It’s so easy to become locked in our own worldview. In our defence we’ve probably cultivated it over years of experience and processing of ‘information’ that has served us well in navigating the various twists and turns of life. The challenge of course is the one of assumptions and mental models…both of which can create ‘prisons’ in terms of the flexibility of our thinking and degrees of openness.
Challenging our worldview and being conscious in shifting our perspective is so important in ensuring we move towards higher quality communication, greater inclusivity and unity. High quality communication in particular builds understanding and improves outcomes.
All easily said but often so hard to address as we can be blind to the blinkers that we have on. A way in which we can address this is to engage in good healthy debate. Not the sort of debate where we have to bring everyone to our view, but one where we can express our views, ask questions of the others, reflect on what we hear (through an open mind) and notice the degree to which we are able or willing to shift. Equally powerful is to be able to give credit to the others for helping to expand our worldview.
Clearly only relating to those ’like us’ isn’t going to help with that expansion. This is also where leaders like any other ‘group’ can become guilty of group think and closed perspectives. Sometimes because there’s a subtle pressure to agree, to maintain harmony or to fit in, sometimes just because it’s easier. As leaders, though, we have a responsibility to cultivate expansion and wider perspectives, to encourage constructive challenge and generate new insights. Insights that can bring innovation and creativity but which, above all, expand our sense of the ‘other’ and which, bit by bit, enable us to hold more diversity within our hearts and within our thoughts.
Some may feel some concern that by expanding we risk failing to focus and this is a possibility. However, the alternative of staying closed and overly single pointed brings greater risks of exclusion, conflict and ultimately narrow-mindedness. Our world needs creative thought, it needs inclusive and curious mind-sets and it needs a willingness to embrace difference so that we can, together, find new solutions and new ways of living.