All Paradigms can change.
People thought the world was flat and that changed. People thought the Earth was the center of the universe, and that changed.
But not everyone agrees that all paradigms can change. Religious fundamentalists do not agree that all paradigms can change? That is what makes them religious fundamentalist.
And strong Republicans, Libertarians, and Democrats would not agree that all paradigms can change. They might think other peoples paradigms can change but not theirs. They know their paradigms are right and they think they only reason others don’t agree with them is that they have done a poor job communicating the ‘rightness’ of their paradigm.”
I was listening to talk radio the other day. One of the many right wing talk show hosts was saying that he was right and liberals were wrong. So I don’t think he thinks his paradigms can change.
From my perspective, finding the right answer is more important then being right.
In everything and anything. Economics, religion, global warming, politics, the right way to maintain a car, the right way to raise a child, the right way to eat, whatever you can think of, whatever is important to you, finding the right answers more important then being right.
What’s Actionable
Let me put this in terms of “what is actionable. As we go through the day we have to make many decisions. The key to making the best decisions is to divide the what you work on into two broad categories; those things that are actionable and those that are not. And while we often, for fun, look at things that are not actionable, like, ‘who will win the superbowl’, we are mostly concerned with things that if we know the answer our lives will change. So we ask the question, does knowing the answer change us in any way.
If you always take the same way to work everyday, and you would not change the way you go even if you found out there is a better way, then for you the knowledge that there is a better way is not actionable. So there is no reason to spend the energy to try to find the right answer.
As a result the first question we ask is; if the answer is different than you currently believe would that change anything.
We break the paradigms into 4 broad groups. The picture below might help.
| Important | Not-Important | |
| Hard | Things that are on the list and worked on, but only 1 or 2 at a time | Never do anything in this box |
| Easy | First Things to do | Only do things in this box if you have the time. Nothing in this box that would hinder getting anything in the Important box done. |
Another way to look at paradigms is this:
- Those paradigms that we believe are settled.
- We note these and apply them as needed but we don’t spend any time on them.
- Those paradigms that are very important and unsettled
- This is were we spend most of our time
- Those paradigms that would not affect our behavior if they changed
- We don’t spend any time on these
Here are some key paradigms we believe in today.
- All things change all the time
- Freedom is better than no freedom because freedom means people can change to do what’s best for a particular situation
- Team work is most often better than individual work
- Communication is the cornerstone of teamwork.