Eight Greatest Ideas for Decision Making

Idea 73: The mind at work

When you are thinking to some purpose, there are three principal mental functions at work:

  • Analyzing – resolving wholes into their constituent parts.
  • Synthesizing – building wholes out of their different elements.
  • Valuing – judging or appraising on scales of relative worth.

These activities take place at various levels of the mind. Sometimes they submerge like a submarine into the depth mind (the unconscious) and resurface later on.

We think as whole persons, not as disembodied minds. Therefore emotion or feeling is ever present, or at least waiting in the wings. It plays a positive or negative role in the drama of thought.

So here is the model:

Case study: The depth mind ...

Get John Adair's: 100 Greatest Ideas for Being a Brilliant Manager now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.