Innerclosemindedness

The digital environment is complex, volatile, uncertain, ambiguous, information abundant, hyper-connected and interdependent. The business workplace is multi-generational, multicultural, and multi-devicing, more diverse and dynamic than ever.

To step into the deep, deep digital new normal, businesses leaders and professionals today must bridge the insight gap, and unleash collective potential. In reality though, close-mindedness is one of the very characteristics of unprofessionalism, what are the root causes? How to make your mind more open, in order to make sound judgment, develop creativity, and improve professionalism?

Outdated knowledge, methodology, culturology: We are moving from an age of knowledge scarcity to information abundance. From one generation to the other generation, people keep preaching with the age-old knowledge, though some of which are perhaps already outdated sooner than you know. However, people with close-mindedness sometimes get stuck to outdated concepts, traditions, cultures, or the old ways to do things. They usually consider conventional to be wise, and unconventional to be unwise.

Now we are slowly, but steadily moving from agricultural/industrial economy to knowledge economy, from knowledge economy to creativity economy in the different regions of the world. Innovation is the light all forward-looking people are pursuing. Creativity is one of the most needed professional qualities. Openness helps to refresh your mind and create novel ideas. Creative people can see old things in new ways from different angles, define and create their own convention that they live by in comparison to everyone else who just accepts or inherits their convention to live by. Therefore, they not only take the conscious application of what they know, and at the same time stay open to the unknown.

Unconscious bias, misperception, stereotypical reasoning: As humans, nobody is perfect, we all have bias to a certain degree, some with more, some with less: Unconscious bias or stereotyping happens when you only “judge a book by its cover” without thinking deeper. Misperceptions of people or things based on your own level of cognition, knowledge, experience are sometimes completely different from the objective reality. “Conformation bias” is another critical impediment to objectivity. It’s the bias that makes us look for people “like us,” enforce group thinking, enlarge decision gaps and divide organizations or societies we live in.

It’s important to eliminate preconceptual assumptions or unconscious bias which is often caused by misperception or mislabeling by practicing critical thinking all the time. Blind faith = blind assumptions = unconscious biases. Without critical thinking, there is no clarity, accuracy, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, or true fairness. Business leaders and professionals need to be independent and critical thinkers without being excessively critical. To make effective decisions or sound judgment, heterogeneous setting is important to eliminate unconscious bias and fill the blind spot, always understand two sides of the coin, and make clear discernments.

Misjudgment, miscommunication, misinterpretation: We are what we think and do on a daily basis. Cognitive differences, knowledge gaps, or lack of contextual understanding cause misinterpretation, perhaps further causing misguidance that means making poor judgments or doing wrong things. To fix such issues, scrutinize the thought processes and logical reasoning via connection, discernment, penetration, and perception, etc; check if there is a link between ‘bias’ and ‘perception’ in terms of how to make sound judgment. It takes mindfulness, updated knowledge, collective insight, and continuous practices to overcome cognitive bias, come up with a clear picture and arrive at a somewhat unbiased judgment.

When you intend to understand, interpret, and judge something, you need to form a critical opinion of it based on facts, discerned data, breadth of knowledge, in-depth understanding, and clarified notions. Do not always follow preconceived opinions, do not always listen to the one side of stories. Challenging those who refer to their “gut” instincts often goes some way to revealing their unconscious bias. Effective decision makers are insightful, working hard to collect quality data to make sound judgment. Great communicators are influential; spreading clear messages throughout the organization through a diverse set of activities with mixed communication styles to tailor audience’s needs & wants, motivating them to make accomplishments.

With increasing speed of change in the hyper-connected, interdependent digital ecosystem, the close mindsets with single dimensional thinking, outdated concepts, authoritarian attitude, and bureaucratic decision-making, are ineffective in making judgment, they become the pitfall on the journey of the digital paradigm shift. Uncovering weakness, improving cognitive ability, instilling knowledge, sharpening professional strength, and recharging fresh energy is a continuous journey to unleash human potential significantly.