Secret F6 - Run with the thinkers

The president of a major office equipment company put his problem to me this way: “How do I get the whiners in my company to stop whining and start coming up with solutions?”

He went on to explain that he had two kinds of people working for him, the Whiners and the Thinkers.

The Whiners were often very smart and dedicated employees who worked long, hard hours. But when they came to the manager’s office , it was almost always to complain.

“They’re great at finding fault with other managers and telling me what’s wrong with our systems,” the president said, “but they are a drain on me because they’re so negative that I end up trying to make them feel better. After that, I’m depressed.”

The Thinkers, on the other hand, had a different way of coming into the office with problems.

“The Thinkers come to me with ideas,” he said. “They see the same problems that the Whiners see, but they’ve already thought about possible solutions.”

The Thinkers, in other words, have assumed ownership of the company, and are creating the future of the company with their thinking. The Whiners have stopped thinking. Once the problems are identified, and their reaction to them justified, the thinking stops.

The Thinkers have taken their reaction to the company’s problems past their emotions, and into their minds. And because they have formulated some solutions, the nature of their meeting with the manager is creative. It’s a brainstorming meeting. The manager enjoys these meetings because they stimulate his mind, too. Both parties leave the meeting feeling energized intellectually, and the manager looks forward to future meetings with the Thinkers.

The Whiners have left their reaction to their company’s problems down at the emotional level. They express resentment, fear, and worry. The manager’s problem in such a meeting is that he deals primarily with those emotions, so he finishes the meeting with his own sense of discouragement.

When you are committed to self-motivation as a way of life, you will fall in the realm of the Thinker. Your thinking not only creates your motivation, but it creates your relationships, your family, and the organization you work for as well, because they are all part of you. You are more valuable to your organization with this orientation to thinking, and you’re more valuable to yourself.