Is Your Organization Wise?

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A client of mine is a company with a lot of manufacturing facilities ––?and a lot of changes to make.

When I talked about all the changes on the horizon, one manager spoke up: “For years, you’ve been telling me to keep things safe. To make sure nothing ever goes wrong. Because if they do, people could die. And now you’re telling me to experiment? To fail fast and fail smart? I can’t do that.”

He just couldn’t hold those two concepts — safety and experimentation — in the same space.?

That’s when it hit me.

To deal with all the change, contradictions, and dichotomies that exist for leaders, we need to be able to hold them in the same space if we want to make really wise decisions.?

On Tuesday’s livestream , I shared some new ideas about how to develop that “both/and” wisdom. But first, let’s get clear on what I mean when I say “wise.”

What exactly does “wisdom” mean?

A dictionary defines wisdom as having experience, knowledge, and good judgment. Being wise is different than being smart or being intelligent ––?smart is the ability to learn new things, and intelligent is simply having knowledge, which is really the accumulation of facts, information, and skills.

An interesting way to parse these is to consider the opposites.

The opposite of being smart is being ignorant; the opposite of being wise is being foolish. That’s why I like to think of wisdom not just as something you are but something you do. You’re doing wise things. You’re making wise decisions .?

Okay, so how do you become wise? How do you make wise decisions, over and over again? How do you teach someone to be wise? Is there a way to speed up the rate at which someone gains wisdom? And why is this even important?!

What’s a “wise” decision anyway?

This is a new area of research for me, so I don’t have all the answers. Yet. (If you want to be the first to know when I have more answers, please join my newsletter community !) But I believe there are two aspects to making wise decisions.

1. Assess the situation.

How do you look at a situation and understand what’s really going on??

Leaders often tell me that the hardest part of their job is figuring out “the truth.” They’re a little separated from reality. Their direct reports try to anticipate what their leader wants to hear, so they feed them information that aligns with what they want to see, rather than what’s really going on .

Thankfully, technology has made it a lot easier for leaders to hear directly from customers, to talk to people on the frontlines, to really break down hierarchies and cut through the muck!

But it’s more than slicing through that fog.

Assessing “the truth” of a situation often requires holding two different ideas of possibility in the same space: maintaining the status quo and driving change, knowing when to persist and when to pivot, understanding when to hold and when to share power, being detail-oriented and looking at the big picture, managing in the short and the long term, leading based on intuition and data. The list of dichotomies goes on and on!

2. Make the decision.

Once you know what’s going on (especially if it involves dichotomies!), you can make a decision. And this is where experience gives you greater confidence in your decision-making abilities. You understand patterns and the likelihood that x will happen if you do y.?

It’s knowing that you have many different options –– all those opposing ideas! –– and that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s about making decisions that are driven by purpose , mission, and values.

But if people understand the reality and the optionality and align with their purpose, can they still make bad decisions? How do they fall out of wisdom?

How to keep your organization in wisdom (and cultivate more!)

The most important element is creating an entire organization that sees the reality.

Unfortunately, we’re moving away from this as a society because there’s a trend toward seeking 100% consensus and everyone wholeheartedly agreeing to the lowest common denominator before moving forward.?

But when we do that, change takes a long time. A really long time. And we end up with superficial or short-term decisions that remove nuance and don’t allow for robust solutions.?

If you want to be a wise organization, you need to cultivate the ability to hold different views in the same space. You need to agree to disagree. You need to understand that we all have different experiences and backgrounds that influence our view of the world. And you need to see that as a plus.

That way, when you’re in solution mode, you can take all these different perspectives, opinions, and approaches and still come to a good decision. You can harness the wisdom of the collective and arrive at better, more successful, more impactful decisions.?

Think of it this way: If you can make decisions that are just 10% better, what difference will that make in your organization? In the government? In nonprofits? If all leaders can consistently make more wise decisions, how much better would the world be? Wise leaders and wise decisions can only lead to wonderful things.?

Next week, I’ll be taking a look back at some of the wonderful ––?and maybe not so wonderful –– things that happened in 2022. I like to close out the year by reflecting on the last 12 months and identifying lessons I can apply to the next year. I hope you’ll join me on Tuesday, December 13 at 9 am PT for an introspective discussion about closing out the year. See you then!

Your Turn

Who do you think of when you think of a wise leader? Is it a famous business leader? Someone you work with? A teacher or a mentor? I’d love to hear who that leader is and why you think they’re wise. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments!