Thursday, March 26, 2015

Digital Master Tuning #65: Do we Handle Problems at the Level of the Mindset, or Shall We?

Mindset is the "software," and software is eating the world.

We live in the rapidly changing digital era full of paradox: on the one side, human world is running at internet speed, the physical distance is no longer the barrier to separate the world, the information is only a click away, the knowledge cycle is significantly shortened; on the other hand, people’s minds, mainly shaped in their early age, with change inertia, are far lagging behind the era we live in, they turn to be the true obstacle to distance the heart and stop human progress. And it is also the deep root cause for many business and societal problems. So would it be possible to handle the problems at the level of the mindset, but how.


To bring in a change, there needs to be a paradigm shift - a mind shift: Mind doesn't like getting ignored, it keeps on driving even without one's awareness. Everything flows from the people's mindsets which are shaped by education they receive, the historical event they experienced, the medias, the books or the other minds they follow. Some are serious, some casual.. yet it is mindset of a few (who have ‘privileged channels” to amplify their voice) that makes or changes rules for the masses. Unfortunately, some of such leading minds are actually lagging, that’s the very reason why the mind is far behind the time we live in, it results in the vision getting blurred, the change getting distracted and the gap between strategy and execution capability getting enlarged.


The mind gets wire up to shape the perception and drive attitude: The mind interprets how one sees the world -the perception, and decides one’s attitude to solve the problems. Now coming to ‘problem’ is a situation that keeps changing its intensity, breadth and width, color and cause according to the people involved and affected. The facts of the problem remain same that are measurable and observable. Interpretation of a ‘situation’/’problem’ depends on various factors like the maturity, fore thought and attitude of the individual and many more. Now if we consider the problem; where did it come from? Most often the problem does not come from somewhere else, but brood from the existing situations, with the roots in human's thoughts. As Einstein wisely put: "You can't solve the problem with the same thinking you create it." So to make it simpler, mind is the storehouse of thoughts and experiences, memory. Only the new fresh thoughts help to resolve a situation and through applying the experiences, these experiences in turn become the reservoirs for resolving the next ‘situation’ with the fresher thought as well.


The different mind takes different approach to solve problems: Problems are the gap between what we have and what we want to have. But many times, actions of people are unthought-of, they rarely carry any deep thought or attitude. Problem can be handled either, with a fixed mindset or with an open mind. A fixed/rigid mind is a limited mind; it usually won’t allow the person to think beyond a point....Hence, the focus may be on getting away with the problem or just disposal, rather than taking it up as challenge, finding it as opportunity for learning and discover the new way to do things... which can happen with an open, learning and growing mind. It is especially important to learning from mistakes or failure, and moving forward with great zeal to do better.


Mindset is the software, and software is eating the world: First, change the mindset (the software), then other “hardware”change will follow: In many circumstances, organizational or social are only mended and amended by rules, policies and processes, they sound practical. Perhaps that’s the only way most of managers have learnt to handle problems. Mind has always been ignored. Whenever there is a discussion touching about the mindset, most of people tend to appear confused, because it seems abstract or intimidating, and moment they start to begin talking at an operational level they sound comfortable. However, change in rules or laws or systems or processes will only become sustainable if someone out there changes his/her mindset. There are always some influential people whose word carries weight in making such changes, and that word has to be based on the mindset or the beliefs they have, or put simply, only the authentic leaders can convey the change messages which can touch the minds and hearts to create synergy; and only the visionary and growth minds can lead the world forward, not backward, to mind the gap between the lagging “mainstreet” mindsets and the digital era we live in.

The collective consciousness plays a role in influencing the mind. If the lower states of mind include a rate of egoism, the primitive thinking or the conventional wisdom, then the mind with high and multi-intelligence will show the humility to learn and catch up, the vision to look forward, the insight to look beyond the surface, to avoid the lagging mind symptom (focus more on behavior than attitude, more on processes and not enough on the mindset.) This is why when people initiatives are taken, they are often not sustainable. Some kind of compliance is ensured, but the hearts of the people are not behind it. So problem solving starts with mindshift.

Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:

0 comments:

Post a Comment