Challenges & Selection

It all started years back when a colleague of mine shared with me his dilemma about  choosing between two fundamentally different career opportunities. The classic “Marwa,  would you have a minute for me?” in the office right after the first coffee in the morning.  What initially sprang to my mind to ask him was: “What is it that you’d expect from what’s  left of your business life?”

He replied that he had never thought about that in detail. I continued: “What do you think  you’re really good at?” This is a question that is on the no-go list in today’s formal job  interviews as much as “What do you think you’re really bad at?” because there can’t be an  honest answer. I got trained on that 16 years ago already in my hiring certification classes at  November. However, it is totally OK between two friends in a secluded setting. His answer  struck me as I had a totally different picture of him. At this point it became clear to me that  his situation and decision process would require some formalization and visualization. And  this is how I started to use mind mapping.

Application

I start with general ideas and get more and more specific as my idea develops. Structure  does not develop in my head. Information does. That means that I must put down my  information somewhere and structure it there. Linear representation is difficult to structure.  Hence, a mind map comes in handy: I can see things at a glance and add topics where I see a  gap.

While developing the method, I used a mind map to dump my thoughts and experiences in.  After a while, these topics could be organized into clusters, which then mercilessly pointed  out to me what was missing. I literally saw it! In short: Information creates clusters, shows  missing information and promotes further clustering. A very creative flow. Putting things in  a meaningful order requires a lot of shuffling around of information and re-clustering. Try to  do that in a flowing text and you know why I always choose to use a mind map.

When the mind map was finally as complete as I wanted it to be, the question was: How to  present it to the target audience? How can a story unfold in the eyes of the beholder? Going  through this map is not a linear process. While you answer one question in the map,  another answer to an unrelated question on the other side of the map might just pop up in  your mind. Because you always see the open spots, you can easily jump left and right, top  and bottom and still stick to a structure.

Collaboration is the key element of my method. Collaboration works perfectly fine when  face to face over a glass of wine. But this is a process that will never conclude, as previously  noted. Thus, remote collaboration is a smart way to interact. Set the preferences for the  map to notify when changes are applied and trigger off a constant flow of remote  interaction, which will continuously fine tune the map.

Finally: Seeing and listening closely are important while working on such an intimate topic,  but you need to go one step further and truly capture the meaning. A mind map will help  you to see things in context and see how they develop and relate to each other. This is key  for being able to open and challenge, respectively. When providing feedback, adding visuals  to indicate feelings about a certain topic, emphasizing certain elements through formatting  and showing consent or dissent by voting, commenting and, most of all, asking (Carl Rogers)  are strong tools to drill deeper into the matter and look behind the statements being made.  You are able to actually “describe” digital information (text, content) with analog elements  (icons, formatting, position, relation) to create a picture in the mind of the collaborators  that they can even talk about without the map in sight.

Insight & Approach

A mind map is a means to visually represent ideas and their relationship to one another. It’s  a brainstorming tool frequently used in education, the business world, and the  entertainment industry – often in collaborative projects.

There are times in your life when you need to make significant decisions about how to  continue in your business and/or personal life. At these points, it’s necessary that you  establish a clear vision about certain life facts. This process must be honest and complete.

In my experience, mind map and the method behind it helped me a lot during my journey of  self-evaluation by compiling relevant information and presenting these facts in a  comprehensive format to a friend for input.

