The extra-Ordinary Leader with Dolly Waddell

Dolly In My Pocket Ep7: Think Differently: The Two Modes Your Meetings Are Missing

Dolly Waddell Season 4 Episode 15

Welcome to Episode 7 of Dolly in My Pocket, where we dive into one of the most overlooked elements of effective collaboration: how we think together.

We often enter meetings with agendas, pre-reading, the right people in the room… but there’s almost never an agreed approach to how we should be thinking and communicating in that space.

In this episode, I introduce two essential modes of thinking:

  • Divergent Thinking – expansive, open, idea-generating
  • Convergent Thinking – narrowing, critical, decision-making

We explore:

  • What goes wrong when teams mix the two without clarity
  • How to introduce "thinking objectives" into your meetings
  • Why this approach increases both creativity and efficiency
  • How personality types naturally lean towards one mode — and how to flex between them

If you’ve ever felt frustrated in meetings where ideas get shut down too fast - or where nothing ever gets decided - this is the tool you didn’t know you needed.