{"id":35539,"date":"2024-02-05T09:25:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T17:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35539"},"modified":"2024-02-05T09:27:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T17:27:18","slug":"35539-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/35539-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Leaders Guide to Encouraging Doubt, Distraction, Calmness, Context, and Curiosity"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read Tim Harford\u2019s book How to Make the World Add Up<\/em> and listened to two lectures that he gave in Oxford[1]<\/a>.\u00a0 As I read and listened, I asked myself two questions, how do these relate to the other books we have read, and how do they relate to leadership.\u00a0 I am going to process more about how I see this relating to leadership.\u00a0 In his book Harford provides us with ten rules to help when looking at numbers.\u00a0 His first lecture Statistics: Why the Truth Matters? <\/em>\u00a0provided me two words to remember, doubt <\/strong>and distraction<\/strong>[2]<\/a>.\u00a0 His second lecture How to be a Truth Detective<\/em> provided three words to remember, calm, context<\/strong> and curious<\/strong>.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Both lectures contained similar content found in his book, but it is easier for me to remember 5 words than 10 phrases.\u00a0 Let me process each of the 5 words.<\/p>\n

Doubt<\/strong> In both the book and his lecture Harford discussed doubt as the weapon the big tobacco companies used to deal with the research showing tobacco smoke causes lung cancer.\u00a0 Martyn Percy encouraged us to sow seeds of doubt as we educate others, he used the word suspicion.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Martyn wants us to doubt so that we dive deeper into the learning process, research and discover the truths for ourselves.\u00a0 Big tobacco wants us to doubt so that we remain complacent in our thoughts and behaviors.\u00a0 If there is a chance this is not true, then I do not have to change anything.\u00a0 As a leader, I need to encourage my followers to doubt, to be active in their own knowledge seeking process, not just believe something because I said it.\u00a0 Harford encourages his readers to do the same in several rules found in his book.<\/p>\n

Distraction <\/strong>According to Harford, distraction is a form of noise \u201canything that prevents us from focusing on the issue\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 It\u2019s amazing how we never hear a bad wheel bearing in our vehicles when we always have the radio playing.\u00a0 Distraction has both its benefits and drawbacks.\u00a0 To be honest, I have a friend who is really struggling right now with things that are essentially out of their control, yet they feel a deep sense of responsibility.\u00a0 I told my friend that he needed to do something to distract himself from focusing on the issue.\u00a0 I said this so that my friend could allow their mind some rest from the stress they feel.\u00a0 However, like a bad wheel bearing, if we continue to ignore real problems, there is the potential for disaster to occur.\u00a0 As leaders we need to balance how we use distraction in our lives and how we coach others.\u00a0 I believe there is a time to engage in the deep listening that Tom Camacho talks about, where \u201cwe let the person we are coaching share what they are thinking and feeling about their issue or situation.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Then there are times when I believe at the discernment of the Holy Spirit, we need to encourage the person to take a break and do or think about something else for a while.<\/p>\n

Calm <\/strong>In his lecture \u201cHow to be a Truth Detective\u201d, Harford talked about being calm, In his book, this is rule Number One, Search Your Feelings, however, I think some of the other rules apply here as well.[7]<\/a> [8]<\/a> \u00a0In his lecture Harford talked about how Conan Doyle, the acclaimed author of Sherlock Holmes believed in fairies based off a photograph that he saw.\u00a0 Harford says this was a problem with what he calls the Brain Guard whose job is \u201cto figure out what information is allowed into your brain and what information you ignore or reject or you forget.\u201d[9]<\/a> Harford discussed how our feelings impact our desire for what we want to be true, thus impacting how the brain guard does its job.\u00a0 He says we need to calm down and take time to examine how our feelings might be impacting our perceptions.\u00a0 Like all the cultures and myths that Joseph Campbell researched, there\u2019s a desire for those stories to be true because of how they make us feel, we want our heroes and gods who provide for our needs and fight our demons.[10]<\/a>\u00a0 As leaders, we need to take stock of our feelings.\u00a0 We cannot let our feelings dictate how we make decisions.\u00a0 Especially when those decisions impact the lives of several other people.<\/p>\n

Context <\/strong>In Harford\u2019s book, rules four through six fit into this category, making sure that we \u201cStep Back and Enjoy the View\u201d, Get the Back Story\u201d and \u201cAsk Who is Missing\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0 As humans it is easy for us to focus on what we want to see and disregard the surrounding and\/or missing information.\u00a0 Leaders need to ask context questions when information is presented to them.\u00a0 Leaders also must be careful not to take information out of context to influence others\u2019 behavior.\u00a0 Some churches can be guilty of this. For example, I can provide a congregation in August the amount people gave in the month of July and compare it to the average monthly giving to encourage people to give more and make up the difference.\u00a0 I\u2019ve taken that out of context, knowing that many people don\u2019t give in July because they are on vacation and others give big gifts in December.<\/p>\n

Curiosity<\/strong> Harford wraps up his book with this word, he encourages us to \u201cLook deeper and ask questions\u201d[12]<\/a> Let\u2019s not take everything that is presented to us as the gospel truth<\/em>, let\u2019s be suspicious and ask ourselves and others those deep hard questions that really need to be answered for us to understand our world.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Tim Harford How to Make the World Add UP: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently about Numbers<\/em>. (Great Britain: Bridge Street Press, 2020).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Tim Harford, \u201cStatistics: Why the Truth Matters,\u201d \u00a0Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures, February 15, 2017, video of lecture, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OHnJd6lEtTM<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Tim Harford, \u201cHow to be a Truth Detective\u201d\u00a0 2023 Oxford Maths Festival, May 23, 2023, video of lecture, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vgy6fleG-RI<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Martyn Percy (lecture, Portland Seminary, Oxford England, September 23, 2023).<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Harford, 2017, 48:55.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Tom Camacho, Mining For Gold<\/em> (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2019), 61.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Harford, 2023.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Harford, 2020, 21.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Harford, 2023, 23:55.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em> 2 ed. (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1973), 36<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Harford, 2020, 93-162.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Harford, 2020, 282.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read Tim Harford\u2019s book How to Make the World Add Up and listened to two lectures that he gave in Oxford[1].\u00a0 As I read and listened, I asked myself two questions, how do these relate to the other books we have read, and how do they relate to leadership.\u00a0 I am going to process […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3035],"class_list":["post-35539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-harford-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35539"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35542,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35539\/revisions\/35542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}