We all have many things we know. The older we get, the more these things we know become entrenched in our thinking…and guide our actions. And the more we know, the less we’re open to new ideas…the less we evaluate what we know to determine if it’s really true. Our ability to change course dissipates.
Recently I happened upon the word disenthrall. I learned of it from an article by Matt Riley in the Wall Street Journal where he talks about an 1862 message that Abraham Lincoln sent to Congress. President Lincoln “speaks of disenthralling ourselves of ‘the dogmas of the quiet past’ in order to ‘think anew.'”
I immediately fell in love with this word: disenthrall. To be an exceptional leader you must disenthrall regularly, scrub your thoughts to see what you “know” is based on fact and what you “know” is based on fantasy…or common knowledge. For common knowledge is often both common and not knowledge at all but merely a shared hallucination.
These days the task is both easier and more difficult. Easier since the facts about just about anything are at your fingertips with a bit of digging. More difficult because the ratio of noise to information has increased exponentially…and all is taken as fact without any critical thinking involved.
If all you were doing by being in thrall to these erroneous ideas was running your own life into the ground, it’s your right. But as a leader, a person guiding your organization and your people towards success, you have to be better than this. You can’t let what you “know” keep you from noticing opportunities around you and the way towards an exceptional future.
What paths have you missed, what opportunities lost, what time and resources wasted…due to being in thrall to unfounded things you know?
So spend some time reassessing what you know. Think about assumptions you make based on what you know and how they lead you this way or that.
Disenthrall regularly.