THINK IN CATEGORIES BUT NOT CATEGORICALLY

When you first learned to think and to talk, you thought in terms of categories. Mom or dad offered you a specific item— and then categorized it by putting it into a classification. “This is a toy.” You learned about items that were food items. Some things could be eaten and other things could not. There were some things that you could do and that were permissible, and then there were things that were not. As you learned about items, you simultaneously learned about categories. “These are play clothes; these are school clothes.” You also learned to put activities into certain categories.

To think in categories is to use a system of classification for thinking. It enables you to sort things out. It also prevents becoming mentally overwhelmed. You learned the 26 letters of the alphabet: A B C D E F G etc. The letters are the members of the class, the classification is the alphabet. Most of us learned the letters by singing them until they became a single unit. Even today you may not know what letter comes before, say Q, unless you back up and say the letters in before Q. It’s in this way that we can overcome the severe limitation of conscious awareness— the 7 +/-2 bit of information at a time.

But thinking in categories is not the same as categorical thinking. Categorical thinking is defined as “being without exception or qualification, absolute.” That’s a very, very different thing! Here then is a critical distinction, the distinction between categorical thinking and category thinking. To think categorically is to think in absolute and rigid terms. Categorical thinking has been called Aristotelian thinking because it assumes that categories are absolute. It confuses the map with the territory. “It is X, period.” End of story. This primarily describes the thinking of a child who has just discovered some category and does not have the cognitive flexibility to recognize that we are the ones who do the categorizing and that anything can be put into multiple categories.

I bring this up because of the importance of category thinking. It’s essential for clear and precise thinking about the variables in a given field. It answers the first question of meaning which we all ask, “What is it?” That is, how should I categorize X? This is also critical for being able to work with the meta-levels in your mind. After all, over the years you have been building up a set of categories which now make up the frames of your mind. They make up a matrix of frames. And while we have many in common, we also—all of us—have unique and idiosyncratic categories.

Take something as simple as making a mistake in writing or saying something. What category do you put that item? Do you have a category called “failure?” Perhaps you put it into the category of “learning.” Maybe the category of “human fallibility.” The category you put it in determines what it means to you. That’s because the category is your frame. It is your internal mental context which you use to “make sense” of things. And the amazing thing about human beings—we have multiple

levels of categories.

There is John, a person. Categories that we all share would be as follows. John is a “man,” and “man” is in the category of “human,” which is in the category of “mammal,” which is in the category of “animate being” (not inanimate thing), which is in the category of “sentient beings,” which may be in the category of “life” or “living,” etc. These levels of classifications or frames enable us to sort things out and have multiple members of a class. And because they operate as logical levels, it enables us to think more clearly about things.

This is how we learn. It describes an essential aspect of learning. First you learn some items in a field, then you learn the first level categories. After that you may perhaps learn of other members of the class, as you become familiar and knowledgeable about a category, you become ready to learn about the meta-classification, and all of the other higher categories, all the way up.

Today I was asked about how I think about and keep in mind the Well-Formed Outcome questions and distinctions which we use in Meta-Coaching. I said that I think of them in terms of 6 categories (although you could set up less or more categories). So, for example, to set a goal you first have a Subject, a Context, Processes, Supporting elements, a Decision, and Closure. Then within each there are typically two to five detailing questions in each category. So to learn how to benchmark, a person needs to know both the category and the kind of questions in each.

Thinking inductively: What questions would help me get the subject as a category? How many ways could I ask questions about the category of the subject? Thinking deductively: What category would X-question fall into? It would be a member of what classification?

When I start a coaching conversation, I want to know the subject. To attain that I could ask, “What do you want to talk about?” But that’s pretty wimpy. So I strengthen it, “What do you want?” That’s a bit better, it puts the focus on the person and the object. But I could do better. “What generative change do you want to make?” “What would be the most transformative change that would be a complete upgrade in your life?” All of these questions are questions about the subject. If you are watching a coaching session, and especially if you are benchmarking one, you have to engage in category thinking so that you know how to think about the question and where to put it. “What is the category of this question?”

So while categorical thinking is extremely limited and more often than not, an ineffective thinking pattern, thinking in categories is essential if you want to be a clear and precise thinker.