The noted physicist David Bohm used to say, "Normally, our thoughts have us rather than we having them." That is why when we're learning something new outside the programming of our brains, we can feel awkward, incompetent, and even foolish.
"Group think" is the continual, albeit often subtle, censoring of honesty and authenticity in a group of people.” Groups are naturally coercive: they need shared norms and shared ways of thinking and seeing to function effectively. But problems arise when the collective censor goes unrecognised by the team members.
When an individual within the group faces the unfamiliar, s/he almost immediately encounters the "fear, judgment and chattering of the mind" that Michael Ray calls the "Voice of Judgment." Ray, creator of highly popular Stanford Business School courses on creativity, starts with three assumptions:
1. that creativity "is essential for health, happiness and success in all areas of life, including business",
"Group think" is the continual, albeit often subtle, censoring of honesty and authenticity in a group of people.” Groups are naturally coercive: they need shared norms and shared ways of thinking and seeing to function effectively. But problems arise when the collective censor goes unrecognised by the team members.
When an individual within the group faces the unfamiliar, s/he almost immediately encounters the "fear, judgment and chattering of the mind" that Michael Ray calls the "Voice of Judgment." Ray, creator of highly popular Stanford Business School courses on creativity, starts with three assumptions:
1. that creativity "is essential for health, happiness and success in all areas of life, including business",
2. that "creativity is within everyone" and,
3. that even though it's within everyone, it's "covered over by the ‘Voice of Judgment."
Ray believes that we can consistently bring creativity into our lives by ‘paying attention to it’ and by building the capacity to suspend the judgments that arise in our mind, comments such as, "That's a stupid idea "or "You can't do that" or “that won’t work here”, that often limit creativity.
When we allow ourselves a willingness not to impose pre-established frameworks or mental models on what we are seeing, fresh ways to understand a situation can eventually emerge.
When we allow ourselves a willingness not to impose pre-established frameworks or mental models on what we are seeing, fresh ways to understand a situation can eventually emerge.
Breakthroughs happen when people learn how to take the time to stop and examine their assumptions and beliefs.
Source: "Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future" by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworsk and Betty Sue Flowers
For more on creativity and developing mindfulness, check out Michael Carroll’s "The Mindful Leader: Awakening Your Natural Management Skills through Mindfulness Meditation.”
For more on creativity and developing mindfulness, check out Michael Carroll’s "The Mindful Leader: Awakening Your Natural Management Skills through Mindfulness Meditation.”
