Intellectual Humility
shanesnow.com
shanesnow.com
Sometimes you are wrong and you really need help to overcome the emotional baggage that blocks you from admitting it.
Having people in your life that are strong enough to deal with the discomfort of confrontation with the singular goal of peace is more valuable than your pride.
But it also allows the same interaction to be reciprocated when others are wrong in the family and it's a self supporting system to overcome arrogance, angst and many other negative events and emotions.
Teaching my children that it's okay (and indeed desirable) to admit when you were wrong, and if need be, to make amends, by direct example, is one of the best things I do as a parent, I think.
But I'm also upfront with the reasoning around it - 1) I consider it a moral imperative of a good member of a society and 2) being willing to acknowledge and own my mistakes has been a major factor in my success in life - especially in IT where there's a lot of intellectual pride, it can really take people by surprise.
And likewise, I have to model the behaviour I want them to show in their actions within my family. And I'll admit my heart swelled with love and pride when my 15 year old son who had a rather big row with his step-Mum wherein both said things that were hurtful to the other out of anger, initiated a conversation soon after to apologise for what he said, and she apologised what she said, and they both agreed to work harder. I know how much guts that took him, and I think it surprised my partner - she was going to take that initiative later that day when there were less younger siblings interrupting, but it was obviously weighing on his mind.
I like to think that my teaching and example were reflected in his bravery in initiating what is a hard conversation for grown adults, let alone teenaged boys.
I have had the same experience in IT, it's brutal to have false accusations of system failures so causally thrown my way. (It's what got me to put GIT on all template editors) But it's also good experience to have so I don't repeat to back towards others because it feels so debilitating.
I appreciate the "desirable" part of your statement, as it certainly is better to give up on a false premise quickly than to try and defend it only to have fail on you later.
This took years of patience and still my oldest doesn't do well with this, but the other kids are fairly ok with it.
It's not perfect, we all still have some conflict, but the resolutions are swift and emotions don't linger after a conflict.
It's taken more time for me to figure out how to treat others well than it has to teach my kids. Once I figured something out, getting them to behave like I am is the easier part.
Sometimes mad, sometimes I have to pause and take a breath and think about what is happening. Sometimes I know I am wrong and in the heat of the moment I hope someone says something, and I am glad when they do.
> Do you respond to the issues raised or do you refrain from reacting?
Sometimes I can say sorry immediately, sometimes I argue for a bit, or explain myself and what is going on. Nothing happens in a vacuum, so there's other events occuring that need to be addressed. (ie other people's behavior)
Very very rarely do I feel the need to step away and cool off, though my wife has historically preferred this. But the more control over situations I have gained over the years the less she needs to "cool off".
It's like if anyone in the room has a cool head and can calm others down and it's generally agreed in the group that this is the goal, then it only takes that one person's input and energy to affect the situation.
> how do you react when the criticism stops to be respectful?
No one is perfect, and I express this. I say "you know I want open criticism, but do it respectfully please". Or something along those lines. The reason this works though is that I acknowledge when I have failed along the same lines.
I often have to say "sorry, I overreacted, but the main issue is still important to address...".
I have an expectation of failure in my interactions now. This means if a child attempts to intervene with input or criticism, the first thing that child gets is praise for the attempt. Even if everyone is still angry and yelling, I will address the child's successful choice in trying to do the right thing. Their heart was in the right place, then second they get a criticism for their poor behavior in their attempt. And then I respond to their specific statement. (usually requiring a change in my own behavior or an apology)
This is all logical and easy to say, but it only works because I've been practicing it for a long time. And I openly state (even when failing spectacuraly) that it's important for all of us to get good at this. And that we will fail repeatedly, but that's ok.
Keep in mind that the more I do this and the more my family does this, the less situations occur where these kinds of actions are needed. It's a curious quasi-paradox.
That's hilarious. I've never noticed philosophers agreeing about anything.
One thing I would question is the necessity of having viewpoints at all about things which aren't connected to some problem in my life. I don't need to take a position about whether triangles are better than octagons, for instance, unless I'm trying to build something out of octagons. Sometimes opinions are necessary, e.g. a physician must make a diagnosis, but on the whole progress depends upon solving problems and not upon debating them. Furthermore, the best way to persuade others you have solved a problem is to ignore them and use your solution to make further progress.
While I don't generaly recommend doing this with superiors at work, it got me a promotion once.
I was a middle level developer and was tasked with building the authentication layer of our monolithic application.
Our team lead insisted that I created a microservice for that for "futureproofness sake". I argued that keeping the code inside our monolith would have many benefits like shaving dev time and being simpler to mantain.
By chance the CTO was nearby, got interested in our discussion, and gave me the choice as long as I could deliver the promisses and demonstrate the benefits.
I went home and wrote the authentication layer in a sleepless night. It was finished next day, included some tests and the code was trivial to understand.
A month later my team lead was downgraded and transfered to another team (he left the company not long after) and I was promoted to team lead senior dev.
Be careful when pulling stuff like this because often your superior has more experience and does know better.
In my case the team lead was a bit too much hype driven and it resulted in his downfall.
Reminds me of a quote by Leon Battista Alberti: "All disunited and of various opinions, philosophers are nevertheless in agreement in that each of them holds all the other mortals for demented and imbeciles."
Someone who knows about psychology: Is this article anything more than advertising for his "academy"?
Or to say it with a 4chan meme: https://i.imgur.com/94LyLm1.png
Such mentality may work quite well for the first 25-30 years of their lives. But then they'll be put to work with other people just as smart as them, and they'll be unable to collaborate constructively.
Some people are able to realise this breakthrough moment in their careers, and improve on their own. For the rest, I wish college had prepared them more specifically for intellectual humility.
> In his entertaining and provocative keynote presentations, Shane Snow shatters common wisdom through gripping stories and surprising research on innovation and human behavior. The BBC says that his ideas, "could change your life," and Maxim adds, "Snow is not telling you how to succeed; he's daring you to do it."
Strong opinions, loosely held, is a mantra I use.
In a company where people take excessive pride in their intellect, I find that it often manifests in the "What, you don't know this exact thing I don't know?!" attitude you can find in some interviewers (to quote the infamous tweet: "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off.")
Likewise, if they want you to write actual code, their culture of intellectual humility will manifest in asking beforehand if you have a preferred tool and making it available, or inviting you to bring your laptop etc. instead of forcing you to write code on a whiteboard (bonus points if they point out every semi-colon you missed), or in their arbitrary editor of choice, complete with customised key-bindings that combine the "best" of Emacs AND Vim.