Three thinking styles shape how we work: visual thinkers excel at concrete images and mechanical tasks, pattern thinkers handle math and systems, and verbal thinkers process through language. A food-processing plant needs all three types to succeed.
I was shocked when I found out that other people didn't think visually the way I think.
And that's interesting what you said, my kind of mind, and to understand this sort of is very important for us all.
There's scientific research now that shows that there is different kinds of thinking. I am an object visualizer, photorealistic visual thinker. Everything I think about is a picture. Nothing's abstract. People with my kind of mind are really good at mechanical things, fixing mechanical things, inventing mechanical things. Factories really need us. We're good at art, we're good at photography, and we're also good at working with animals, but absolutely can't do algebra. Then you have your pattern thinker. This is your music and math mind, your traditional degreed engineer, heavy in math. So if we're building a food processing plant, for example, my kind of mind is all the clever mechanical equipment. I call that clever engineering. A little more mathematician, does power, water, boilers, refrigeration, make sure the roof doesn't fall down. They're good at music and math. They think in patterns. Then, of course, you have your verbal thinkers, and very organized in their thinking, think in words. I was shocked when I found out that other people didn't think visually the way I think. But when we start realizing that these different minds exist, we can figure out how they can have complementary skills, and they— and that we need them on many, many different kinds of projects. But the first step is realizing that different thinking exists.
