Coaching, Mentoring and Managing: A Coach Guidebook

Intuitive Thinkers

The fifth way people assimilate data is by intuition. Intuition

is an unconscious process that is neither rational nor emotional.

Have you ever worked on something all day that didn’t “click”

somehow? You didn’t quite get it. Then you went to bed that

evening, ill at ease about the day’s unsettling activity. But the next

morning you woke up and ... eureka! ... you had the answer.

That’s an aspect of intuition. While you sleep, your

unconscious mind still processes information. Sometimes it wakes

you in the middle of the night with the right answer. When you

mentor people who operate by intuition, you have to give them

time to grasp things. Tell them, “Hey, sleep on it. We’ll look at it

tomorrow. No problem.” You may be surprised at the number of

“eureka” moments experienced by these people.

Scientific Thinkers

The last way people process information is scientifically. To

mentor these people means to let them test it, try it, experiment

with it. They have to explore the information scientifically. Until

they do that, your counsel is often just so much theory to them.

For example, let’s say you’re teaching them a new computer

program. If you say, “Whatever you do, don’t do that because if

you do, it will erase everything,” their response is, “How do you

know?” You might say, “Well, it happened to me. I did that and

everything was gone.” Don’t be surprised if they come back with,

“Maybe it’s changed.” Maybe something is different now and it

doesn’t work that way. Let these people experiment and try out

their own theories. Set up safe situations for them to satisfy their

curiosity.

Knowing that people think and process information

differently, cautions you that you cannot talk to each associate the

same way. How will you determine the ways your people respond

to information? Observe and ask questions. The following

questions can generate responses to help you evaluate which

category each team member might fall into. While almost all of us

are combinations of the six types, usually one approach dominates

our thought patterns.

Coaching, Mentoring and Managing

4

Intuitive thinkers

experience

“eureka”

moments.

Scientific thinkers

must test their

own theories.