In my work speaking to Vistage leadership peer groups around the world (mostly in the US but lately also in Singapore and coming up later this year in Kuala Lumpur) and in my programs inside organizations I often share that when I was in my mid-20’s, I was rock-solid certain that if you didn’t “see things” like I did… I thought there was something wrong with you! That is, if you came to different conclusions or perspectives or interpretations about certain events or circumstances, then you were obviously off-target or addled at best or delusional or had ill intentions at worst.
How many of us know people like that today? Either at work or at home or somewhere in between, we’ve come across people that I now like to say are operating with “terminal certainty” in their lives?
Somehow, my middle class upbringing in semi-rural southeast Louisiana ended up teaching me – although nobody ever exactly or overtly taught me this – that unless I was obviously in a state of tremendous happiness and excitement or obviously in a puddle of depression on the floor… that I was basically “objective”. Is this consistent with your experience? Did you have a similar experience growing up and thinking about how you and other people tended to “see things”?
One of the core principles of the work that has now become the central focus of my life and is a central focus of my books is this: No matter what, every single human being is always and already interpreting. Nobody has access to how anything actually “is”. According to the latest and best science (as many of you may already know) biologically speaking, we human beings simply do not have anything remotely resembling the hardware that would be required to enable us to say with certainty how anything actually “is” outside of us.
We are interpreting biologically, based on the human biological structure that we operate with (dogs have access to high frequency sounds that totally evade us… elephants can hear low frequency sounds that we obviously cannot… x-rays and gamma rays and all sorts of phenomena are occurring all around us, all the time, and these are invisible to us and we are completely unaware of this reality). This is why, of course, the frequencies of light that we can actually see are referred to as the “visible spectrum”!
Our interpretations are also obviously impacted by our emotional state at the time. For example, do you interpret the same event – the same flat tire, or the same off-hand comment, the same new opportunity or the same sales opportunity that did or didn’t pan out – differently when you’re in a mood of joy vs. when you’re in a mood of resentment? With just a little reflection it’s abundantly clear that our emotions and moods dramatically impact how we interpret, how we explain, how we “see things.”
So in a number of very important ways, we clearly don’t have access to how things objectively, actually are. All we have access to – and all we can have access to – is how things are “for us.” Said another way, we are each Unique Observers… always and already observing and “seeing things” (which has nothing to do with our retinas but has everything to do with how we interpret, how we explain, what we believe, how we conclude, how we build stories, how we create narratives) in our own completely unique ways… and while we may call it “seeing things” one way or another, all of this happens in language.
And it’s these interpretations, beliefs, stories, narratives and explanations… rather than any objective events or circumstances… that are the springboard to our actions, and it’s the actions we take and how we take them or don’t take them that lead – predictably – to the important quantitative and qualitative results that we experience in our lives.
This is now my favorite starting point for all relationships and all interactions – building shared understanding that we are each fundamentally Unique Observers. This isn’t good or bad… it just is. When you’re running a meeting, do you know who you have in front of you right there? You have human beings, right there, who are profoundly and utterly not you. And they are valid examples of what it means to be human! And it’s incredible how much they are not you!
Think about this: What would the world be like with fewer and fewer people walking around being Terminally Right? What would it be like to encounter fewer and fewer people absolutely convinced that the way they “see things” is = to the way things “actually are”?
What would our inter-cultural relations be like? What would our politics be like? What would our societies be like? What would our marriages and families and organizations be like?
What would it be like if absolutely everyone was acutely aware of the personal and social and historical and societal contexts out of which they view and experience and interpret the world?
One of my pet peeves now, in my mid-60’s, is this: I think the world today and the world moving forward need fewer 25-year old Chalmers-es! I think the world needs fewer people walking around being Terminally Right. One of the expressions I use as I think of myself back then is: Sometimes wrong, but never in doubt!
Author Kevin Ashton says it this way: “Confidence is belief in yourself. Certainty is belief in your beliefs. Confidence is a bridge. Certainty is a barrier.” I agree 100%.
Vistage chair extraordinaire Artie Isaac shared with me a bumper sticker that he encouraged me to use in my workshops when covering topics such as these… and the bumper sticker reads: “Don’t Believe Everything You Think!”
Legendary leadership author Jim Collins shares that in his research, what he terms Level 5 leaders’ organizations consistently outperform others. So what is a Level 5 leader? He says: “Level 5 leaders display a powerful mixture of personal humility and indomitable will.” That is, they know they don’t know everything!
Here is an interesting paradox I’ve come to experience over the past 20 or so years of my life, and my question to you is have you experienced the same thing? The paradox is this: Some of people that I consider to be the dumbest people I’ve ever met in my life are rock solid certain about many things… including many of life’s most difficult and complex questions and issues. And some of people that I consider to be the most insightful and intelligent live with ongoing questions and doubts and uncertainty and mystery about many important things.
One final point and what I think is a beneficial distinction: Being truthful (little “t”) isn’t at all the same as claiming to have The Truth (big “T”). Being truthful = I share with you my actual interpretations, my actual thoughts, my actual explanations and beliefs and stories… and I share them as my interpretations, thoughts, explanations, beliefs and stories. And I also am happy to share with you how I came up with them, my rationale behind them, how I generated them, how I authored them.
This is radically different than someone claiming to have The Truth! That is, someone claiming to have knowledge of how things “objectively, truly, actually are”. One of my teachers, long ago, shared this with me and I’m happy to share it now with you: When we encounter someone who claims to have The Truth (not someone who is being truthful)… but who is claiming to be a conduit for “how things really are”… get ready for a demand for obedience to follow closely behind.
I hope you have found these distinctions and “ways of seeing things” helpful, either professionally or personally or both!
I wish you well, on all fronts, and remember: Never Stop Learning!
In gratitude
Chalmers
