Enthusiasm

With recent news about Cataclysm’s revamped views on raiding (http://www.wowhead.com/guide=cataclysm&pve#general), there has been questions recently in the guild regarding whether we should continue forward as a 25 man raid guild of stay a small, focused 10 man raid guild.

While in some ways I say getting to 25 man size has been a bit drama inducing, once we get to the 25 man size, there will be significantly less drama than there has been recently. Fact is that much of the drama recently has been due to people not being able to get into raids, either due to only one 10 man running or the logistical nightmare of running dual 10 mans and failing at it.

In 25 mans, you get better loot distribution because generally you have one of every class at the raid. This means there is little to no chance of gear getting sharded and in turn progression is a lot smoother because weeks don’t go by where no one (or very few) get an upgrade. In 25 man, many people get upgrades because everyone can use something. Sure it makes loot distribution more complicated, but if you have a nice loot system like ours (which has turned out very nicely), then loot is distributed fairly with little to no drama.

Another thing too, if we just give up on the idea of doing 25 mans for cataclysm, then I would have been A. lying to all these people I’ve been recruiting recently that I plan on continuing to move the guild forward as a 25 man raid guild B. would be forced to say goodbye to many people who will not be happy in a guild that reserves itself to always being a 10 man guild and C. the guild would have to shrink a lot, to as little as 20-25 people (it’s around 88 right now) before we get to the point where there will be no drama.

Finally, I think that running a small group of 10 people, while that sounds fun… it’s pretty boring after a while. I’m sure that it’s fun for those who are progressing right now and pushing 10 man content with almost the same 10 people every week, but if you did that for an entire expansion… it would just get old. People would crave that 25 man content feeling. I know I would. My class isn’t built for 10 mans. I might as well reserve myself to always being shadow if we decide to give up on 25 mans or switch to Disc instead of Holy.

I feel we should stick with the plan to move to 25 man raiding. It’s definitely a major goal I’ve been striving for as a guild leader.

BLOG NEWS: On a side note, I’m going to try to blog at least Monday / Wednesday / Friday for now.

Every once and a while I like to reflect on what I enjoy most about what I do. It’s kind of interesting to look through all of my experiences, previous self reflections, and currently where I am in my life, career, etc. Most of all I think about my experiences and which of those experiences I get the most fulfillment from, whether they are technical, managerial, or leadership oriented. Of all of my experiences in both personal and professional, I think that I enjoy any kind of managerial / leadership position where I’m helping a team build and perform. Mostly, I love supporting others.

Leading a strike team of developers on CPWeb over a 6 month process to resolve security flaws in a decade old web product. My time as an alpha medic, representing the players of Tabula Rasa, communicating to the developers on how they could improve the class. My experiences as a Admin / Developer / GM of Obsidian, helping shape a world for other players to enjoy. The ongoing saga of and all that guild has meant to me, leading a community of players who have like minded, respectful, play style. My attempts to start a leadership resource website for MMO leaders, giving them resources to learn how to be better leaders and write articles on leadership styles and techniques and my conversation with John Kotter about the idea and his support of the concept. All the volunteer work I’ve done to help small business, organizing volunteer efforts for work, and helping provide feedback to how we can improve our respect for remote colleges in a globalized corporation. My time as a manager of software development, both improving my product, managing a small team of developers, and all while making vast improvements to the product and customer delight. My attempts at leading an independent game studio to develop an XBox 360 title with a team of people spanning the globe from the UK, to the east and west coast of the US. If you really want to boil it down, my role as a healer in an MMO is because I enjoy being in that supportive role, helping others succeed.

All of these accomplishments I’m deeply proud of. All of these accomplishments have a central theme: they involve leadership and supporting others.

I think it’s always good to sit back and reflect on Lessons Learned after going through a training, especially training focused on soft-skills. Last week I took 4 different courses on “Leading the IHS Way” and while nothing was particularly mind-blowing, there were a lot of little things that added up to some profound processes, new ways of thinking, or even some things I learned about myself.

Personal Strategies for Navigating Change
This was a very interesting class because it was a mix of managers and individual contributors all sharing their own personal ways they cope with change. Probably the biggest take away from this course was the recognition of the four different types of ways people deal with change, how I personally deal with most change, and how I can help others navigate change when I’m either in the driver’s seat, co-pilot, or just early adopter of change (aka a “Navigator). Most of the time I’m the Navigator but often times I don’t take the time to properly assist Victims, Critics, and Bystanders on their way to accepting and embracing change. Recognizing that sometimes I need to put on the breaks and slowly help people catch up to my mindset is important or else I’ll sometimes I’m sure just make things worse.

It was also nice to be able to recognize how I’ve been personally dealing with the recent changes in my role. I’ve been bouncing around between the Victim, Critic, and Bystander a lot recently. There’s a lot of fear, doubt, doubt in others, doubt in the objective, and may other things which has been making me bounce around, stress me out to the point of complete and total physical shut down (my recent neck troubles), and it’s just not healthy. I NATURALLY want to be on board with change. I NATURALLY want to be an influential member driving change. When I’m not, it’s uncomfortable and I want to be in that zone. I think the most important thing is that when I’m being a Victim, Critic, or even a Bystander, I need to focus on the positive and trying to channel all my energy into positive action. It will make me the most happy and before I know it all my critical questions will be answered, I won’t feel like a victim because I’m delivering positive results, and in the end things will work out.

I’m so positive all the time that when I’m not positive, it’s hard to come out of that shell. It’s not something I’m used to doing. So this book has really helped me personally deal with change when I am in that mode. It has also helped me lead others even more effectively.

Behavioral Interviewing
This was a great course without a lot of spin. Simply put it REALLY for the first time brought to home for me some of the concrete ways on how to conduct a behavioral interview. I think before I was a decent interviewer, but I focused too much on hypothetical questions. I quickly saw the power in how to ask behavioral questions properly and what to gain out of it. I also liked the quick reference guide on avoiding illegal and unethical questions. Overall, great book that I’ll dust the cobwebs off of next time I have to interview someone.

Feedback for Accountability
I was most excited about this course because I had hoped it would be the answer to all my problems. Unfortunately I think I over inflated it a bit too much so I was expecting… more or something, but I think in the end this course combined with the two others on change and leadership really turned into a total package of tools I can use to properly lead change in a more concrete way. See the thing is that I understand good leadership philosophy. I also understand good leading change processes as taught by John Kotter, but even Kotter is a bit too high level sometimes so you get lost in philosophy and not action. This and the other two courses focused on real concrete things you can do.

This course in particular focused on how to REALLY drive candid conversations and make agreements that were open, honest, and binding for which you could if necessary follow up on for proper re-commitment, confrontation, coaching, or if necessarily take other steps to follow through on the accountability of that agreement. It also gave me further opportunity to really focus on how to control my own emotions in a conflict by focusing on the other person’s emotions. I know I’m an emotional person and I feel the other person’s emotions as well, but I don’t always do a good job of validating those emotions. Sometimes I’ll even get upset because someone’s expressing their feelings “like I don’t know that or something”. I need to be more reflective and not immediately jump to tell them that I know and here’s the solution.

Overall I think that the biggest take away from this course was how to not bruise and not bail. I want to really stay in the “candor mindset”, middle zone where I can be upfront and honest, but not be blunt about it. I think that many times I use my natural charismatic leadership style as a crutch. 80% of the time I’m really successful in my ability to motivate and lead people, but it’s the 20% of the time I don’t have a framework on how to deal with. I get frustrated and either bruise my way to get my point across (if I think I can “win”), or I bail and then send someone a gigantic email later that day or the next. In the end, I honestly do want a collaborative “win win” solution to the agreement, but it’s my passion that gets the best of me and either I bottle things up or explode (or both). This course really taught me a structured way on how to stay objective and come to an objective, win-win agreement without getting overly emotional on either side.

The Principles and Qualities of Genuine Leadership
As previously stated, I recognize and try to embody the principles and qualities of genuine leadership. To be honest with you, I initially thought this course was going to be the biggest waste of time but attended initially for the “fun” of it. I was dead wrong. This course was fantastic because again, it gave a good framework on how to “respond” to a challenge using leadership principles so in a way your ACTIONS show the principles and qualities of leadership.

I thought the exercise with the “Response Cards” was so good that I took them because I thought that they WERE The big take away from the training. It’s great to take a scenario you are dealing with and just use the cards as brainstorming on how you’re going to effectively lead your change, help people navigate change, create a change vision, or even how to properly form agreements with large groups of people. I think it’s great to line up the individual actions with steps in John Kotter’s framework on leading change.

Overall what is so powerful about the cards especially was they took something as big as the problems I’m facing in leading some kind of common whatever we want to call it, and it allowed me and others to objectively come up with a strategy for leading that change.

I was asked to day by someone today, who I highly respect:

What do you want to be doing?

I didn’t really have an answer for him. Partially because I don’t even know how the cards will fall and what the reporting structure and new career paths will be when things are done. Right now the best I can tell anyone is what I DON’T want to be doing.

I made a conscious effort many years ago to pursue a role in some kind of leadership or management position. I enjoy it. I was given the opportunity. I think I shined in my role I’ve been taking in the last year. Overall, there are very few things I think I would have done differently. Anyone who REALLY knows me, it gives me a lot of personal pleasure helping guide a team, large or small, to an inevitable victory. I get the most pleasure from assisting others than doing individual things myself. While individual accomplishments are great and all, I’d rather see the whole team succeed (of course that includes my success too, I’m no martyr). I think in some level once you’ve reached a certain point in your career, you need to have ownership of something bigger, something visionary. I’m well past that point today. I mean, look at why I keep getting guild leadership on my lap so quickly. I’m hedging bets right now on how long I’ll be in Heretic before I’m approached about becoming an officer.

On top of my personal level of enjoyment in leadership and management, I also personally believe that I’m not all that great of a developer. I know I keep bringing this up. I know that many people SAY that I’m an amazing developer who does wondrous things, has a grand mind for architecture, and has an amazing combination of skill sets… I don’t know I don’t believe it. I think I’m a mediocre developer with lots of crazy ideas and some of those pan out to be good ones and that makes people notice me. As a “skillful” developer, again I think that I struggle keeping up with all the new moving parts and changes to technology. I know enough to be able to come up with vision and product prototypes, but I’m not really great at producing something… well I guess I am. Yeah OK, I am what everyone says, but I think I’m much better at other stuff. I have more POTENTIAL in pursuing a position with some kind of leadership component to it.

Most of all, I don’t want to be an individual contributor on a team that simply writes common components. That’s not fun to me. I don’t think that would have ever been fun for me, even in my early career. I’ve always enjoyed owning a single product or core piece of a product, than writing behind the scenes common components?!? I’d rather be an individual contributor on a single product that I can have some shared personal ownership of something that’s being given to a customer. I’d rather be the leader of a common components team. I’d rather be an individual contributor on an architecture team, due to the fact that even individual contributors on a team like that help guide other teams, assisting them improve how they do things. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overly thinking things, but I’ve never been on a team that built common components for consumption in other products. I really don’t think I’d enjoy doing that work. Maybe leading it, but not being an individual contributor.

Sigh. What’s worse is that as part of my final 2 courses for school, completing in 5 weeks now, I’ve been HAVING to update my resume and talk with career advisers. It’s bad enough that I’m pissed off about how horribly my pay has been handled at work, it’s worse that I have people at my school reminding me of the fact that with my degree, grades, and experience I shouldn’t have to take this crap. The problem is that at the end of the day, I LOVE the company I work for and I think they will do me right eventually. I’m just not sure how much longer myself or my wife can stomach “eventually”.

Right now I’m trying to focus on our yearly user conference next week. I’ve been preparing screen mock-ups of the next release for presentations and working on concept screens of the new development we’re planning for 2010. Hopefully the cards will fall sometime in the next week or two. Maybe once the OTHER stuff is set in stone, things will be easier to see how I fit and where I want to be. Right now, being a nomad in no-man’s land is not fun.

As soon as I thought life was going back to normal, well it wasn’t quite normal anymore.

I’m in my final classes finishing my degree finally. Career development and my Senior Project. School stress is coming to an end and less than 7 weeks now and I’ll have my degree. Most likely I will be graduating with a 4.0 gpa with highest honors.  I’m done moving into my new house and pretty soon I’ll have 2 wonderful kitties. I’ve given up on guild leadership and joined a well established guild (http://www.pakcafan.org) so there’s no more stress  in my gaming life anymore. In theory I should be at probably one of the lowest stress points in the last 3 years right now, but I feel like I’m at the peak of it.

My role at work is also changing and it’s probably one of the most stressful career changes in my life. I’m not quite sure how to put it in words what I’m going through. Whenever I’m confused and stressed, particularly at work, I look to HBR and John Kotter.

Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there; they cause change. They motivate and inspire others to go in the right direction and they, along with everyone else, sacrifice to get there. - John P. Kotter

Sacrifice is something that I’m familiar with. But right now I’m starting to wonder if I’m sacrificing too much. I’ve been challenged with a pretty tough new role in the company, but I feel like while I’m putting in a lot into this role people aren’t giving me the support I need. My role isn’t being well defined and on top of that, there’s no real promotion I’m getting with this role change even though it’s more responsibility and stress. I mean I could deal with an ambiguous job description with the right pay or I could deal with continuing to be screwed on pay if there was a concrete job description and level of empowerment / responsibility. I also feel like there is a bunch of stuff people… one person in particular… isn’t telling me. I don’t like being treated like a mushroom. I continue to press forward in my new role, trying to establish vision, coordinate with others, and make myself and the entire domain successful, but I dunno… something is missing. Maybe I should be patient. Maybe things will just work themselves out. I just… don’t know what to think right now.

My general mood is rather manic right now. I swing from overly enthusiastic, ready to face the challenge head on to really self doubting, depressed, stressed out, and pissed off. It’s a very odd feeling. I want to stay positive, but meh. We’ll see. We’ll see…

One of the purpose of 360 degree feedback is to help coach people on their perception problems. If you sit back and think about top performers, high potentials, or whatever you want to call them, these individuals are generally the model citizen or at least they try to be. Sometimes people have concrete problems like personality flaws, technical or skill gaps, or in most cases in technical people, communication problems (communication is not an engineer’s strong suit).

I feel that I time manage reasonably well, multi-task reasonably well, do have some skill gaps that I’m always improving, and while I do need to continue to hone my personal style and communication skills (as we all need to), in general I don’t have a lot of concrete personality flaws. I have a few minor personality flaws, but they all stem from a concrete “flaw” if you could say it is one is my natural tendency to get hyper focused on something and be OVERLY enthusiastic and sometimes off putting to some people. One’s greatest strength inevitably is their greatest weakness.

But my real problem I continue to struggle with I think is perception. Perception problems are a tricky thing because reality is in the eye of the beholder. I can’t change people’s point of view, but if I understand their point of view I can help influence it, yes? Of course step one is understanding who’s having the perception problem and their point of view. Once I understand people’s point of view, then I can find the source of the perception problem and change something usually indirect that changes how people are perceiving things.

People perceive my intentions, my motives, my actions, my communications, my gestures, etc incorrectly. I’ve been accused of looking “angry” before by a simple eyebrow gesture. I’ve been accused of being intimidating when I was being curious. I’ve been accused of being cocky when I’m simply confident. I’ve been accused of “needing to win” in an argument when I’ve been trying to educate. I’ve been accused of being pontificating when I’m trying to energize people about something. I’ve been accused of being distracted when in reality I’m focused. People who really know me well and those who know me even reasonably well know that I don’t ever intend to come across that way, but rather that I give the perception of such. Perception is not something you can touch or feel, it’s something you have to look at yourself from the outside to figure out.

All of these perception issues stem from the over use of my strongest natural trait, my enthusiasm. I try to temper it as best I can, but I’m an emotional person and when I get excited and passionate about something (which I always do), then my enthusiasm kicks in to high gear. I also tend to lose it when I’m being challenged or pushed into a corner and I’m trying to passionately defend something I feel strongly about.

Since I’m on a self-reflective honesty streak, yes, I get defensive. This is not news to anyone who has read my blog, especially for a long time. It is another bad side effect of being passionate about something you believe in. In some ways I also have some control issues, probably still stemming from … well just read some of my blog posts with the Health tag. I don’t know maybe I’m over that, maybe not.

I need to come up with some techniques to not necessarily CHANGE my nature because one cannot change their nature when it is so extreme as mine. The best I can do is channel my natural tendencies in a more… mutually agreeable fashion. One of the ways I can do that is make sure that whatever cause I’m fighting for, whatever goal I’m passionately pursuing, whatever objective I’m pushing myself to complete, that it’s something that everyone has full buy-in for.

I think my biggest mistake in recent time is getting overly passionate about a cause that not everyone was truly bought in on. Some people said they were bought in on it, but apparently they weren’t and now I’m getting myself into trouble. Makes me wonder if some of the other causes I continue to fight for are really supported by everyone or if I’m fighting other battles that are a lost cause.

Keep in mind that I admit I’m wet behind the ears. On the other hand I do feel I’ve been around the block and am at least well studied on management techniques, HR methodologies, and leadership techniques. I would say I have the most personal experience in leadership and it comes very naturally to me and I while I understand management and HR techniques, it’s not so natural so I tend to stumble. One thing I AM capable of doing most of the time is recognizing the different mechanisms in the system and processes in the organization and realize how they are designed and why they are designed that way.

It’s mid-year review time so I’ve been noodling about a specific technique in performance management that I’ve gone quite a bit into detail on in multiple classes during my time achieving my bachelor’s degree. There are many strategic reasons for a two pronged performance management system such as the one at IHS, one part which has a positive leniency error and one with a negative leniency error. What I mean by that is that every person has a certain amount of leniency or strictness. People are really lenient, really strict, or somewhere in between. Depending on the performance management process, it will either work well for people who are lenient or people who are strict. If you use a two pronged system, it will balance out based on whether the person is super strict or super lenient.

• Strict people are generally focused on RESULTS. So an objective based system is agreeable to managers who are strict. They will grade people really harshly or really well as appropriate based on their results. On the other hand, lenient managers will struggle with an objective based system because they don’t want to give “good” people a “bad” grade. So lenient people will generally put “meets expectations” across the board for all people unless there’s something REALLY out of place.
• Lenient people are generally focused on EFFORT and SOFT SKILLS. So a core competency is agreeable to managers who are lenient. They will grade people really harshly or really well as appropriate based on their efforts and soft skills. On the other hand, strict managers will struggle an effort based system because they are so results oriented. So strict people will generally put “meets expectations” across the board for all people unless there’s something REALLY out of place.

So if you use a two-pronged system it should balance out. The problem occurs when either A. the systems aren’t appropriately balanced or B. managers forcefully “monkey” with the system to make the outcome what they wish. When either of these things occur the checks and balances of leniency is destroyed and people who have leniency short comings are not caught. Now I will step back for a moment and suggest that the two systems might not actually have to be perfectly balanced. For example, if the company was TRULEY results oriented, they would put a heavier weight on the object based side of the system vs the competency side.

What is important is that people not “monkey” with the system. In a two-pronged system, everyone will be uncomfortable with either one side or the other side of the system, but at the end of the day that’s what makes the system work. You need to stick to the rules of the system, grade people the way the system tells you to grade, and the human factor will be counter balanced by the system. I don’t know maybe I’m arguing my own point in circles. Maybe the system is designed so that even if people monkey with it, in the end it ends up being balanced. Who knows…

The Facts
Satellites Show Arctic Literally on Thin Ice*:

• Satellite monitoring of arctic ice began in 1979
• 2008-2009 winter had the fifth lowest maximum ice extent on record
• Six lowest maximum events recorded have all occurred in the past six years (2004-2009)

*Source: NASA (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic_thinice.html, 04.06.2009)

What is causing the accelerated melting of the Arctic ice sheet?
Potential Conclusions or Hypothesis

1. This is just part of the natural cycles of the earth
2. Volcanic and other tectonic activity has caused temperature changes in arctic ocean temperatures
3. The steady and constant increase in global CO2 production has caused global climate change due to CO2’s greenhouse effect

Discussion
On the basis of my personal and professional knowledge of global climate change, these are the facts that I know regarding the natural cycles of the earth and man’s “unnatural” influence on the natural order of things. Personally this is an important topic for me, being environmentally conscious, but professionally this is an important topic because I manage the development of Environmental Cap & Trade software, so I’m well versed in all the supporting information like the Kyoto Protocol and global legislation regarding climate change.

1. There is a natural order and cycle of the earth that results in global warming and global cooling cycles, but these cycles happen over a long period of time, generally over hundreds of thousands of years.
2. CO2 and other green house gas producers and reduces are the primary drivers in global warming and cooling.
3. CO2 has been globally recognized by the Kyoto Protocol as one of the 4 leading green house gas contributors to global warming.
4. Man has increased the production of CO2 globally, consistently, and at an ever increasing rate.
5. Volcanic and tectonic activity might be contributing but there is little data to support this hypothesis.

These natural and unnatural systems seem to be in conflict. I believe that this is both a natural process, but also man’s influence on the natural process is worse than some people would like to believe. The change we are seeing is faster than earth scientists believe can be explained simply through natural systems. Therefore, I select the final hypothesis as the most likely reason for the accelerated melting of the Arctic ice sheet: The steady and constant increase in global CO2 production has rapidly increased the speed of natural cycle of the earth, causing accelerated global climate change.

Supporting Argument for the Thesis
Earth scientists agree that the “natural” cycle of the earth is as follows. During an ice age period of hundreds of thousands of years, the global ice sheets advance as global cooling occurs. Once they advance, more and more trees are killed by advancing permafrost. Less trees means less CO2 reducers and the global CO2 amount increases dramatically over hundreds thousands of years. Once CO2 levels are high enough, more solar radiation is trapped in the atmosphere, global warming occurs and the ice caps recede and trees advance north. The cycle repeats itself.

Man has changed the “natural” cycle of the earth by the following actions. Burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil based products has advancing the rate at which CO2 is generated in our atmosphere. Not only has it accelerated, but if it wasn’t due to recent efforts by global governments, the rate would be increasing more and more every year. Countries like the US and China continue to advance the rate of CO2 production year after year. On top of CO2 production, man has also deforested, reducing the amount of CO2 reducers globally.

Climate change is a *hot* topic these days. Arguments continue on both sides of the table, but people have begun to see the global effects of climate change. This change has affected our agriculture, ocean currents and weather patterns, coral reefs have begun to die due to temperature increases, and worst of all we have begun to see increases in global sea levels. Countries are beginning to make legislature change recommended by Kyoto Protocol. Even the United States, one of the largest CO2 producers in the world, has presented The American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009, which would meet and exceed the suggestions of the Kyoto Protocol within the United States. Global climate change is real and the world is beginning to realize and support my hypothesis that CO2 production need to be reduced to bring balance back to the natural order of things. 

*Note: I originally wrote this as part of a logic and critical thinking assignment for school, but decided to post it here as well.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I don’t take compliments well.

Especially when I get compliments on something like what I did last week. Getting that architecture document and presentation done, in my opinion, had to be frackin’ done. I busted my hide for the better of the team, company, and frankly for my stress level. I wanted to get that out because I had talked about it, and talked about it, and talked about it, and even though I wanted it to be more collaborative than it ended up being, frankly I got to the point where I didn’t goddamn care anymore. I got it done and asked for feedback afterward.

So when I got compliments from Tim, Andrew, and other people in the office, I guess I could only respond with “I did what I felt like had to be done” or “I just wanted to get shit done”. I dunno. Maybe I need to take compliments more. Maybe it says something about my own insecurities. Hell I don’t even feel the document / diagram is really all that amazing, although people have said as such.  I mean I’m proud of the work I did on it. I’m am glad that people are complementing on the work I did. I guess the best compliment that anyone could give me is ACTION. I want to see something happen now. I guess it’s an action speaks louder than words concept. 

You know… to think of it. I’m feeling the same way with my guild. Skies, one of my officers, complimented me last night on all the hard work I’ve been doing recruiting last Friday through Monday. I was happy to be recognized for my hard work, but what pisses me off is that she says that, but do I see her doing her job in the guild? Do I see her creating and organizing PQ and other Tome Event activities? No. Actions speak louder than words. If you are really excited and happy about all the hard work I’ve been doing, then show me you care by helping keep those recruits by organizing events and helping evaluate them for membership.

Going back to the work related thoughts, I really think that action will take place here. That’s when I’ll get really excited and feel that the actions match the feedback I’ve gotten. If they feel the vision is “really really cool”, then they need to act upon it.

From one of my readers who sent me a PM:

I was reading your cybervic blog earlier about “You think a lot” and I wanted to comment on it. Considering there’s an issue with me being able to post the comment on your blog (why, I have no idea), I figured I’d write it here.
Thinking a lot can be interpreted in many difference ways and you can see example of it by observing other people.

(Perceptive) For instance, someone with a lot of time on their hands might start thinking about random stuff. If their work is mostly physical, their minds have lots of time to think and, for a lot of people, it seems to be a get-away drug for their monotonous lives. Half the time, it’s philosophical and the rest is normally about how things work.

The key thing here is understanding that thinking a lot, in their case, does not make them wiser but more perceptive.

(Analyst) Some people have the tendency to consider every possible outcome before executing a task. They plan things out and will often go in denial if something unexpected happens. This is what most people refer to when they talk about thinking.

(Elaborator) There are those who over-analyze things and they are often found being annoying to those around him/her. They are either slow to respond or are extremely vague in their answers. Nonetheless, they understand that answers are never as black/white as others believe and they’ve taken the time to think and analyze in detail to give the most accurate answer. They’re often incapable of giving a “yes” or a “no”.

(Worrywart) Thinking a lot can also mean that someone worries a lot. It’s a form of paranoia, I suppose. “If I put a glass of water at the edge of the table, chances are it won’t fall but the possibility still exists therefore the glass of water should be moved elsewhere.” A mother hen is also a good example.

There are great thinkers all around the globe. From philosophical, to analytical, to all the way to a mother reminding her kids of their dental appointments while she finds the time to pack their lunch-boxes for school.

You DO think a lot, but what KIND of thinker are you? I am merely a graphic artist, but I’d say you’re a [A-W-E-P].

Anyways, my 2 cent.

P-S. I’d say I’m about [E-P-W-A]