Getting People Right E-Book

H. Arne Maus

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 326

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

H. Arne Maus explains in his book the building blocks of thinking and how to understand people in a better way. Learn why people do what they do. Learn the difference between managers and leaders and how the profiles required for each of these roles may be identified. In addition, Arne Maus shows the influence of Cognitive Intentions in professional situations and how much you gain by taking them into account when hiring. The aim is to find the right person for the right job - this increases the efficiency of the workplace and at the same time the job satisfaction in the corporate cultures - be it at the level of the company, the department or the team. You will learn the difference between motivation and engagement. This book shows why motivation is not enough. Today, we can measure engagement within an organisation and demonstrate the kind of productivity it leads to. In this way, we also show the leverage points for improving engagement and productivity.  The author is the developer of the Identity Compass® system, and in his work, he has set his focus on measuring Cognitive Intentions. By identifying these unconscious preferences, whether they are those of managers, leaders, employees or even customers, a company can discover new ways to measure motivating and demotivating factors in the working environment and to create ideal working conditions for employees. Not only will this increase workplace efficiency, it will also enable the company to find intelligent ways to reduce personnel costs. This book will also support coaches and trainers as they provide their clients and participants with more intensive and more effective guidance toward lasting success.

Leseprobe

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Barbara Walther, Jürgen Wulff, Geoff Dowell, Dr. Darren Stevens and Prof. Dr. David Scheffer, for their unwavering support in the writing of this book. Thanks to Darren Stevens, who so tirelessly proofread the English version of the book and now wrote Chapter 8 together with Barbara Walther. Thanks also to my editor, Melina Streckert, and to the participants in my training sessions for their many suggestions.

I dedicate this book to:

Sabine

Tobias

Daniel

Angels

Table of Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1 Why Use Profiling Systems?

1.1 “How Do You Operate an Employee?”

1.2 Safeguarding the Investment in Employees

CHAPTER 2 Requirements of a Profiling System

2.1 Usability

2.2 Comparison with Job Profiles

2.3 Are the Results Useful?

2.4 Are the Results Communicable?

2.5 Is It Socially Acceptable?

2.6 “How About Some More…?”

CHAPTER 3 Thinking Means Deleting

3.1 Compensating for the Deletions

3.2 The Law of Attention

3.3 What Are Cognitive Intentions?

3.4 Determining the Position of a Company

3.5 The Discovery of the Cognitive Intentions

3.6 Definition of Cognitive Intentions

CHAPTER 4 Background

4.1 Logical Levels of Learning

4.2 Neurological Levels

4.3 Placement of the Cognitive Intentions

CHAPTER 5 Why Is All of This Important?

5.1 Motivation Is Good — Engagement Is Better

5.2 Case Study: The Cost of Poor Leadership

CHAPTER 6 Cognitive Intentions — An Overview

6.1 Perception

Sensory Channel

Primary Interest

Perspective

6.2 Motivation Factors

Values

Motives

Direction

Reference

Planning Style

Primary Attention

6.3 Motivation Processing

Level of Activity

Mode of Comparison

Primary Reaction

Success Strategy

Achieving Success — Success Strategy in Practice

Work Orientation

6.4 Information Processing

Information Size

Thinking Style

Working Style

Time Orientation

Time Frame

Convincer Channel

Convincer Strategy

Management Style

6.5 Meta-Scales

CHAPTER 7 Combinations

7.1 The Riemann-Thomann-Model

The Space Axis: Permanence

↔

Change

The Time Axis: Closeness

↔

Distance

7.2 Common Combinations

Four Sides of a Message

From Spontaneous to Unpredictable

Quality Control and Differences

Intrinsic Motivation

Assertiveness

Crisis Management

Dominance

From Good Communicator to Strong Leader

Speed in Thinking

Speed in Decision-Making

Stamina

From Diligent to Compulsive

7.3 Culture in Organisations

Reference: Internal

↔

External

Direction: Towards

↔

Away From

Planning Style: Options

↔

Procedures

Mode of Comparison: Sameness

↔

Difference

Success Strategy: Vision

↔

Quality Control

Information Size: Global

↔

Detail

Thinking Style: Abstract

↔

Concrete

7.4 Team Coaching / Personnel Development

CHAPTER 8 Cognitive development - not Personality!

8.1 Thinking Quotient Social-emotional development after Kegan

TQ2 - Self-Sovereign Mind

TQ3 - Socialised Mind

TQ4 - Self-Authoring Mind

TQ5 - Self-Transforming Mind

8.2 Awareness Quotient Dynamic Responsiveness

AQ5 - Self-Unaware

AQ6 - Cultural Unaware

AQ7 - Cultural Awareness

AQ8 - Self-Aware

AQ9 - Self-Constructing

AQ10 - Construct Aware

Cognitive Developmental Outcome

CHAPTER 9 Measuring the Working Climate

9.1 Issues Measuring the Working Climate

9.2 Autonomy versus Dependency

Autonomy

Influence

Significance of the Work

Identification

Network of Social Relationships

Opportunities for Advancement

Identification in Practice

Dependency

Negative Stress

9.3 Security versus Absence of Prospects Security

Opportunities for Development

Recognition

Community

Absence of Prospects

Lack of Support

Lack of Communication

Social Coldness

Absence of Prospects in Practice

9.4 Challenge versus Pointlessness Challenge

Positive Stress

Strategic Skills

Interpersonal Skills

Focus on Service

Challenge in Practice

Pointlessness

CHAPTER 10 Burn-out and Bore-out

10.1 Burn-out — a Mental Strategy

10.2 Why Is Burn-out so Important?

10.3 Bore-out

Boredom on the job is not to be trifled with

Boredom in the job has many causes

What to do if you are affected by bore-out?

CHAPTER 11 Identifying People Who May Bully Others

CHAPTER 12 Case Studies

12.1 Coaching

12.2 Learning from the Best

12.3 Engagement

CHAPTER 13 Profiling Cognitive Intentions

13.1 Valid Results

13.2 The Purpose

13.3 Sample Profile

Overview #1 of the Cognitive Intentions

Overview #2 of the Cognitive Intentions

Overview of the Combinations

Overview of the Working Climate

Overview of the Engagement

Postscript

Notes

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Bibliography

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Photographs and Graphics

Questionnaire for Determining Cognitive Intentions

PREFACE

Leadership is about supporting people while they cope with change. Management is about implementing change. Leaders set the course, while managers make plans and set budgets. Leaders develop and combine the strengths of their employees; managers recruit and organize employees. Leaders motivate. Managers control. Leaders look out for opportunities; managers look out for constraints.

A well-led company needs both leaders and managers. This book will help to identify the potential benefits of both leadership and management and to distinguish one from the other.

This book will also show how to find the right employees — not the ones who make the best impression — and then to find the ideal way to lead them. It is becoming increasingly difficult to hire good employees; because of demographic factors alone, we are heading toward a severe shortage of skilled professionals.

You will learn about the difference between motivation and engagement. This book shows, why motivation is not enough. Today we can even measure the engagement within an organisation just as well as the leverage points to improve the engagement.

This book will also support coaches and trainers as they provide their clients and participants with more intensive and more effective guidance toward lasting success.

Note: Since later chapters build on previous ones, the ideal way to use this book is to first read the entire book through from beginning to end. Then it can serve as a useful reference for looking up specific topics.

CHAPTER 1

Why Use Profiling Systems?

To recruit the wrong person can easily cost a year’s salary. According to calculations done by a globally active business-consulting firm, the search for a new employee costs approximately $65,000, just to find an employee who seems to be the right one for the job. That means it will cost another $65,000 if it later turns out that the new recruit was actually not the right one. These calculations do not take into account the internal interviews with the senior consultants who make the final decisions on hiring.

From a business standpoint, however, these costs must be added in. What this means is that a bad decision when hiring could result in double the costs specified above. And still not all of the costs have been considered. It can become quite expensive to have an employee in the wrong position. Not because they are a bad person, but because it was not adequately taken into account when hiring them, whether, in addition to their professional qualifications, they also had the soft skills to fulfil the responsibilities assigned to them.

It is likewise not good for the applicant to take on a position to which they are not suited. Changing jobs too soon or failing to make it through the probationary period will leave behind indications on their résumé which could hinder their later career. Furthermore, a bad fit between a person and a job will cause stress for the job-holder. Usually this stress will spread to their colleagues, as they must deal with the job-holder’s poor disposition. They will have to take on the portion of the job-holder’s work that the job-holder will not be able to handle, as well as endure other consequences of the bad hiring decision. Before an applicant decides to take a job, they should always ask themselves, “Is this the right job for me?” Sadly, in times of high unemployment, this happens far too seldom. When there is a shortage of skilled professionals, it is a different story.

With a good competence profiling system, it can be determined beforehand to what extent an applicant is suited to a job, or, conversely, how well the job suits the applicant.

1.1 “How Do You Operate an Employee?”

This is a provocative question. If you ask this of an employer, they will typically respond by saying, “What? Operating employees? They should be doing their jobs; that’s what I pay them for. That’s that.” Then if you say, “Yes, I understand. Then how do you operate a machine that is worth $75,000?” Quite typically the answer will be, “First the service people come, and they install the machine before anyone ever turns it on. And of course, every employee receives instruction in its use, perhaps two or three days of training. Only trained personnel are allowed to operate the machine, and naturally there is a maintenance contract for it. Certainly, you must safeguard that kind of investment.”

When an employer tells you this, you might reply with, “In your company I would rather be a machine than an employee, because you really take care of your machines. But what about your employees?” Most likely this person will then stop and realise, “There is truth in what you say.” Incidentally, you will also get the same kind of answers about machines that are worth only $10,000 or $20,000.

1.2 Safeguarding the Investment in Employees

This shows the importance of safeguarding the investment in employees. One way to do this is by examining professional qualifications, mostly in the form of references and letters of recommendation. These days, however, the significance of employer recommendations is sometimes very dubious. Since the late 1970s, in any case, I have always written recommendations for myself upon leaving a job, and my superiors or personnel departments have merely signed them. Another factor is the crucial importance of the personal competencies necessary to accomplish a task. My grandmother used to say, “You can’t see what’s inside a person’s head.” That is correct. Still, there is a need to quickly and reliably identify an employee’s personal competencies.

So, what do we mean by personal competencies? Among them, for example, are flexibility, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, leadership skills, communication skills and the ability to deal with conflict, either in teams or with customers or superiors. These competencies also include personal working style and emotional intelligence.

This raises the question of how long professional and personal competence can remain consistent. This is what we mean when we ask, “After leaving a job, how long will my skills and qualifications remain valid? When I find a new position doing the same job, will I be able to start working right away?” Depending on the field, professional competencies may remain consistent for between a couple of months and five years.

This couple-of-months-period applies in the computer industry. Products in this industry are developed for the production span of three months. After that, these products have already been overtaken by further technological developments and are replaced by newer models. At a computer trade show some years ago in March, I saw a computer that I liked very much, and I ordered it. I received it in June. In November, a colleague of mine decided to buy exactly the same computer. By then, the computer was no longer available; it had long since become outdated.

Speaking of computers, they have a longer production cycle than their individual components. For example, today’s hard disks are being produced only for a couple of months, after which they will be obsolete.

At the end of the 1970s, when I first started using computers, rumours were circulating about large-capacity disk drives. In those days, they were not called hard disks, but “Winchester drives” or “rigid disks” — and they were said to have the unbelievably large capacity of 1 MB on a 5¼-inch drive. Today we shake our heads in amazement and disbelief to think how little capacity that was.

Today there is still no end in sight to this development. Moore’s Law, dating from the 1970s and applying to the computer field, holds that every 18 months twice the capacity becomes available at half the price. Time and again for over forty years this law has proven to be true. It’s coming to its end right now, until we get Quantum computing off the ground. So, if someone were to leave employment in this field and stay out of it for a full eighteen months, they would have to learn their job all over again.

And this strikes a chord with everything I have heard from people who are already established in their career. They often say, “At some point in the past I learned how to do something, and now I am doing something different, because my profession is changing so much.” Things are no longer the way they were one hundred years ago, when someone would enter into a profession, learn it and practice it in the same way for the rest of their life.

What did you learn to do when you first started? And what are you doing now? How much did you learn that was new? How many new things did you have to learn because of the pressure of change? So much for the idea of professional education.

Such a rate of change makes things more exciting, but then again, it also makes things much more complicated. Personal competence, on the other hand, does not change in just three months. If you happen to meet someone again after not having seen them for three months, they have not suddenly become a different person. That can happen after five years, after twenty-five years, or perhaps not at all. People do not change so quickly. It may be that in the meantime they have undergone a trauma or had some other defining experience, a divorce, for instance, or an accident or illness — something that produced significant changes in their personality. However, such things are not the norm, and they cannot be predicted. Once you have determined a person’s personal competencies, you can depend on them much more so than on their professional competencies.

In many departments of a company, the work is so specialised that new employees, however well-qualified they may be, must still spend several months learning new skills. Thus, it can only be in the best interests of the company to select employees who are suited to the organisation in terms of their personal competence. This calls for a good profiling system, one that can ascertain the personality characteristics and behavioural tendencies of applicants and that can verify their suitability for a position. Such a profiling system would be a great benefit to any company. And the range of choices on the market is extremely confusing. Which of the many profiling systems would be the best choice? What are the most important things an organisation bear in mind?

CHAPTER 2

Requirements of a Profiling System

When an organisation chooses to use a profiling system, what criteria should they use to make the best choice? Certainly, it is important for it to have high-quality content, to be simple and easy to use and to have an identifiable benefit in everyday life. It is equally important for the questions to have a high selectivity. If the questions in the profiling system are not truly selective, the person conducting the interview will not know exactly what the subject is responding to.

Furthermore, only purely work-related questions should be posed, because people behave differently in the workplace than they do in private life.

The risk behaviour of people in a professional context may be completely different from that in their private life. When, for example, people engage in high-risk sports in their leisure time, such as snowboarding or bungee jumping or the like, one cannot assume with certainty that they will also be likely to take risks in the context of their jobs. Likewise, a boss in a firm can dismiss employees with icy detachment and at the same time be a warm and loving husband and father at home. For this reason, questions posed in these analyses should always be situational and relevant to the job. Otherwise, the results will be too unfocused.

2.1 Usability

How long does the questioning take? Is it possible to interpret the answers yourself, or do you have to send them in and wait three days for the results? When purchasing a profiling system that you can interpret yourself, are you required to pay in advance for useless additional services? What do you do when you have ordered or purchased ten evaluations, and it turns out that there are twelve subjects that you are interested in? What happens if you have forgotten to order more before you need them? Or if you have re-ordered in time, but it takes longer than usual to process the order?

2.2 Comparison with Job Profiles

Can you use a profiling system to create a job profile? Can you then match an applicant to this job profile? And how simple is it to do this? Is it possible to compare members of a team? In doing so, can you also identify difficulties within a team? Or is it also possible to “design” a team? Take as an example the task of putting together a team for a project. On this team there are people qualified in all of the proficiencies called for by the project — can you then simply try out various team profiles, in order to find out how the individual team members fit together? Can the profiling system be used for personnel development? A job-holder may be really good at their job today, but in these times of workplace change, that does not mean that they will still be good at it five years from now. Can anyone really plan for the future when the demands on job-holders continue to evolve? Can the profiling system also be used to guide today’s job-holders into their future?

2.3 Are the Results Useful?

Can the user take the results of a profile analysis and derive from them something of truly practical value for their own organisation? The best results are of little benefit if they cannot be used to develop a concrete plan of action for the organisation or for the employees who participated in the profiling. The results would be useful if, for example, steps were taken to further develop employees’ skills, or to design a better work place.

Can the results be used to gain relevant insights into the filling of a position? Is it possible to use existing profiles to conduct team evaluations, to see how the members of a new team will interact? With many profiling systems, the licensee can get profiles only in the form of prepared evaluations, for example, on paper or electronically in a printable PDF file. It is difficult to put these results side by side so that team comparisons can be made.

2.4 Are the Results Communicable?

And this is most important: How easy is it to communicate the results of a profile? If only experts can understand them, and even the experts have difficulty getting them across, then the applicant will say, “I do not understand this at all, and I do not see myself reflected in these results…” The author had painful experiences in this regard. He filled out a test while applying for work, and the end results, in his own opinion, had very little to do with him. He could neither relate them to himself nor understand them.

2.5 Is It Socially Acceptable?

Often in an evaluation there will be a statement to the effect that “Mr. Smith is this or that…” There is a serious disadvantage here, in that the results of the assessment are put forth in such a way as to define the person on the level of their identity. I find it highly questionable when I see an advertisement for a profiling system that claims to gauge the way people use their brains and then defines this as being genetically determined. This sends the message, “You’re not happy with this or that result? Tough luck! You can’t change it; it’s genetic.” It is questionable for this reason alone: brain research has been demonstrating more and more clearly over the past twenty years to what extent the brain is still capable of learning, even in old age. So, a good profiling system must also take into account that people can change, and this must be reflected in the results.

When using the profiling systems that are typically found on the market, it has been my experience that people see themselves reflected in the results to a degree of approximately 50% to 60%. That correlation is too low for me. In one profile that I personally filled out while applying for a job, it came out, among other things, that I was very good at implementing the ideas of others, but that I had very little creativity. People who know me well would argue just the opposite. And it is this kind of “hit rate” that significantly reduces the credibility of profiling systems and prevents them being socially accepted.

This is why you should choose a profiling system in which people see themselves in their profiles at a level of 95% to 100%. Such a high percentage should not be achieved, however, by using vague and general descriptions which could fit just about anyone. Rather, it should be done by measuring as many individual indices as possible to create scales which are particularly meaningful for the individual. Only then can you expect a high level of social acceptability.

The personnel manager of a major corporation in Germany gave a job applicant feedback on his profile, which was based on Cognitive Intentions. He told the applicant that he would not be hired, because he had completely different Cognitive Intentions from those called for in the position. He explained briefly how exactly a person must fit the profile in order to be comfortable in the job. The applicant then thanked the manager for not hiring him. He was able to understand that he would not have been happy working in that job. This story, by the way, is not an isolated case. It shows the advantage of working with profiling systems which apply in detail to the particular individual.

2.6 “How About Some More…?”

A profiling system must yield detailed results, because results that are too broad will not be meaningful to the individual. One could, of course, limit oneself to making only two distinctions, for example, between masculine and feminine. This is normally very easy to determine. It is also very predictable over time; very seldom does it change. The characteristics are commonly recognised: women cannot park, and men cannot be empathetic, etc. Everyone knows the characteristics, and you can save yourself a lot of time and effort.

Many of the classic personality profiles measure only three to four dimensions, and then broadly determined characteristics are ascribed within them. When using such profiling systems, one must bear in mind all the characteristics of a type and then look to see to what extent a person represents that type. It becomes even more complicated when a person is a mixture of types. I doubt that it is even possible to reliably assign a type in such a case.

The problem with systems that have been reduced to only a few categories of orientation is that up to twenty generic characteristics may be assigned within each orientation. These may or may not be applicable in each individual case. Of course, there are women who cannot park. On the contrary I also know many women who certainly can. Just as there are men who can be empathetic. Some profiling systems increase their level of acceptance by being so broadly formulated that virtually everyone can see themselves in them. This makes them about as useful as a horoscope in the newspaper. (Barnum Effect)0

How would it look if we took a different path? That is, what if we measured these generic characteristics directly, instead of bundling them together and placing them in just a few categories of orientation? We also refer to these generic characteristics as Cognitive Intentions. These are Cognitive Intentions in thinking and action, and between two and five of these Cognitive Intentions can add up to a thinking structure. Thus, the sensory channels “Seeing”, “hearing” and “feeling” together make up the thinking structure “sensory channel”. To date there are just over fifty of these Cognitive Intentions. We can in turn use them to describe individual types, if we are determined to work with types.

Experience shows, however, that it is much more straightforward to examine individual Cognitive Intentions than whole types, because when working with the Cognitive Intentions it is necessary to focus only on the individual characteristics. It is an important indication of the quality of the system when interviewees, after being evaluated, can see themselves in this kind of profile to a degree of 95% to 100%. With over fifty categories, it is no longer possible to provide nebulous descriptions that absolutely no one understands. The profiles have to be very specific.

Over fifty Cognitive Intentions — that is of course very complex. And human beings, after all, are complex creatures. Above all, we should not make the mistake of equating “complex” with “complicated”. On the contrary, things become complicated when in the course of analysing them we fail to consider their complexity. This happens most often in the contemplation of male-female relationships. If, however, we take into consideration how complex something is, then what happens is something like a miracle — everything suddenly becomes quite simple (compared with before).

I believe that is exactly what Albert Einstein meant when he said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” I’d like to add: “Things get complicated, if you do not address their complexity — and humans are very complex!”

The use of an extremely differentiated profiling system has still more advantages. Let us assume that employees have been divided into only four categories, for example, red, yellow, green and blue (other profiling systems use simply A, B, C and D). You would like to help these people develop themselves further, but now you face a large problem: how do you turn one type into another? That is too great a step to take. After all, what green would want to become a red? Or what yellow a blue? Or the other way around? The employees would resist this, and with good reason, for that would be far too great an intrusion into their personalities.

On the other hand, it is quite a different thing to encourage people to change their way of thinking from being problem-oriented to being more goal-oriented in the future. This would not mean a change in their actual personality; rather, it would be a specific help in developing new abilities and therefore a step toward personal growth. And that is certainly what people want.

You just have to know what you want to look at: a simple picture, but not very detailed and having little meaning, or the true richness of life in a full-resolution picture, in which much more can be discerned? So, it is with profiling systems. When there are few categories, they furnish a rough picture; when many Cognitive Intentions are used, the result is a picture that is detailed and true-to-life. In this kind of picture people can truly recognise themselves, and from this they can derive concrete steps toward further personal development.

All the Cognitive Intentions in thinking and action mentioned above, in terms of figures, yield over 36*1018types (In case you believe in reincarnation: with 8 billion people on earth at present, one can be reincarnated 4.5 billion times before having to take a previously used profile). So, when we look at the separate Cognitive Intentions within a profile, we see not only a few boxes, but many different shades of meaning in each individual case. Thus, it is guaranteed that every person on this planet can obtain their own unique profile. From these profiles, then, it is easy to deduce various possibilities for the further development of individuals, as well as of groups and organisations.

Once again, complex does not mean complicated. The exact opposite is the case here. It is like the four pictures. If you see only 12 boxes, it is very simple, but it is difficult and complicated to discern what the picture represents. If you see the full resolution, it is a complex picture, yet what it represents can now be clearly seen. When you take into consideration the complexity of a human being, it is much easier to understand another person. One need only consider the individual building blocks in order to comprehend the whole. As a result, the person being considered does not feel that they are being evaluated and therefore they do not feel devalued. Instead, they feel that they are simply being perceived and esteemed at their true worth.

When people get along well together, it is said in common parlance that the “chemistry” between them is right. In this regard, the four usual basic dimensions of classic profiling systems are comparable with the four basic elements of the ancient world: fire, water, earth and air. By contrast, the Cognitive Intentions presented here more closely resemble in their complexity the system of the chemical elements (the periodic table) of modern times. It is exactly this complexity that allows us to formulate precise descriptions and to initiate processes of development.

As a general rule, the more similar the Cognitive Intentions of two people are, the easier it is to produce good “chemistry” between them, but the less likely it is that they will complement each other. People with similar Cognitive Intentions, for this very reason, usually make the best impression on each other. The more different the Cognitive Intentions of two people are, the greater the challenge to achieve good “chemistry” between them. This is exactly the reason why people responsible for personnel frequently hire people “in their own image”. And these are not necessarily the ones they actually need. That is why it is important to know exactly what is needed and, with this in mind, to use a profile system that can identify the right candidates.

Let us assume that there is someone who does not like to focus on detail. It then makes little sense, most of the time, to place someone to work beside this person who also does not like details. The need is far greater for someone who loves details. If the two of them do not recognise that they complement each other, then they will not value each other very highly. The one will be regarded as far too superficial in their work, and the other as too “fussy”. If they both knew how complementary they were to each other, they could apportion the work so that each would be doing what they do best. Both parties would then feel that they had benefited from this. This is why it is important for each person to understand which Cognitive Intentions they use and which another person has. These Cognitive Intentions will be explained later in the book.

CHAPTER 3

Thinking Means Deleting

Before defining the Cognitive Intentions, let us first take a look at a brief overview of the processes of thinking.

There are several different measurements which show that approximately 310 million units of information per second are constantly pouring in upon us through the various sensory channels (Manfred Zimmermann, 1993; Tor Nørretranders, 1994; David G. Meyers, 2008)2. Of this information, we unconsciously process approximately 11.2 million units. And we consciously experience a total of only 40 units per second, and, according to studies done in the 1950s (George Miller, 1956)3, (McLeod, S. A. 2009)4, our consciousness can process only 7±2 units of information at a time.

This is a huge amount of information being deleted from our experience, and our brain compensates for this. Some speak of filtering in this regard, but this is a false metaphor. A filter is something that functions more or less passively. What is taking place here, however, is a selective perception, an active process. Our brain decides what information gets all the way through into our consciousness and what does not. This can be envisioned as a kind of switchboard in the outer office of consciousness. If someone calls a person in senior management, in most cases the call will be answered by a receptionist in the outer office. There, a more-or-less friendly voice would ask the caller’s name and business. On the basis of the information given in response, it would be decided whether the call would be put through or not.

This is exactly what is happening the entire time that you are reading this book. The brightness of the light in your surroundings, the colours around you, the background noise, the flooring that supports your weight, which of your feet is warmer at the moment, the right or the left, and so on — all of this, or at least a part of this information, has just entered into your consciousness, as you read the corresponding phrase. The information itself was there all along. In the moment in which you read it, your consciousness enquired about it in its outer office. As a result of this enquiry, the command was given to the outer office, so to speak, to let the corresponding information through. This is how it happens in almost every case.

If we consider of the process of thinking as a route to be travelled, then, based on the numbers above, the length of the route would come to one metre (one yard) of conscious thinking and 280 kilometres (190 miles) of unconscious thinking, but 7,750 kilometres (5,267 miles) of perception. If someone claimed that he could consciously perceive the world just as it really is, that would be much the same as if someone looked in through the letterbox of Buckingham Palace and then claimed that he now knew Buckingham Palace inside and out.

Expressed differently, if what we perceive in one second were spread out over an entire year, then out of this year we would experience only about thirteen days unconsciously and just four seconds consciously.

3.1 Compensating for the Deletions

In this connection, it is important to realise that the perceptions we store in our memory, as well as what we recall from that memory, are subject to a strict selection process. As mentioned earlier, there is a massive deletion of information, and our brains compensate for this in three ways: focussing, generalisation and distortion.

1. Focussing the Attention

Because our perception as human beings is limited, the first type of compensation is to concentrate on what is most essential — or whatever we take to be essential. People who can bring all of their attention to bear on a single point have the ability to concentrate very intensely. Others are less focussed, and so their ability to concentrate is weaker.

For example, if someone focussed their attention fully and completely on an interesting and exciting book, they would have no mental capacity left to devote to what was happening outside the realm of the book — it would be blocked from their consciousness. It might then happen that someone puts a cup of tea on the table in front of the reader without them noticing. If this cup were truly deleted from their perception, a sort of perception vacuum would automatically be created. Of course, this cannot be. What happens instead is that the unconscious mind automatically adds something, namely, the rest of the table, which is being hidden from view by the cup.

Thus, when something is blocked out of the conscious mind and added into the unconscious, these are two sides of the same coin. It is what we call “focussing”.

Here is an extreme example of this kind of focussing: During the Bosnian war in the Balkans, a surgeon carried out a complex and difficult operation over a period of several hours. He was able to conclude the operation successfully and thus saved his patient’s life. Then he discovered that while he was working nearly half the operating room had been blown away by a bomb. In his perception, he had unconsciously taken in the destroyed portion of the room until the end of the operation, after which he perceived it consciously.

Once an image has been perceived, the brain leaves it unchanged and updates only the parts that changed. For this to happen, the change must occur with a certain speed. If a film is showing a fixed image, and items are faded in slowly enough, they will not be perceived. By the same token, it may be that with very intense concentration (focussing) on a particular event, what is outside the focus will not be updated, and scenes that are playing there will not be perceived. There is no active filtering going on here. Things are simply not being perceived (they are not even making their way into the brain) and are not being updated. The process of perception has not, as yet, been fully explained. An interesting examination of this topic can be found in the television series, “The World of the Senses”, from Bavarian Broadcasting (Germany), transmitted in 2004.

2. Generalisation