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"If we have any power to diagnose, we are bound to recognize that the so
called ills which so afflict us all are, above all, growing pains."

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Good morning from the midst of spring showers in Vancouver!

I've been reading a great book called "The Social Animal", by David Brooks http://www.ted.com/talks/david_brooks_the_social_animal  . In a nutshell it's a parable about how we  humans make decisions.

What's fascinating is the science; biology, neurology, and chemistry, that the author uses to explain what's going on in the human mind as we make decisions. For the past 400 years we've assumed that people are rational and that we make our decisions based on reason and fact. The science says, not so much!

We are rather making decisions largely unconsciously, and then making up stories to rationalize why we made the decision. A way of thinking about this, riffing on Brooks’ language is that there is a huge difference between our mind and our brain.

Our brain is the organ with its various connections and synapses. Our mind is a much, much bigger system that incorporates what the poets might call our heart and souls. It is the place for example, of imagination. To borrow from Brooks, our logical brain might be able to determine the square root of 8, but our imagination can have us imagining ourselves to be a tiger, or a Prime Minister in milliseconds. And it is the imagination part that is the far more complex and amazing part of us. A computer can determine the square root of 8, but it cannot imagine itself as a tiger or a Prime Minister, that is a human trait.

From a leadership perspective, this puts a whole new spin in the vital work of changing one’s mind. I can, for example, ‘educate’ you so that your rational brain understands the physics of flight. If however you mind is made up that airplanes are ‘too big’ to fly, you’re going to have a very uncomfortable flight, if you even get on the plane in the first place. The same is true in introducing a new idea or change into an organization. Charts and graphs showing the ‘logic’ of the idea are at best interesting, but what we need to focus on is changing people’s minds, not their brains. One of the most important ways of doing that is to speak to the persons’ mind, to their heart and soul, to their imagination. And we do that most powerfully by a compelling story, and especially the story of ‘why’. Why might be that we’re going to be a better place to work, or a better community, or we’re going to change the world for the good, or we’re going to challenge the status quo, or cure a disease, or rebalance injustice. It is those stories that will change our minds.

But first, we need to change our own minds, long before we can change someone else’s!

May this week we all might change our own minds.
 
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