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Brain Circuits
Flexibility: Ready to switch mental models?
Can you move from making snap judgments to considering available evidence deliberately? How agile is your thinking? Play this two-minute game to find out.
Click here to play the Color Code game.
Focus on the color, not the word, to get the answer right.
Did you crack the Color Code? This game measures a key leadership skill for today’s rapidly changing environment – cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to switch one’s attention between different processing modes.
Our two processing modes were described by Daniel Kahneman (2011) as System 1 and System 2. System 1 specializes in automatic or unconscious thinking, where your brain interprets and makes judgments with little cognitive effort. By contrast, System 2 is effortful, controlled, and slower.
Leaders must be able to quickly perceive and respond to dynamic conditions using both System 1 and System 2, as required. Cognitive flexibility counteracts potential biases in decision-making that can result from letting System 1’s unconscious thinking go. t helps leaders to be able to switch between the varying demands as they move between checking a board presentation for accuracy to shaping a five-year strategy. Cognitive flexibility predicts leader performance, above and beyond fluid intelligence.
What you may have experienced in the Color Code game is a drain on your cognitive resources when you need to switch between System 1 and System 2. English speakers are likely to read the word unconsciously, care of System 1. To succeed in the task, you need to overcome this automatic response and engage System 2. Cognitive flexibility allows us to engage the more effortful response, System 2, to get the right answer.
To enhance your cognitive flexibility, research suggests three main paths:
- Expand your horizons. Expose yourself to diverse stimuli. Within work, take on a project or role that is in a different area. Outside of work, immerse yourself in a different culture or environment that encourages you to challenge your assumptions. Recent research by Ric Roi shows a clear correlation between the breadth of experience and the propensity to switch perspectives when considering strategic choices.
- Extend your experience. Tools such as case-based learning and simulations that allow you to consider how different variables present differently across situations can help you to become more aware of the need to challenge your automatic assumptions and reorganize your knowledge.
- Train your attention control. Practice varying the amount of effort you put into different tasks and practice actively switching your attention from one task to another. Playing Color Code is one way to train your brain. In your day-to-day tasks, remember to focus on switching – not multi-tasking – as trying to do things simultaneously typically erodes cognitive effectiveness. Make a concerted effort to get it right.
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