The Practice of Professional Consulting



Types of Thinking

During each stage of the cycle it is important and helpful for consultants and project leaders to use two kinds of thinking: analytical and contextual. Analytical thinking occurs when we examine a situation or problem by taking it apart, breaking it down into its components, looking at the parts, generat­ing data, comparing and contrasting data, and drawing rational and logical conclusions from what we have found. Contextual thinking, on the other hand, is looking at the client’s situation or problem in terms of the environment in which it exists. In this bigger picture or larger context reside issues, data, trends, patterns of behavior, facts, perceptions, purposes, intentions, and con­nections that help ...