You may have noticed my focus on honesty the past couple weeks. I believe the majority of struggles people and groups (families, friends, teams, schools, businesses, organizations) are experiencing originate from:
- An unwillingness to speak truth.
- An unwillingness to hear truth.
More nuance is involved in doing these skillfully, but the principle stands, and the point remains. Start with simple, reliable fundamentals before injecting any of the infinite variables that add complexity. If you hurry past the simple principle, you will get wiped out by complexity.
Start with the simple truth that problems arise and perpetuate from an unwillingness to speak truth or hear it. Observe the mechanics and dynamics of this in your life. Once you see them clearly and understand them, add another piece of context. Learn those mechanics and dynamics. Then, add another piece. Repeat. That is how you begin to understand complexity--by recognizing the simplicity within the complexity.
Start simple. Make sure it is true, effective, and productive. Then, add context, nuance, or detail. That way, you know how the core works and how new elements might affect the truthful core.
This topic of speaking truth and hearing truth is one of my newest missions: to help people and groups strengthen their discipline in expressing and listening more honestly. This is not only important but necessary for the health of our collective future. Is it a crisis? I do not know. But it is enough of a problem that I feel compelled to act on it in a big way.
I will not sit on the sidelines and watch it keep causing and perpetuating preventable issues. I will be on the playing field, competing for all of us to get better, stronger, more confident, more courageous, and more willing to speak truth and honesty ourselves and hear truth and honesty from others.
Our relationships, our teams, our institutions, and our collective good depend on it.
Event + Response = Outcome. Do the work.
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