Why Abstract Thinking Matters in Entrepreneurship
Leveraging abstract thinking to communicate effectively
Bringing ideas to life with motivated teams is one of my favorite parts of working. There’s no feeling as gratifying as seeing teamwork create something greater than you alone could have produced.
Unfortunately, the synergistic nature of teamwork does not always magically happen. There are a few lucky cases where the stars align and everyone is on the same page, but more often than not, teams consist of people from different backgrounds and life experiences. Communicating effectively with a team, therefore, usually requires elevated thinking, deliberate strategizing and empathetic, mindful messaging.
One strategy I have found consistently helpful in guiding teams to work independently on long-term company-wide initiatives is leveraging abstract thinking prior to communicating. Abstract thinking refers to our ability to analyze underlying cognitive frameworks that govern concrete realities. Some examples of abstract thinking include our ability to conceptualize, theorize, organize information, create narrative structure and any other invisible insights we are able to gather from the real world.
In conventional education, we are taught the value of abstract thinking. We step back to see the key elements of various subjects in school and flesh out our cognitive frameworks accordingly.
However, in the real world, especially in entrepreneurship, we are quickly taught that we need to prioritize on-the-ground operational execution, rapid testing and trial-and-error rather than abstraction. Hypothetical models and stepping back to look at things abstractly, while valued, is often dismissed as overthinking, not representing reality or moving too slow.
With the focus on lean, iterative and operational processes, it’s easy to understand why abstraction and stepping back to put decisions into context can be de-prioritized. It’s the classic tension of urgent vs. important that Stephen Covey and so many others have discussed in productivity literature. And while operational priorities and urgency can move things quickly for a small team over a short period of time, leveraging abstract thinking becomes important for facilitating clear communication as our teams grow larger and more independent from the core team.
One reason abstract thinking is so powerful is that it forces leaders to analyze the causal reasoning behind their decisions and create narrative structure.
Entrepreneurs often, knowingly or unknowingly, begin their journeys by leveraging effectual reasoning. Unlike causal reasoning which requires a team to have a clear and straightforward goal to work backwards from, effectual reasoning encourages teams to start where they are and allow goals to emerge organically. While effectual reasoning helps an individual survive the volatility of early stage startups, it does not always force the entrepreneur to step back and look at the causal patterns of their decision making.
The bottom-up process of effectual reasoning is unlikely to hold to the rigor of not only new team members, but also any investors, customers or outsiders who have not seen the company’s emergence from day one. For example, there have been many times where I have considered changing a key feature of a product based on a series of subtle hints of frustration such as body language or indirect comments from the customer. While that operational experience alerted me to a problem, I needed to think abstractly in order to accurately assess whether that change aligned with the current market requirements, broader industry trends and ultimately decide if it was worth incorporating. Without accessing abstract thinking, I could still take action and change the feature, but the decision may not resonate with my team and could cause division.
The need to analyze information holistically, step back to look at the bigger picture and clearly outline causal reasoning becomes incredibly important as the team grows and the stakes get higher.
Another reason abstract thinking enhances communication within teams is that it can facilitate an emotional connection to the company’s journey.
Abstract thinking not only forces leaders to organize their causal reasoning, logic and structure of decision-making, but also helps with other key components of team unity including storytelling, a shared vision and emotional connection.
Encouraging emotional connectivity to a goal is arguably one of the most compelling ways to foster creativity and produce a team’s best work. For example, when onboarding new team members, we never only share their immediate role or their specific day-to-day goals, we also provide the story behind the problem we were looking to solve, what specifically inspired it, why we felt it was worth doing and the company’s long-term goals.
The purpose of this type of introduction is to bring our team members along on our journey with us and invest them in our purpose and mission. In this way, abstracting effectively communicates empathy, understanding and fosters inclusivity for your team. While not everyone on the team is always there on day one, abstract thinking can make everyone feel like they are a part of the mission and can connect with the underlying decision-making.
All of these comments on abstraction may seem obvious but executing them effectively and consistently is harder than it sounds. In many startups (including my own for a while), entrepreneurs develop an intuitive logic guiding their business decisions based on prior experience. This operational and intuitive compass is usually not clear enough to connect with teams. As companies grow from early-stage startups to small, medium and large businesses, the need to connect with a wider audience grows.
I chose to articulate this concept here as a way to crystallize an insight that I had been informally noticing in my behavior within my own teams. Leading and connecting with people, is in my experience, one of the most impactful ways to produce positive change, see results and build trust. The importance of doing it effectively cannot be underestimated.
During this process, I came up with a series of questions to ask myself before speaking with my teams to leverage abstract thinking and communicate more effectively:
How can I summarize my idea in 1-2 sentences?
How can I elaborate on my idea and break it up into different subsections (in detail)?
How can I connect the subsections of my idea to my summary? Are there discrepancies, disconnects or anything unclear?
What are some critiques of my summary and breakdown?
Have I provided my team with complete and accurate information?
Are there different ways I can reframe my decision-making process?
What are the different roles of my audience? What are their typical frameworks for thinking? Am I addressing those frameworks in my current method of communication?
There are a number of additional questions one could ask - this is just a starter list, but it gets to the heart of the matter that abstract thinking forces us to put our best logic forward. It not only applies in theoretical models or academia, but also in the real world. The future belongs to those who can leverage abstract thinking effectively to guide their teams.