FOUNDATION DRILLING
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D&i training feature
saying, the first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. One executive described constructive uncertainty as a Plinko game - he feels like the disc being knocked about, hitting the pegs on the way down as he ultimately makes his way to objectivity. Thats pretty accurate. Constructive uncertainty allows us to not take ourselves so damn seriously. Its critical to understand and accept that if we have a brain, we have bias. The very notion that we have bias forces us to look at ourselves in novel ways. It means we confront the fact that we dont see things as they are, we see them as we are. Anais Nin. Its a fact, Jack, and the sooner we get over that mental judgment, the better. Humor is smart. It involves creativity of thought, questioning, seeing more, and hearing things differently. Edward De Bono, author of Lateral Thinking, a philosophical approach that cultivates an awareness of and preference for out-of-the- box, unexpected solutions to problems, says, Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain. How so? One of the first things comedians are taught to do is produce an opposing perspective. It is Comedy 101. Doing this is important because it overcomes the status quo bias, and status quo bias is a risk for business because it causes risk aversion. Were in for trouble when the risk of deviating from the status quo looms larger than the reward for deviating from it.
The Skills Needed
We listen and learn better when were laughing. Comedy lets us accept our human biases and fallibility. To get a joke in comedy, we understand a nebulous and ambiguous contradiction. Organizations that are meeting their D&I goals and really moving the cultural/behavioral dial have developed the following three critical skills: listening, acceptance, and comfort with ambiguity. 1. Listening. Humorists are known for their powerful listening and observation skills. As a superpower, listening gives us the opportunity to learn with intention. In equal measure, it is a highly intelligent and humble act. Imagine being changed because of what you just heard. In its purest form, listening is a sacrificial act, the result of which can be transformative. 2. Acceptance. Albert Einstein once said, Man should look at what is, not at what he wants there to be. This may sound overly simplistic, but I promise it is not. Humans are much more rationalizing than rational, and well seek out reasons for our attitudes and beliefs to buoy biases and misconceptions. Our capacity to offer up justifications and rationalizations for false beliefs is astonishing and is a direct contributor to a deeply politically polarized world. 3. Comfort with ambiguity. This ones tough. We dont like ambiguity, uncertainty, or the unknown. Many of us will choose the certainty of pain over the pain of uncertainty. Construction is a technical field. D&I is not. That makes it inherently dicult to get a stronghold on the fact that ambiguity is what we need to embrace, that navigating the gray area guarantees mistakes will happen and that is part of the process. Bernard Amadei, Founding President of Engineers Without Borders (USA), says, If all the worlds problems were technical, theyd be solved by now. Touch. Theres a lot of ambiguity in building a diverse and inclusive industry and we need to keep our hand on the rudder and constantly adjust the sails.
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