Ideas Rise From Multiple Perspectives
My consulting career brings me into the company of many individuals with strong values and points of view. During this highly charged political climate, I cannot in good conscience randomly express my preferences when I am serving as a catalyst and change agent. I also can’t stick my head in the sand.
As a result, I take in a lot of information from good, intelligent men and women who have strong beliefs about who they support and why. I’m not telling you anything new when I say there is a whole lot of “hate-speak” going on.
Recently, I received a gift from a current facilitating job that is uniquely challenging and engaging my interest because it is out-of-the box from my normal leadership and personal development work.
I’ve been hired to facilitate a genius think-tank that is comprised of a team of four scientists who have signed on to solve a product challenge for an international company. I’m here on the West Coast and they reside in four different time zones: The Midwest, East Coast, Canada and Brazil. We communicate through e-mail, they drop scientific papers in Google Drive and we meet together through Skype. My job is to make sure everyone plays well together, is fairly represented and that we are on point with all our deliverables and timelines.
I am having a great time. It is stimulating to have a front row seat as four brilliant minds tackle the challenge of solving a weighty problem.
The other day, one of the men shared his thoughts on some of the latest chaotic happenings in our world. “We, in Brazil, are facing many serious problems. England has Brexit. You, in the United States, have the struggle for power between the Democrats and the Republicans. As scientists, we cannot afford to be bipolar. We must adopt an expanded vision. Polypolar. We must be receptive to ideas and solutions from everywhere. We must continue to expand, incorporate and integrate new ways of solving old problems. There are always many answers to every problem. On the challenge we are currently facing, we will come up with many more than one small answer. That is the joy of this work. No matter what short-term obstacles we face, the answer is always let’s regroup and get back to work.”
Polypolar is not a word. I believe it should be. If we adopt the mental discipline to expand our vision past good, bad, right, wrong, depressed, manic, better than, less then polarizations perhaps we can elevate our thinking. With our innate imaginative abilities, we can begin in earnest the work of creating a personal and world view that feeds and supports increased levels of service to our communities, our environment, our country and our world.
Susan is a local author and personal development consultant. Reach her at: beyondintellect.com
