What is an open mind? A mind which welcomes new ideas. A mind which invites new ideas in for a visit. A mind which introduces new ideas to the company which has already arrived. A mind which is most comfortable in mixed company. A mind which prizes silence and reflection. A mind which recognizes that later is often better than sooner. An open mind is somewhat like silly putty. Do you remember thatwonderful ball of clay-like substance that you could bounce, roll and applyto comics as a child?
An open mind is playful and willing to be silly because the best ideas often hide deep within our minds away from our watchful, judgmental selves. Although our personalities contain the conflicting voices of both a clownand a critic, the critic usually prevails in our culture. The critic's voice keeps warning us not to appear foolish in front of our peers, not to offer up any outrageous ideas, and yet that is precisely how we end up with the most inventive and imaginative solutions to problems. We need to learn how to lock up the critic at times so the clown can play without restraint. We must prevent our internal critic from blocking our own thinking or attacking the ideas of others.
An open mind can bounce around in what might often seem like a haphazard fashion. When building something new, we must be willing to entertain unusual combinations and connections. The human mind, at its best, is especially powerful in jumping intuitively to discover unusual relationships and possibilities. An open mind quickly picks up the good ideas of other people, much like silly putty copying the image from a page of colored comics. The open mind is always hungry, looking for some new thoughts to add to its collection. The open mind knows that its own thinking is almost always incomplete. An open mind takes pride in learning from others. It would rather listen than speak. It loves to ask questions like, "How did you come up with that idea? Can you tell me more about your thinking? How did you know that? What areyour premises? What evidence did you find?"
The open mind has "in-sight" - evaluating the quality of its own thinking to see gaps which might be filled. The open mind trains the clown and the critic to cooperate so that judgment and critique alternate with playful idea generation. Ideas have at least three major aspects which can usually be modified and improved:
1. Ideas are based upon premises of one kind or another. Many people come to their ideas (judgments or conclusions) without ever explicitly examining the premises which lie underneath those conclusions. Premises are basic beliefs which act for an idea as the foundation of a building or the roots of a tree. Collections of premises are often called assumptions or mind-sets (Drucker, 1992) or paradigms (Barker, 1992) or mental models (Senge, 1991). Sometimes our thinking comes to us already packaged without our even knowing which premises and assumptions lie below the surface, butan open mind knows that all such premises must be re-examined with some frequency to see if they are serving us well and truly match our basic belief systems.
2. Ideas are based upon evidence. Many of our ideas emerge from experience. We collect data, look for patterns and seek laws to help uspredict the future. Unfortunately, we all too often collect evidence electively. Once people begin to hold an idea, research has shown that they begin to screen out data which might create dissonance, evidence which might "call into question" the value of the idea. An open mind looks at thequality of its evidence with the same dispassionate attitude it applies to its premises and assumptions. Mindful of the three little pigs which built houses of straw, twigs and brick, the open mind seeks bricks and mortar which can withstand the huffing and puffing of the most aggressive wolf.
The open mind asks, "What evidence do I need to gather? Do I know enough? Has anything changed since I last gathered evidence? Is there new data? Is my data complete?"
3. Ideas are based upon logic. Our conclusions and ideasshould flow from logical connections between our premises and our evidence. The open mind keeps asking of its ideas, "Is this logical? Does this makesense? Does this follow from the evidence I gathered? Have I identifiedall the key factors?
Random Advice: Keep all this in mind. An open mind is a key to understanding the world.....
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