In this solo episode of The Leader's Kitbag, Ben Morton expands on his earlier discussion of internal versus external thinking styles and shows how understanding these cognitive processors can improve meeting design and participation. He defines internal processors as people who think silently before speaking, and external processors as those who think out loud. He explains that internal processors struggle with meetings that are sprung on them, have unclear agendas, or add last‑minute items, while external processors find pre‑reads and silent reflection difficult. Morton shares a personal consultancy anecdote where an external‑processing managing director and his own internal‑processing style created a powerful client‑meeting dynamic: the external thinker generated immediate ideas, giving the internal thinker time to evaluate options. From this, he distills practical takeaways: when planning a meeting, decide who needs a pre‑read versus who needs to be in the room; during meetings, avoid mimicking others’ processing style and instead play to your own strengths. He closes with a reminder to care for oneself and those one leads.
Chapters
In the last episode of The Leader's Kitbag, I spoke about internal versus external thinking and how quiet people are often adding way more value in meetings than it appears at first glance. In today's episode, I want to build on that idea because once you know this filter actually exists, you can start using it, not just for yourself But to improve how you run meetings. If you haven't seen that episode yet, do go and take a look. You'll find a link to it wherever you happen to be watching or listening to this episode. If you haven't seen that episode yet, then here's a very quick reminder. External Processors, or Thinkers, tend to think out loud. You hear their entire thought process. Internal thinkers or processors, on the other hand, tend to think internally in their own mind first and then they speak. The key is neither is better, neither is right or wrong, but each type of processor will struggle in different types of meetings. If you're an internal processor or thinker, the meetings that you're likely to find the most challenging are the ones that are sprung on you with little or no notice, or the ones in which there's suddenly an additional agenda item dropped in last minute, live in the meeting. These are the meetings where there isn't a clear agenda, it's not clear what the expected outcomes are. External thinkers or processors struggle in a slightly different way. Ask them to sit and look at a pre-read or to think quietly by themselves before opening it out into a general discussion can be really challenging for them. They lean naturally towards thinking out loud and talking things through in real time. So if you're trying to generate new ideas and solutions, Having external thinkers in the room is really helpful. They'll typically be the ones who speak first, and that is no bad thing because whilst they're talking, whilst they're going first, they're doing something really helpful for the internal processors in the room too. They're giving them time to think. I saw this play out for many years early in my consultancy career. The managing director of the company I worked for at the time, who's now a very close friend, is a strong external processor, whereas me, on the other hand, I'm a very strong internal processor. So we'd go to new client or sales meetings together, sit down and listen to the client explain to us the challenges they were facing and the outcomes they were hoping to achieve. As an external thinker, Richard could respond instantly. He would share all of his ideas, suggestions, and the ways we could possibly help, and that made us a brilliant pairing in those meetings. The client instantly got energy and momentum, and Richard's ability to externally process bought me valuable time as an internal processor. Whilst Richard was talking, I could be considering and weighing up the pros and cons of the different options. I could be starting to narrow down what I thought the best potential solution or 2 would be to help solve the client's challenge. So here's your takeaway from today's episode of the Leader's Kitbag. Next time you are planning a meeting, Think about who needs the pre-read and who needs the room. And next time you're in a meeting yourself, stop trying to be, speak, and think like the person next to you and start playing to your strengths. Really lean into how you think and process new information as opposed to how other people do it. That's it for today's episode of the Leader's Kitbag. As always, Look after yourself and those you've got the privilege and responsibility to lead. And until next time, lead on.
