Gurteen Knowledge Letter
Issue 254 – August 2021
Introduction
In the July 2021 issue of my knowledge letter, I announced that from now on, I planned to tweet most days — mainly items from my blook on Conversational Leadership, and I am pleased to say I have managed to keep to that commitment.
I’ve found the discipline highly beneficial as it has encouraged me to review and update each post before tweeting it — so slowly but surely, the quality of the posts in my blook is improving.
My most popular tweet this last month was on constructive disagreement, and you can find my tweet stream here.
Contents
- We can learn from anyone
There is always some signal - Take some responsibility
We may wait forever for others to do so - Start hacking at the branches of evil
Making an impact - Gurteen Knowledge Café Workshop September 2021
Conversation is King. Content is just something to talk about - Please support my work
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We can learn from anyone
There is always some signal
Occasionally a reader of my knowledge letter takes issue with one of my posts or quotations that reference certain other people or their ideas or even their tone. One or two readers have even stopped subscribing to my knowledge letter at the mere mention of someone's name.
Typically, they "do not like" the person in question. They consider them bad, evil, stupid, ignorant, or ill-behaved. This is especially true when it comes to political figures. They ask me why I am giving credence to that person and their ideas. Sometimes I agree with their sentiments, other times not, but that is not the point.
There are two principal reasons I write about or quote people I don't entirely agree with, whose writing tone I find aggressive, or whose behavior or ideas I find repugnant.
We need to understand each other better
In writing, speaking, or conversation, I feel it essential to draw attention to people with contrary beliefs.
I want to tell the other side of the story — not censor it, even if it opens me up for criticism.
I wish my readers or listeners to weigh the evidence, not just agree with me. I don't wish to play safe and have them agree with me on everything.
Being exposed to alternative viewpoints is how we more fully understand the world's complexities and, maybe, more importantly, our fellow human beings.
We can learn from anyone
We can learn from anyone. A person's ideas are rarely totally bad/false. There is always some signal that is worth searching for.
We can categorize people's ideas in one of three ways. Each category, in its fashion, helps us learn and make better sense of the world.
- The ideas with which we agree. The person gives us more in-depth insight.
- The ideas with which we disagree. The person provokes our thinking by stimulating us to reflect on why we disagree.
- The ideas that make no sense or that don't convince us. The person provokes our thinking, and we research and reflect on the ideas.
We should show respect for people whom we believe are speaking in good faith, and although we may not agree with everything they say (or even anything they say) and even if we don't fully understand what they say if they provoke our thinking, learning, and sense-making we should take them seriously.
Just because there is a great deal of what we might consider noise, we should not disregard the signal. Wilbur Wright understood this.
No truth is without some mixture of error, and no error so false but that it possesses no element of truth.
If a man is in too big a hurry to give up an error, he is liable to give up some truth with it, and in accepting the arguments of the other man he is sure to get some errors with it.
Honest argument is merely a process of mutually picking the beams and motes out of each other’s eyes so both can see clearly…
Men become wise just as they become rich, more by what they save than by what the receive.
After I get a hold of a truth I hate to lose it again, and I like to sift all the truth out before I give up an error."
We can learn from anyone. The point of learning is not to affirm our beliefs but to challenge and question them and evolve them.
Take some responsibility
We may wait forever for others to do so
Take responsibility. Find something wrong, find something unjust, find something broken but more than anything else, find something you care about, find something you feel passionate about, something within your sphere of influence, and take responsibility to improve or fix it.
Many things in this world are wrong, unjust, broken, or in need of care. Some are large, some small, some close to home, others distant. Some are outside your circle of influence, some of them within it.
Pick something within your circle that you can do and take responsibility for it. It could be a personal issue, a work issue, or a societal one.
Life has meaning with responsibility.
The more responsibility you take on the more meaning your life has.
Start hacking at the branches of evil
Making an impact
Henry David Thoreau has had an enormous influence on me ever since I lived in Carlisle, Massachusetts, a few miles up the road from Concord and Walden Pond, where he wrote his book Walden.
This quotation below from Walden has always strongly resonated with me.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Credit: Henry David Thoreau
When I observe and reflect on the world, I see many good people and organizations doing great work caring for others.
But I also see an unsustainable world — a world we are slowly making less habitable. We are not destroying the world — we are destroying the world's ability to support us. The world itself will go on a long while yet.
There is much virtue, for example, in saving the lives of millions of people today, but it would be a tragedy to have them starve to death in the coming years due to droughts brought on by global warming.
I look around to find the people and organizations thinking strategically, thinking longer-term, caring about our grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and future generations to come.
But I see so little, and I reflect on Thoreau's words and transform them a little in my mind.
There are a thousand doing good in the world to one who is making a lasting impact.
We should not stop hacking at the branches of evil, but we need to invest more effort in striking at the roots.
We might also want to reflect on the full quote.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.
Gurteen Knowledge Café Workshop September 2021
Conversation is King. Content is just something to talk about
I have 25 registrations for my next Knowledge Café workshop on 10th August 2021, and it is now closed for bookings.
I am especially looking forward to this workshop as I have participants from 14 countries: Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore., South Africa, New Zealand, UK, and the USA. The ability to converse across cultures is one of the great strengths of Zoom.
If you could not make this one or the time of day was bad for you, I have another coming up on 21st September 2021 that should work well for EMEA/Americas time zones.
You can find more information and register here.
Please help support my work.
I have been publishing the Gurteen Knowledge Letter every month for over 20 years, and most of you have received it for five years or more. My Knowledge Café also recently had its 20thth birthday in September 2022.
If you find my work valuable, please consider supporting me by donating $1 (or more) a month to become a Patron or making a small one-off contribution. Your assistance will help cover some of my website hosting expenses.
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Gurteen Knowledge Letter
The Gurteen Knowledge Letter is a free monthly e-mail-based newsletter. Its purpose is to stimulate thought about Conversational Leadership and Knowledge Management. You can find back issues here.
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David GURTEEN
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom