At a meeting the other night, I was sharing with a small group some resources on the web to look at and why they might be helpful to what we are trying to do. One person in the group, loudly said, that we don’t need that when it came to a specific item that was suggested.
My reaction to this, that I did not voice, was how could you say that without looking at the suggestion further? It didn’t seem logical. They had never used this service so how could they so quickly say it wasn’t needed?
I have done this too, hundreds of times when others were trying to help me. What is interesting about this common response is that it is always said with such certainty. Most every time, it is said without ever exploring the possibility that what is being suggested could be helpful.
Why do we do this? Why are we too quick to judge? It could be because we see the world as simply black and white without it ever having any shades of gray. Our experiences are different where one person’s world is always to maintain the status quo while the person making the suggestions sees the world as a creative one where tomorrow is built by searching, learning, and piecing together things to make a different tomorrow. Sometimes, we will benefit two steps down the road by what is being suggested and just can’t see it because it is so far ahead of where we are today.
At a more simplistic level, it sometimes is that our ego says we know better and works tirelessly to defend our belief. There may be more reasons as to why we so impatiently dismiss things that might help us.
No matter what the reason, we have to learn to hold back judgment without first learning more about what is being recommended. We need to ask more questions. We need to put in the work to try to understand why is someone suggesting we do this or look at that.
We don’t have to always agree or try to implement what is recommended. What we do have to become better at is understanding that what we don’t know is always the thing that holds us back the most. Every time we say up front that we don’t need that, we are severely limiting our ability to find this out for ourselves.