How to achieve to your limitations … or surpass them …
You want to accomplish something with your life. You want to make wise decisions that lead to positive results. You want to use your resources efficiently and effectively. You want to live fully and contribute as much as possible.
So you assemble a team of counselors to provide you with expert insight. You share your goals with your team of advisors and make sure they adopt the exact same vision. You describe exactly how you want to accomplish your objectives, and make sure your team is on board with your methodology. You describe your strategy and make sure all your team members think exactly the same way.
Congratulations! You just wasted the time and efforts of your team!
If all you want are people around you who see, think, and act exactly as you do, you don’t need them as counselors! You’ve already made up your mind what your objectives will be, how you will think about them, and what you will and won’t do to achieve them. You don’t need a circle of Mini-Me’s to go forward.
However, if you want to be stretched and challenged — possibly beyond what you have dreamed by yourself — you could build around you a circle of counsel that is purposely different from you. People who may have a capacity to see what you don’t. People who think differently to add to, or round out, something you may never think of. People who approach things with styles or strategies other than your own. People with gifts, talents, skills, and experience you don’t have.
Now you have a team of counselors who may actually be able to offer you something of value: a different (sometimes enlightened) point of view.
Scotty
October 1, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Amazing how "gathering wise counsel" and "enforcing group think" are SO confused/confusing. I'd give a LOT to have a dollar for every time someone spoke to me to try to convince me of the soundness/wisdom of THEIR plan in the guise of getting my input or running something by me. The more they "explain" ("sell") me on their plan, the more obvious it becomes that they don't even BEGIN to care to get anything from me but a nod of the head, a slap on the back and my support – even if I really think it's a pending disaster.
October 1, 2011 at 8:03 pm
I can relate to that Kevin! Many people "run things by" others so that, if it fails, they can fall back on the fact others had agreed with them. We're so averse to risk taking that we don't want to take risks alone. The flip side is the closed mind that considers nothing not self-originated.