Just Beginning to Understand

What happens when we allow reflection to orbit diversity of thought? Not one, but multiple thinking systems at first glance disconnected.

Let's find out.

Or rather, begin to understand.

Two books on my bedside table: Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein's Noise, and Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now.

One centered around what can go wrong in human judgement due to bias and noise, with a focus on tangible outcomes; the other centered around suspending thinking and embracing consciousness in the present, with a focus on the intangible joy of Being.

Having just started a personal reflective experiment based on the parallel book reading of Noise and The Power of Now, I entered a state of fascination that prompted (the pragmatic writer in) me to sit down at my desk, go back to different passages in the two books, and share some reflections with you here.

Imagine no noise, no gravity, no air and - in the absence of a sun - no light. Space.

I've always found the thought of "space" rather calming, and felt drawn to documentaries like BBC's Astronauts. Do you have what it takes? or A Year in Space. On the one hand, the immense expanse, the stillness, the silence. On the other hand, the noisy human beings we are, with our noise-adding interpersonal dynamics, the power play, the push beyond mental and physical boundaries.

Now, experiencing the thought of "space" is very different from experiencing being there. Within distinctions like this (which happens to be external) lies what Eckhart Tolle describes as the (internal) process of "watching the thinker." Ready for the mental jump?

The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by "watching the thinker," which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence.

and he continues

When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in through the back door. You'll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.

[...]

This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking.

[...]

That presence is essentially you and at the same time inconceivably greater than you. What I am trying to convey here may sound paradoxical or even contradictory, but there is no other way that I can express it.

"Watching the thinker" is a first step in learning how to "disidentify from your mind" as described in The Power of Now.

And here is the notable attempt to understand human judgement through Noise:

Wherever you look at human judgements, you are likely to find noise. To improve the quality of our judgements, we need to overcome noise as well bias.

Noise - described in the book as "systemic deviation and random scatter," one of the key sources of human error, along with bias - becomes particularly alarming in medical diagnoses, child custody decisions, personnel decisions, bail decisions, forensic decisions, or patent-granting decisions, to name just a few.

In real-world decisions, the amount of noise is scandalously high.

Noise permeates all human judgement.

Let us pause and reflect on the noise permeating our thoughts at work and in life.

In my corporate career, I experienced alarming levels of noise in two areas: personnel decisions and facilitator development. The first as assessor at the start of my career in Learning and Development; the second in one of my recent roles.

To reduce the noise in the second context, my considered response (and long-term strategy) has been:

• first, to build, test and refine a skill assessment framework to rely on during the assessment process. Setting that up can take anywhere from 1 to several months, depending on framework complexity and thought partnerships available to you (a nod to Valerie Arnold, Shruti Dhupia, Sally Rhodes). My lessons here: welcome the early challenges and being challenged as opportunities to grow, and think like an entrepreneur or intrapreneur in the process (a nod to Reid Hoffman).
• second, to take time (in this case I delayed my intuition for up to 2 weeks) to analyze and provide thorough feedback, closely following the dedicated skill assessment framework. Taking time to revisit and confirm my initial "in-the-moment" intuition, cross-checking with others, asking for external counsel or a second opinion were equally important and worth pursuing, in spite of ongoing work bandwidth pressures.
• third, to actively sustain a growth mindset throughout (a nod to Carol S. Dweck), and treat facilitators like their better, future selves from the outset (a nod to Atma Anur, Frances Frei and Anne Morris). By the way, the same works for team members and colleagues across teams.
• fourth, to follow-up and build relationships and a stronger community in the process (a nod to Carole Robin, David Bradford and Rob Cross). In this particular context, I was able to follow up and build on various feedback collected over a relatively longer period of time (6 to 12 months and above). This confirmed that the commitment principle "you get out what you put in" does work, without fail, for everyone involved. And so is saying "no" when appropriate.
• fifth, to go beyond the process and elevate the current thinking. Make room for the future (a nod to my Agile greats Jon Kessel-Fell and Stijn Follet, who live by the "people over process" principle). How does that work? Delight, surprise and engage the minds of the people in your community or the relationships you created. Use someone like Richard Barton and his brilliant videos freely available on YouTube to spark innovation, challenge existing assumptions, listen to others and address key pain points about how we learn and how we approach learning. Lend an ear to Michael Bungay Stanier's advice-monster-taming tips through his podcasts, talks and interviews; also, do check his brilliant books The Coaching Habit, The Advice Trap and the one coming up that I can't wait to dive into. Give a voice and multiple platforms to your coaching champions. Lucky to count on Evelien Bonebakker, Jennifer Paylor and Tecla Palli-Sandler and their teams for our common goal of making coaching widely accessible to managerial roles.

Beyond the scope of work, what would lie at the intersection of

• accuracy maximizing through conscious noise reduction and
• rising above thought to reach a state where, according to Eckhart Tolle

you still use your thinking mind when needed, but in a much more focused and effective way than before?

Is there such an intersection?

If there is, then that is where creativity, our joy of Being and vital energy spring from.

Wisdom would be resting there too.

To quote Eckhart Tolle one last time on the enlightened state of rising above thought

When you do use your mind, and particularly when a creative solution is needed, you oscillate every few minutes or so between thought and stillness, between mind and no-mind. No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in that way it is possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power. Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive.

There are many other authors, artists and thinkers who, very much like the ones above, light our path to wisdom.

Four more names come to mind that I would like to mention with gratitude before closing.

Leader and coach Natasha Wallace is the author of The Conscious Effect. 50 Lessons for Better Organizational Wellbeing, where she connects wellbeing with the concept of Conscious Intelligence, under the umbrella of conscious leadership. My personal gratitude for the thoughtfulness and care in sharing her book.

Editor of the Oxford Review David Wilkinson never ceases to impress me with his utmost respect for quality in research, teaching, community building and pretty much everything he does. A constant source of learning and wonder, David combines rigorous, refined, low-noise thinking and a fascination with serendipity in brilliant ways.

I got to know Katie Elliott and Sophie Stephenson in the context of a Little Gathering on the topic of Transformative Listening organised by Katie, with Sophie as a guest. Truly enjoyed learning from how they both listen and engage in open, non-judgmental ways within what Nancy Kline calls the "thinking space."

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Thank you all for lighting up multiple pathways to wisdom.

See you on the way there!