Hierarchy – Good for Learning, Bad for Leadership
The brain loves to make new connections. New connections are of course new associations. When associations are random in nature they are easily misplaced (in the brain as well as in your filing cabinet) and thus easily forgotten.
Therefore as far as learning and remembering are concerned ‘ordered’ associations are best. Hierarchical ordering of associations is the way the brain can most quickly absorb and retrieve information.
A hierarchical arrangement of ideas allows the brain to quickly move between different levels of meaning. To quickly ‘zoom out’ to the big picture or to zoom in to the a component or detail.
The most effective tool for helping us to pre-order or re-order any new and existing associations is the Mind Map (by the way NOT spider diagrams) basically because one of the ‘rules’ of Mind Mapping is to order information in this effective hierarchical way.
If you live in the UK and you want to learn how to be more effective as a learner, check out my Mind Mapping and other workshops here
Hierarchy is however bad for business because it leads to ‘command and control’ mentality (see here)
