Actions for Impact – Collective Rethinking

Complexify contentious topics. There are more than two sides to every story. Instead of treating polarizing issues like two sides of a coin, look at them through the many lenses of a prism. Seeing the shades of grey can make us more open.
Don’t shy away from caveats and contingencies. Acknowledging competing claims and conflicting results doesn’t sacrifice interest or credibility. It’s an effective way to engage audiences while encouraging them to stay curious.
Expand your emotional range. You don’t have to eliminate frustration or even indignation to have a productive conversation. You just need to mix in a broader set of emotions along with them – you might try showing some curiosity or even admitting confusion or ambivalence.

Have a weekly myth-busting discussion at dinner. It’s easier to debunk false beliefs at an early age, and it’s a great way to teach kids to become comfortable with rethinking. Pick a different topic each week – one day it might be dinosaurs, the next it could be outer space – and rotate responsibility around the family for bringing a myth for discussion.
Invite kids to do multiple drafts and seek feedback from others. Creating different versions of a drawing or a story can encourage kids to learn the value of revising their ideas. Getting input from others can also help them to continue evolving their standards. They might learn to embrace confusion – and to stop expecting perfection on the first try.
Stop asking kids what they want to be when they grow up. They don’t have to define themselves in terms of a career. A single identity can close the door to alternatives. Instead of trying to narrow their options, help them broaden their possibilities. They don’t have to be one thing – they can do many things.

Abandon best practices. Best practices suggest that the ideal routines are already in place. If we want people to keep rethinking the way they work, we might be better off adopting process accountability and continually striving for better practices.
Establish psychological safety. In learning cultures, people feel confident that they can question and challenge the status quo without being punished. Psychological safety often starts with leaders role-modeling humility.
Keep a rethinking scorecard. Don’t evaluate decisions based only on the results: track how throughly different opinions are considered in the process. A bad process with a good outcome is luck. A good process with a bad outcome might be a smart experiment.

Throw out the ten-year plan. What interested you last year might bore you this year – and what confused you yesterday might become exciting tomorrow. Passions are developed, not just discovered. Planning just one step ahead can keep you open to rethinking.
Rethink your actions, not just your surroundings. Chasing happiness can chase it away. Trading one set of circumstances for another isn’t always enough. Joy can was and wane, but meaning is more likely to last. Building a sense of purpose often starts with taking actions to enhance your learning or your contributions to others.
Schedule a life checkup. It’s easy to get caught in escalation of commitment to an unfulfilling path. Just as you schedule health checkups with your doctor, it’s worth having a life checkup on your calendar once or twice a year. It’s a way to assess how much you’re learning, how your beliefs and goals are evolving, and whether your next steps warrant some rethinking.
Make time to think again. When i looked at my calendar, I noticed that it was mostly full of doing. I set a goal of spending an hour a day thinking and learning. Now I’ve decided to go further: I’m scheduling a weekly time for rethinking and unlearning. I reach out to my challenge network and ask what ideas and opinions they think I should be reconsidering.