Coaching practices for Agency Thinking and Pathways Thinking
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Agency Thinking and Pathways Thinking, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I can see paths forward but I just don’t believe my effort will actually go anywhere anymore
- I had exactly one plan for getting where I want to go, it hit a wall, and now I’m completely stuck
- Our conversations just wander wherever the loudest voice takes them, and whole angles get skipped while we overcook others
- My team keeps landing in the same wrong place no matter how we tweak our actions, and it’s dawning on me that the real problem is some unspoken belief we all just take as how-the-world-works
- Every approach I come up with sounds like me, because I keep ruling out anything that doesn’t feel like something I’d do
Practices that may help
- Build agency thinking through small wins
Agency — the belief you can move toward the goal — is rebuilt by doing, not by deciding.
Hope Theory: Agency, Pathways, and Getting Unstuck - Generate multiple routes to the goal
Map at least two viable pathways before starting — obstacles block single-path thinkers cold.
Hope Theory: Agency, Pathways, and Getting Unstuck - Blue hat: manage the thinking process itself
Step back from the content to manage which hat is needed next — the blue hat is the meta-thinking conductor.
Six Thinking Hats, Made Practical - Surface and test the mental models driving behavior
Make the assumptions behind decisions explicit — they are often the root structural cause.
Systems Thinking - Ask what a specific other person would do
Step into a named other’s perspective to access approaches you would not generate as yourself.
Oblique Strategies, Made Practical - Run a structured team morphological session
The method is most powerful when multiple perspectives populate the dimensions and values.
Morphological Analysis, Made Practical - Break associative barriers through randomness
Introduce random stimuli — words, objects, images — into your problem-solving sessions and force connections.
The Medici Effect: Innovation at the Intersection - Concept fan: map the solution space before picking a direction
Expand from specific solutions to the broader concept behind them, then generate alternatives at the concept level.
Lateral Thinking, Made Practical - Lead from the strategic thinking domain — absorb and analyze information
People strong in strategic thinking keep the team focused on what could be, not just what is.
Strengths-Based Leadership, Made Practical - The Action Method, Made Practical
Scott Belsky’s Action Method, developed at Behance, argues that most productivity systems fail by treating all captured content equally. Its core move is to classify every piece of information into one of three buckets: Action Steps (things you do), References (things you might use), and Backburner Items (things you might act on later). Only Action Steps advance projects. The system is practitioner-designed and well-used in creative industries; formal evidence is limited.
Related concerns
- Big Picture Thinking
People strong in strategic thinking keep the team focused on what could be, not just what is.
Lead from the strategic thinking domain — absorb and analyze information
- Challenge Assumptions Lateral Thinking
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
- Edward De Bono Lateral Thinking
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
- Hope Pathways Thinking
Map at least two viable pathways before starting — obstacles block single-path thinkers cold.
Generate multiple routes to the goal
- Lateral Thinking As A Caregiver
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
- Lateral Thinking With Friends
Lateral thinking, coined by Edward de Bono, is a set of deliberate techniques for disrupting habitual thought patterns so that a problem can be approached from an unexpected angle. Unlike vertical (logical) thinking, which deepens the current line of reasoning, lateral thinking deliberately abandons it to find a new entry point. Evidence for specific techniques is largely observational and practitioner-reported; the underlying cognitive principle — that breaking pattern-lock enables novel solutions — has support in creativity research.
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