Discernment – Its An Honor

October 18, 2009 by  

Discernment: The “D” in DRIVE

One of the 5 requisites of the RedShift DRIVE Self-Awareness and Change Leadership Model, and key to shifting identity in the meta-cognitive dimension, is Discernment.

Question Knowledge

Our default response is to form opinions and make personal, professional and business decisions based upon what we know: what’s worked or failed in the past, what we’ve read, heard, learned and been advised about by experts. What’s still often ignored is a sense response to subtle yet profound shifts and getting at “what we don’t know we don’t know” or “what we know but don’t know we know”.

I recently observed an example in a growing company in crisis due to lack of available financing in the current credit crunch. The management team’s opinion was that securing venture financing was the only way to survive. The founder/CEO wanted to hang on and self-fund in spite of looming insolvency rather than give up control and ownership. Months of endless meetings, opinions and arguments led to deadlock because there was no framework for knowledge awareness. Both sides were totally convinced of and attached to the rightness of their respective knowledge so could not brainstorm any breakthrough short-term, or transformational long-term, ideas.

These kinds of scenarios are played out every day as individuals and organizations try to figure out “where do we, or I, go from here?” The answer doesn’t seem to be more knowledge and advice, but rather a facilitated process to uncover the logic and truth driving every opinion and to examine if those beliefs hold true or need to be changed or replaced. The prerequisite for questioning knowledge is the agreement to suspend judgment and will. Those who refuse to learn and practice these skills will become increasing ineffective in the decision making, problem solving and innovation process.

Trust Intuition

Here’s a new way to think about lead generation: make yourself a funnel for your intuitive leads, pay attention and act on them without hesitation. As metaphysician Florence Scovel Shinn taught “Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.” To better discern among myriad choices, change responses and scenarios why not just ask for leads from a higher intelligence that’s always available and take it from there?

Honor Creative Power

Although we emphasize it more, we still tend to think about creative in terms of talent and visible output where team stars rise to the top and good managers find, cultivate and retain the stars for competitive advantage. That’s how organizations and teams succeed. But is it the only way to discern success?

I was recently part of a team of 8 women who got together to row in the Head of the Charles in a very competitive event. We had less than a month to organize and practice a few times but it quickly became apparent that there was a special dynamic among us. It was about more than appreciation for each others’ experience, talent, commitment and training. There was no “rah rah” about what we could achieve and there was no resentment about problems that came up or a result that was disappointing. It was bigger than any of that. It was about honoring our power to create an experience that served our greater selves. It seemed to arise naturally out of appreciation and gratitude for each other, the sport, the river, the rowing community and beyond.

Discernment is about what to yes to and what to say no. These decisions are shaped by our expectations about the (usually quantifiable) results we want from ourselves or our team. Self-aware teams will achieve so much more through honoring their creative power and achieving the possibly immeasurable result of natural influence.

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Filed under: change leadership, integral, intuition, knowledge, Natural influence, self-awareness, shift, team leadership
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