By way of reminder…
We human beings, as we’ve evolved over time and through adversity have come to the conclusion that what most elevates us above our primate friends, is our ability to hold rational thoughts and to make complex decisions. The more that I study the brain, and btw, we know very little still today, about that puppy up there, the less convinced I’ve become of this fact. In fact, according to a variety of neuroscientists, we know about 10% of what they believe there is to know about our brain. So, most of what you read and study about the brain will evolve into mere fiction in the years and decades to come. So, why bother?
Because you need to know…
Humans are NOT primarily rational beings. Study the brain, study how decisions get made, study your decision patterns, study your leaders’ decisions, and here’s what you will find. We humans are primarily rationalizers.
Once we think we know something, we form a mental model in our cranium that allows us to shortcut the process. Our brains love shortcuts. When we see the same set of circumstances that we saw a decade before, at a different company, in a different industry, under different leadership, we assume too much. We become, if you will, “prisoners of our preconceptions.”
We do not make a rational decision. Instead,we rationalize our way to deciding the same thing we decided decades prior. AND, we then congratulate ourselves on our brilliance. This is how the untrained brain works. And most of us don’t even fight it. In fact, most of us don’t even know it’s happening. Most of us just keep running, in the same direction we’ve always run, and just tell ourselves that we’ve got to go even faster.
AND, to make matters worse, once we’ve become a master or a respected expert, or a leader in our field, we are prone to every experts fatal flaw…
PRIDE.
Pride of ownership, pride of being right, pride of being the go to guy all sets us up for the vice of closed-mindedness, of dismissing dissonant thoughts, possibilities, and other people with rapidity. This brain is “rutted” and doesn’t even know it. AND, in the coming stormy climate, nobody is that good. Nobody, in this coming decade, will be able to compete with everybody.
Everybody will win.
The team that brings everybody’s thinking to the board room, the team that brings everybody’s thinking to the field, the team that brings everybody’s thinking to “carpet and to the concrete,” the team that brings everybody’s thinking to the factory floor and to the showroom too, the team that brings everybody’s thinking regardless of their worldview, regardless of their age, regardless of their skin color, regardless of their dress, regardless of their quirky manners, regardless of their offensive behavior (at least offensive to me), and regardless of their unique differences from our culture, is the team that will be unified as ONE. ONE team that is BUILT TO LEAD.
This is the team that will own your space.
This is the team that will make the best decisions. NOT because they had the smartest mind in the seat of CEO. I mean head, I guess. The reason this team will own your space is simple and yet so hard. Because they had the most diverse set of minds and they had a leader that allowed dissonant views to not only be heard, but actually encouraged them and mined for them, they will win. Because they leaned into their tendencies, they will win. Because they heard the melody line through all the din and clangor and noise of this age, they will win. This team will embrace the real, hard, work of practice. They will practice, practice, practice. This discipline will unify and align them. This discipline will energize them. This team, aligned and energized, will innovate their way right on by the competition. This team will appear as ONE, even though in reality they will be a collection of individuals, teams, and leaders just as you are.
Still don’t think you need to know more about your brain and the brains around you?
Could it be that you are………….
rationalizing?
Tell me more, my friend.
Tell me more.
BUILT TO LEAD 