– That you learn to live together in a world full of differences.
– That you expand your consciousness beyond what you ever imagined, and you do not need any external stimulus to provoke it.
– That you respect and assume that being different from you is simply that: choices different from yours.
– That there is no single view of things, the world, work, problems and their solutions: there are multiple alternatives to explore.
If your company has mental breadthreflects that:
– You will lead with team awareness.
– You will develop skills beyond the classic ones.
– You will allow coexistence and cooperation with different generations where everyone will learn from each other.
– You will project this vision of breadth inside and out in every decision you make.
However: mental breadth cannot be forced. People don’t change under pressure. They only do it if they want to. And this conditional is determining whether or not to adhere to the transformation processes. It can be encouraged, but not forced..
Cultural traits of the past versus new innovation paradigms
In many cases, today’s society encourages a certain cultural homogenization, a process by which a certain type of culture attempts to dominate or invade another. If this occurs, over time cultural features of the original will be diluted, and it will merge with something more global, homogeneous. In itself, when individuals have the option to choose what they want to do (the principle of free will), there is nothing wrong with this. The problem is when someone else imposes it on them, even knowing that the person does not want it that way.
What does this have to do with having open-mindedness? It is directly related, since the person with a broad mind stands by his values, beliefs and determinations, and, at the same time, can understand those who see things differently and perhaps even completely opposite.
By incorporating an expanded vision of the world, the situations, the problems, the scope and framing of the most diverse issues, The individual with mental breadth is displayed in a more assertive manner. He stops being on the warpath wanting everyone to think like him or adhere to his postulates, and simply flows with what he feels, living empathetically with others. When the moment requires it, he marks his position and is determined in his postures. He is firm in his convictions.
Likewise, the person who has this quality learns to let go of control, and incorporates other thoughts and ideas from others; He makes them converge (flow with the other) and evaluates his own paradigms by incorporating different points of view.
“The mind is like a parachute: it only works if it is opened.” said Einstein. And, saving the distance, he would also add having an open-minded heart, willing to receive and embrace the new.
In companies: the challenge of innovating with mental breadth
Perhaps one of the most recurring problems in today’s culture is that which arises from wanting to innovate by doing something new “barely”; It’s like wanting to dive into the sea and just put your big toe in to feel the temperature of the water.
Innovation is total, or it is not. At most it can be a change. This is why mental breadth is essential in current and future work, and in new business cultures.
Organizations that do not transform themselves by making old paradigms more flexible are destined to disappear. The same thing happens with collaborators.; In fact, in the companies I work with there are always a handful of people so tied to their beliefs from the past, their history in that organization, their work rituals from decades ago, that they do not dare or contribute to promoting the transformations necessary to grow. .
The 5 secrets to having mental breadth
Both in people and in companies and organizations, these keys will be helpful to get out of the status quo pre-established and move to new forms that promote permanent innovation:
Promote critical thinking.
This type of thinking applies to people, a business, entrepreneurship and a company. It consists of the ability established in the project culture that facilitates analyzing, arguing, applying logic and reasoning to solve problems and make decisions. It is just the opposite of defining things mechanically, the famous “it’s always been done this way here.”
Critical thinking leads people and teams to reflect, leaving behind pure theory, and focusing on making better decisions.. In the process, each person is encouraged to be able to organize and present their ideas, express what they feel about it. (integrate emotional management) and relate the information and processing obtained to conclude the most appropriate determination.
To achieve this, the “Critical Thinking” it feeds on mental breadth; Otherwise, it would be extremely complex to reach agreements.
Develop a culture of the different.
The acceleration of current changes fully involves people and companies and challenges them to expand their visions about their role, commitment, taking positions and other forms of interaction in the social fabric.
As in everything, the resistance to changesince in order to create cultures that integrate the disruptive -as it is also called-, it is necessary to make paradigms more flexible, understood as those deeply rooted beliefs that make one insist on the same paths, even if one no longer obtains the results that one knew decades ago.
A valuable contribution that the new generations of work make, especially the Centennials (approximately encompasses those born from 1996 onwards) and Millennials (they came into the world around 1980 to 1995) is that they do not get carried away by limiting labels in the bonds, relationships and preferences of all kinds. This is why, when they live with other older generations, they tend to clash. Those of us who are older need to learn much more from them.
Integrate the diverse.
Related to the previous point, the integration of diversity in the same spaces (works, cities, countries) marks a trait of great influence in the determination of new cultures, from which people and companies are nourished. There is so much diversity of tribes living together and generating pulses that make transformations, that we need to learn to live together, respect and integrate.
One way to do this is to take some common elements, build bridges between them, enhance them, mix them and create new meanings and valuable experiences with which these diverse audiences identify. Then, work on detachment, since inevitably what has been achieved will also be transformed soon, since they are inevitable cycles of evolution.
As an example, in my work as a team coach in organizational development, I design and facilitate methodologies and frameworks that consider this diversity in all its extension and breadth, ranging from the care of language codes, respect for ideological dissonances or discordances and philosophical discussions and sharing when differences appear that seem insurmountable. That is my professional role in these cases, in addition to helping “things happen” in terms of clear, concrete, precise, tangible objectives. The process is integrative.
Join the dots.
When Steve Jobs gave his famous speech at Stanford University, developed the concept of “connect the dots”, extremely valuable to understand what it means to have mental breadth.
The founder of Apple narrated salient aspects of his life there. Among them, he said that his adoptive parents wanted his son to go to university. And so did Steve, who abandoned his initial career at Reed after six months because he couldn’t find meaning in his life, despite spending all the savings that his parents had made with great effort to send him to study in a very prestigious center. In order not to discourage them, he slept on the floor of his friends’ room, and discovered a lost calligraphy course that changed his life forever. But at that time I didn’t know it.
He just found out ten years later, when he created Macintosh, the first computer with multiple fonts and great aesthetic beauty; It is what we know today in new versions such as the Mac, which forever changed the paradigm of what a computer was.
“Connecting the dots” means that there will be many personal and company experiences that will not make immediate sense; Not everything has an explanation. You have to accept it. In perspective, if you connect the dots backwards, in the future you will realize why you had to live that experience.
“You cannot join the different points looking forward; They can only be joined facing rearwards. So they must trust that somehow the dots will connect in the future. They must trust in something: their guts, destiny, life, karma, whatever. “This approach has never betrayed me, and it made all the difference in my life,” said Steve Jobs.
Allow error.
At this point in the world, people punish themselves for their mistakes when trying to develop their actions and projects in which they have applied their greatest effort. good intention. I highlight the good intention, because, of course, there are others who have done it fully aware of the damage that encouraging failure for the sake of it can cause. It’s like playing soccer on a team and always choosing to kick against.
The same thing happens in companies, where many of them punish and sanction when in the process of evolution and innovation, a collaborator makes a mistake or fails.
In disciplines such as science or elite sport – I know this because I work with figures and references such as their career coach -, Error is valued as an unavoidable part of success, of achievement. Hence, it is essential to change this chip as the only thing it achieves is to annul people, or, in the best of cases, make them work in permanent terror for fear of doing it wrong.
Trial, trial and error need to be revalued while following innovation processes. To do so, we need to apply mental breadth to not sanction, but rather redirect creative energy towards an experience of lessons learned that not only nourish the people, but the entire group.
There are very few companies that have a systematized learning from error program; It is something that I invite you to develop, since it provides concrete benefits in the internal development of knowledge management.
With these guidelines, both individually and in companies, greater mental breadth can be applied specifically. From that perspective, the growth horizon is infinite.
Facilitator and Master Executive Coach specialized in senior management, professionals and teams; mentor and professional communicator; international speaker; author of 32 books. LinkedIn Top Voice Latin America. ICF certified professional coach at the highest level, Certified Coach, Member and Mentor in Maxwell Leadership, the John Maxwell team.
Source: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
