26 July 2010
Successful Intentions Newsletter
Hi ,
Where did all the wisdom go?
These days, the presence of wisdom in business, government and every day life seems to be thin on the ground.
The word wisdom has been superseded by newer and better words and phrases such as strategic thinking, IQ, emotional intelligence, management skill, leadership capability, and so on - none of which are actually interchangeable with wisdom but have somehow come to replace it both in name and in function.
So what exactly is wisdom, and why would we need it?
Wisdom, in its simplest form, is our ability to make the best possible decisions when faced with a dilemma. The best decision is one that affects all parties positively - the term common good springs to mind.
Psychologist Barry Schwartz says that wisdom is predicated not just on moral skill, but on moral will. You might have the balance of empathy and detachment necessary to make a skillful moral decision, but without the moral intention, you may instead make decisions that serve your own interests.
This is often the case in business Schwartz says, where the moral rhetoric is at odds with the behaviour. Further to this, we now rely so heavily on rules, incentives and what we call ethics all wise thought has up and left the building! As long as we behave according to the code of ethics (a misnomer itself because an organisation's ethics are often self-serving), we are performing in the best interest of everyone involved right?
Practical wisdom is how good leaders combine their moral skill and moral will to make decisions with discernment, compassion, and reflection on what will bring about the greatest amount of good for the most people.
But how do you assess for moral will and how do you train leaders to acquire it?
You may know I have been researching, publishing and presenting in the psychology of wisdom for several years. Earlier this month I presented my framework at the Inaugural Wisdom in Management conference hosted by the College of Business and Economics at the Australian National University.
As wisdom seems to be independent of both IQ and personality it acts much more like a competency. So wisdom performance can be learnt, and measured. With this framework, colleagues and I have devised a way to measure wisdom performance, that is, the extent to which individuals respond wisely to a business or life dilemma.
My practice to bring wisdom to every decision entails a measure of "decision preferences" plus a constructed "five-minded" dialogue:
- Intentional Mind - to recognise your personal motives, preferences and goal-directed intentions, both in the short-term and the long-term,
- Rational Mind - to draw from knowledge and experience and identify the key variables to consider in reasoning the best outcome,
- Intuitive Mind - to acknowledge the intuitive feeling of the decision while at the same time avoiding premature certainty and framing effects,
- Reflective Mind - to reflect on the decision within a broader social, ecological and historical context, and
- Moral Mind - to articulate the likely impacts of the decision on stakeholders, while having the courage to stand by your own core values.
Who knows where this initial foray into wisdom measurement and performance could take us. But if the feedback from the Inaugural Wisdom in Management conference was anything to go by, bringing wisdom to leadership could well be the next move of your HR department!
Download the slides of my presentation here: "Virtuous Decision Making: How To Bring Wisdom to Life for Leadership"
, what do you think? Have your say on my "Wisdom Circle" blog for musings, research, and applications of practical wisdom!
Keep your intentions clear,
Peter Webb
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