I lately came across very inspiring pieces of information(*)… This made me wonder about a notion I heard a lot the past months which is the notion of common sense…
By common sense, I mean a collection of beliefs or propositions that most people consider correct, without reliance on study or research, but based upon what they see as knowledge held by people; a collection of knowledge and experience which most people already have or should have.
In other words, it is another level of assumptions that are indeed useful in various fields of humans interactions with their environment. Though to evolve and reach new level of understanding, humans had to go beyond this accepted common sense to allow machines heavier then air to fly, to land on the moon, to have billions humans attending a Royal wedding, at the same time, from a Monarchy not theirs.
Most of the knowledge I stumbled upon the past months have demonstrated that what we use to think, once translated in action, doesn’t exactly work the way we expect. Counter intuitive is a concept I read, watched and met the most about the 21st century discoveries; the way we deal with motivation, what we know about our planet, how a great economy should function, how we live our lives and the resources we use/waste.
In our world today, poverty could be solved by a emerging country economist (1), planet could be saved by initiatives starting from a young American lady(2), ocean could be protected by a British other one (3) and against all odds a world cup has been organised in the oldest Continent (4)… We witnessed the rise of BEST, Wikipedia, Google, Nokia, Amazon, IPhone, Linux, Ubuntu, Laptops… Common sense? Go back 20 years in time and ask anyone in the street…
Even for us, High Tech kids, it was Science Fiction at best. This new century is constantly challenging European and World notions of common sense and is opening doors and possibilities which just make me positively dizzy at the moment just looking at mobile phones evolution.
This notion of “counter-intuitiveness” has affected a lot my practice in various fields, notably the way I deliver training. Only one part of innovation and creativity use related-stimuli, outcomes initiated by something one already know aka common sense. Most part of creativity is in fact about thinking out of the box, explore new ways of doing things which often means challenging what people call “common sense”. The goal of the probing is not about contradicting known causes and consequences at all cost. It is rather to probe to see if the notion you are evaluating is still valid. 😉
Since the early days of soft skills Training as we know it in BEST, European wide student organisation, our Founders set a fundamental corner stone in our training delivery practice which can be summarised as to design every training according to trainees’ needs with the most up to date knowledge available to us. This statement led to innovation, momentum, knowledge and opportunities we are still investigating. It’s evident that the World, even through those glasses, didn’t turn all pink. There are stones in trainers’ rice bowl often named arrogance, sufficiency, careless,… described in articles as 10 clues you signed up for a crappy training programe. Though I am convinced we are heading the right way for the development of organisations we belong to.
Fire fighter training is also counter intuitive as it’s totally unusual to run into a burning house while everyone is running away from it, even behind a water wall (video). Never ending growth is another one as all living beings start, rise and disappear. Though we seem to follow that ideal within our economic systems, just check IBM celebrating its 100th birthday last week.
I am eager to contribute, on my training scale, to this idea too because I personally believe it’s the way to go: “by strengthening individuals we contribute to community development“. Even this statement which seems common sense is counter intuitive if you read it again…
Let’s remember why we do things, the part of the world we want(ed) to change. Trainers, challenge once more your personal motivations, act upon them and let’s find together ways of making our environment a wonderful place to evolve as persons for this highly challenging society. New generations are coming and our common sense might be counter intuitive to them, and vice versa. How will we welcome them? What legacy to pass on?
(*) About the pieces of information:
- Gaming can make a better world
- How mind works by Steven Pinker
- The surprising truth about what motivates us
- Born to learn
- The uses of enchantment: The meaning and importance of Fairy tales
- First why and trust
- …
… pretty unrelated though I’m saving you for now regarding the notions of Epic win, MAP and Storytelling. 😀
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(1) Muhammad Yunus
(2) Jane McGonigal
(3) Roz Savage
(4) World Cup 2010 South Africa
