Blog 3 of 5 on excellence in decision making.
All views will hold some wisdom, if you take the time to examine them closely enough. In the Lewis Deep Democracy decision making process, step three is very simply called 'spread the no’. This means that we spread the alternative view (the one that jars with the popular one, the one in the minority). It prevents inflexible thinking because you are forced to think about the part of you that may share something about the alternate view. Doing this increases wisdom and decreases tension. Its quite magic.
A very practical example:
This example is related of course to our current pandemic. In our house my husband is very strongly of the view that the whole world has gone crazy and these lockdowns are a complete over reaction to this virus which is actually no worse than the flu. He says everyone is working on the wrong statistics. Yes, I know that this statement will evoke some serious annoyance in some of you (as it does in me), however wait a bit.
Just Breathe
If I wait a moment, and breathe, I can then think about what is it about this view that I can share, even if it is a little bit. It does not have to be the whole view. And when I think for a bit what I realise is that this provides me with some perspective. Perspective is always good, especially for a person like me with the hugely over-active imagination that I have which means I fear the worst. The part I can share is that people do die every day, and I am blissfully oblivious to this. Yes, the death rate is probably higher than the flu, but the truth is we don’t know yet. We also know that more than 80% of people will be fine.
So, when I can share even a small piece of this alternate view, I have a more balanced perspective and it makes me feel better.
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