Traps to Break Free
We’re going to move into our higher-level cognitive processing when we begin to exhibit greater intelligence by making a noticeable shift in our thinking when it comes to particular problems.
“Rather than viewing challenges as straightforward problems with single solutions, start by reframing them as complex situations with multiple potential approaches,” Weller advised.
This is counterintuitive and seems unnecessary and maybe, foolish. Yet read on to see exactly why she proposes it.
“This subtle shift in perspective opens up more possibilities for creative solutions and removes the pressure of finding a single ‘right’ answer,” Weller wrote.
“But there is only one right answer,” someone may argue. Yes, there are instances where binary, black-and-white situations have but one correct response. Weller is talking about challenges and situations that are more complex.
If we can get to the point where we are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on this guidance, here’s how we can apply it:
“Create space for inquiry,” Weller wrote. “A simple and effective way to see alternatives is to ask more questions. They help you adopt a different mindset where you’re curious, not solutioning (yet).”
Three questions that she has found useful:
• “How might we ... ?”
• “What am I missing?”
• “What’s getting in the way of this happening?”
Some decisions are simple to make and effective. Some situations require immediate responses that have been trial tested. There are other instances, however, where past conclusions are our blind spots and assumptions have not produced quality results.
The task becomes to move off habit and extend beyond the comfort zone to examine different questions and analysis that could unlock a far better depth of clarity, understanding and pathways so as to move away from cognitive entrenchment and towards smarter, more effective decisions and improved outcomes.
Michael Toebe is a reputation and communications specialist at Reputation Intelligence and writes the Reputation Intelligence newsletter here on Substack and on LinkedIn. He helps individuals and organizations proactively and responsively with matters of trust, stakeholder relationships and reputation.
He has been a reporter for newspapers and radio, hosted a radio talk show, written for online business magazines, been a media source, helped people work through disputes, conflicts and crises and assisted clients with communications to further build, protect, restore and reconstruct reputation.
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Very interesting. Thank you .