Embrace the grey

I’m a few days away from turning 50, and so I recently asked someone a few years older than me if they had any advice for me. Their response: “Embrace the grey!”  

I have no idea what they meant*, and so I am interpreting that to mean: enjoy the fact that life is full of complexity. Sit with that. Relish that complexity; stop looking for black/white answers.
* erm, yes I do

Yes or No?
Right or wrong?
Stay or go?

Here in Australia, we're about to participate in a referendum, which is providing a live example of what happens when you pose binary YES/NO decisions. I notice people bypassing the nuance of conversation, instead leaping to adopt any argument that suits their case. This might give us a feeling of certainty - something we crave - but it’s an illusion, because we ignore all the stuff that doesn’t suit us. 

In the quest to make quick decisions - or to side with one vote or the other - people clutch at anything that’s convenient, not what’s sound. After all, debate and considered thinking is slow. It doesn’t fit into a social media tile. It doesn’t earn you guru status. It doesn’t scratch the itch. And it doesn’t conform with the much-celebrated archetype of "decisive leader”. We seem to admire someone's ability to pick a camp and argue for it (or throw rocks at the other side).

Of course, decisions do need to be made. Opinions need to be formed. But what matters is the road to that moment: one hopefully paved in curiosity, open-minded enquiry and debate. Not the straightest or quickest route. Not the one riddled with biases, assumptions and default thinking.

The Nobel Prize winning psychologist and behavioural economist Daniel Kahneman unpacks this problem - and the biases that distort our thinking whether we like it or not - in his brilliant book, Thinking Fast and Slow. Kahneman paints a picture of a world where we all have conscious awareness of our two thinking systems - which he nicknames System 1 (automatic, instinctive thinking) and System 2 (deliberate, rational thinking) - so we can cue them in and out. I reckon this should be required reading for every leader. This summary is a great start.

"What's this got to do with me?"

When do you, perhaps unintentionally, encourage binary thinking in your own team - or at least allow people to fall into that as their default? When do you allow complex problems to be framed as a yes/no decision - implicitly encouraging people to reach a quick decision, not a considered one?

• Perhaps by starting with your own opinion, and asking for an indication of support?
• Perhaps by expecting answers to difficult questions in disproportionately short amounts of time?
• Or perhaps by allowing people to table issues without including the opportunity for enquiry or debate?

What would it take to cultivate a norm of critical thinking instead? To move away from "the first person to express an opinion is the sharpest mind” to “the first person to ask a curious question is the valuable mind”.

Here are 3 simple examples:

1. Use reflective expressions like, “What don’t we know about this yet?” as your first response to people expressing a point of view. This helps to slow down the decision.
2. When an issue is tabled, ask for at least 10 minutes of open-ended enquiry. What do we want to explore - not to solve, but to expand what we understand about the issue? Then take stock by asking, "What are we discovering in this conversation?"
3. Ask “What would [X] say?” In other words, imagine someone with a different perspective is in the room. What would they say, and why? How can we genuinely appreciate that alternative perspective? 

What else works for you? I’d love to hear your suggestions.

The Buddhist monk Sunryu Suzuki said, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few." Perhaps embracing the grey is all about adopting a beginner's mind. (If not the hair colour to match!)

Cheers
Simon