Cognitive flexibility: five questions to practise

Cognitive flexibility involves considering another perspective and changing your approach when there is a reason to do so. In her 2013 review, Adele Diamond describes it as an executive function that includes shifting perspectives and adjusting to new demands. For an everyday decision, a useful starting point is to ask which facts could change your mind.

The five questions below use a single work example. They are prompts for examining a situation, not a diagnostic test or a validated cognitive-training programme. Choose a task where you keep reaching the same conclusion without getting the result you need.

What facts support your first interpretation

You sent a proposal to a client and have not received a reply after a day. Your first thought is “It is too expensive; I should lower the price immediately.” Separate the observation from the explanation: there is no reply yet, but you do not know why.

Write two lines: “What I observed” and “How I interpreted it.” Check whether the first line includes an intention the other person has never expressed. “The client is not interested” remains an interpretation until you have evidence for it.

What other explanations fit the facts

List a few plausible alternatives. The client may have missed the email, be waiting for a colleague, be unclear about the scope or genuinely find the price unsuitable. Listing possibilities does not make them equally likely. It gives you questions to distinguish between them.

For each explanation, identify an available check. Confirming receipt answers one question; discussing the scope answers another. You do not need dozens of theories. Stop when you have different explanations that would lead to different actions.

What can the other person see

Read the proposal from the perspective of someone who needs to approve it. Are the outcome, deadline and included work clear? Then test your assumption with a question such as “What information would help you discuss this proposal?” Imagining another perspective can open a conversation, but it cannot supply the person's answer.

You could also ask a colleague to identify parts of the document where they had to fill in missing details. Specific observations are easier to act on than “It looks fine” or “It is unconvincing.” Our guide to using feedback explains how to turn a comment into a change you can check.

What would make you reconsider your preferred option

Before acting, record a reason to revise the plan. In this example, you could first confirm that the email arrived and the scope is clear, then discuss changes after the response. If the client explicitly identifies the price as an obstacle, you have a basis for considering that issue.

Ask another question: “What observation would count against my favourite explanation?” If every possible answer leads back to the same conclusion, make your criterion more specific. You do not need to reopen confirmed constraints simply to produce more opinions.

If the options differ in timing and consequences, use our guide to decisions when plans change. It includes a separate step for checking which options are acceptable before choosing one.

What changed after you checked

Keep a short record of the original explanation, your check, the response and your revised decision. Suppose the client was waiting for approval and asks you to divide the work into stages. A clearer proposal structure is then a useful result; the immediate price reduction may have been unnecessary.

Look for observable changes: asking a clarifying question, considering an alternative or correcting an assumption. Getting faster at a puzzle does not by itself show that your work decisions have improved.

In their 2016 review, Simons and colleagues found much more evidence that the examined brain-training programmes improved trained tasks than that benefits transferred to everyday cognition. They also identified methodological limitations. Improvement in a game should therefore not be treated as an automatic improvement in decisions generally.

Connect what you learned to the actual change you face: what needs to be done differently, who needs to agree and when you will review the result. Our practical guide to adaptability takes that next step.