It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
—GANDHI
Today we hear so much about the explosion in information, intelligence, and knowledge, but not much about wisdom. Where the goal of secondary greatness is self-promotion, the goal of primary greatness is wisdom.
We don’t always act wisely. As we look around, we see so many people who simply work against their own interests. What causes these distortions in judgment or lapses in wisdom? And how can they be corrected? I here mention six causes and corrections.
The pride of self-referencing. Correction: The humility of submitting to true-north principles.
We know from a study of human history that when people are well-informed and educated (intelligent), they think they are wise, and often they reject the counsels of wiser or more experienced minds. Why? I think it is because they basically turn away from the true-north consciousness inside them, and that transgression invariably causes imbalance, distortion, confusion, disorientation—and they likely don’t even know it until it’s too late, particularly if self is the highest reference.
If you always defer to principles rather than your own judgment, that higher standard helps to instill a sense of humility, happiness, teachability, and a willingness to receive objective data from internal and external sources.
One thing I have learned by teaching my 7 Habits over the years is that the acquisition of these habits takes more than a casual reading of the book—it takes consistent effort over a period of a few years before most people reach the point at which the 7 Habits have become second nature to them. Vertigo is a condition of confusion and disorientation, where you lose touch with physical senses. Your basic kinesthetic senses of position, motion, and tension may become confused and disoriented. When you are in this state of vertigo, all the information and data in the world won’t be very helpful because you are interpreting it incorrectly. Thus, you tend to become ever more burdened with information overload. I submit that if your orientation is selfish, self-oriented, or self-referenced, you will be in some state of vertigo. You will then slide downward unless you have some solid reference point to pull you back to an objective reality. This is the strength I see in principle-based living.
The folly of relying only on information. Correction: Converting information to wisdom and directed action.
In my lifetime, I have witnessed the well-documented evolution from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. However, I see four parts to the Information Age. The first is raw data or information. Information today costs an astronomically small fraction of what it cost in 1946 when computer technology was introduced. So now, everyone essentially has access to the same huge base of information; information has become a commodity. The second part of the Information Age is knowledge, where all this information is organized around conceptual schemes and paradigms. The third quarter is systems thinking, whereby bodies of information are organized with a sense of coherence or wholeness. And the fourth quarter is wisdom, as a sense of purpose and principles governs our acquisition of knowledge.
In every organization, wisdom must be manifest in all decisions and actions. This is why, today, people want to work for leaders and companies that have a clear vision and mission, with clear roles and goals, so that their efforts have meaning and direction and value.
The confusion caused by a renaissance of immorality. Correction: The clarity resulting from a renaissance of morality.
As I travel around the world, I can’t help but notice an unethical renaissance taking place. This is a time when many people are losing their ethical bearings. They are experiencing the equivalent of ethical vertigo. I’ve seen examples of both individuals and organizations whereby they think they are heading toward true north while they are actually heading due south.
But I also believe there is an ethical renaissance taking place—a return to principles, as people are asking the deeper questions: What is my life and work all about? What is really important here? What is my real worth? As people ask and answer these questions, they often become more rooted and grounded in the natural laws and principles that govern the world.
The discrepancy between the value people place on their performance and the value management places on it. Correction: The objectivity of market value.
The subjective and emotional assessments as to what a person or product is worth often differ from an objective market assessment. I think that one of the toughest issues for managers is when people have a very different perception of their worth and of their contribution to the organization. Since all parties are usually self-justified and often very morally invested in that justification, the best way I see to ultimately resolve this difference is to rely upon the democracy of the marketplace by bringing the marketplace into the world of these individuals. Basically, the manager might say: “Okay, this is what you think you are worth, but this is what the marketplace thinks you are worth.” I’m not talking about your financial net worth but about your total contribution. The marketplace refers to all those people with whom you deal professionally. These people constitute your marketplace.
Receiving objective marketplace feedback is a humbling experience for anyone. We experience this constantly. More than 250,000 people have participated in our 7 Habits personal-profile survey, and it’s always a humbling experience for them. However, it can also be very affirming because often their self-reported scores are lower than the scores the marketplace gives them. So the assessment reports the good news as well as revealing the blind spots.
The ignorance and apathy that come as a consequence of closed systems. Correction: Make systems as open as possible within the limits of trust.
The cry for more shared information and open systems often leads to an assumption that everybody ought to have access to all data. However, I feel that openness and access are functions of the trust level. The higher the level of trust, the more open you can be. If the trust level is low and you become too open too soon, people might become disoriented. And based on their skewed perspective of your purpose, they might accuse you of wrong motives.
The myopia of using local criteria to assess quality and competitiveness. Correction: Use global competitive criteria.
Business is ultimately pragmatic. You have to meet four pragmatic criteria today to even enter the arena: One is quality; another is low cost, but quality low-cost producers are a dime a dozen. The other two criteria are speed and innovation. Meeting those four criteria requires people to cooperate willingly and creatively with each other to achieve synergy. Of course, cooperation requires the element of trust, which comes from the foundation of trustworthiness.
The path to wisdom is bordered by objective feedback on performance. We rarely find any resistance to the principles of the 7 Habits because they are so self-evident, but the key question is whether these concepts make a substantial impact on the individual and the organization. How do they know they’re succeeding? What kind of feedback are they getting?
Find a growth path whereby you build on known strengths and work on known weaknesses. That means you must have a trustworthy feedback process. And don’t let it overwhelm you. Once you start progressing along that path, little by little, over time, you will become increasingly aware of your blind spots and increasingly capable of fixing them.
Here are four basic tenets of wisdom worthy of consideration.
WISDOM IS KNOWING THAT SUSTAINED, POSITIVE CHANGE BEGINS ON THE INSIDE. Transforming a team or family starts at the personal level. Organizational development and change without personal development and change are illusory, even foolish, because the market demands more transparency, more honesty, and more trustworthiness—in short, natural principles of primary greatness.
There must be individual growth, change, and development to make organizational development and change viable. And yet, as I see it, that basic fact is largely ignored. Too many people think of change as coming from the outside. But fundamentally, productive change requires an Inside-Out Approach, not an outside-in approach.
WISDOM REQUIRES BOTH CHARACTER AND COMPETENCE. When we talk about learning and increasing our capacities and competencies, we usually think in terms of technical competence or conceptual competence. We rarely think in terms of social competence or in terms of character. And yet, ultimately, if a person is to bring about meaningful, lasting change or significant improvement, that person will need to cultivate the characteristics of interdependency, empathy, and synergy as well as the qualities of integrity, maturity, and the Abundance Mentality. Why? Because one’s character is constantly radiating and communicating. And based on what people read into this largely nonverbal communication, they will either trust or distrust us.
Our trustworthiness on an individual level and our credibility on an organizational level are directly linked to our character and competence and the degree of wisdom evident in our judgments, decisions, and actions.
Character is composed of integrity, the value we place on our promises; maturity, the balance between courage and consideration; and Abundance Mentality, the idea that there is plenty out there for everybody. These three character traits are as vital in bringing about needed change as are technical, conceptual, and social competence.
Thankfully, we can all improve and progress. The interplay between character and competency can be evolutionary, both in the character and the competency component. So we need not judge and label people, or assume they can’t change in these areas. We can develop competence beyond technical and conceptual capability. We can cultivate the ability to think interdependently and systematically about people, processes, technology, and the new rules and realities of the marketplace.
I like what the great author and teacher Marianne Williamson said:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? . . . Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine. . . . It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”12
When you think about it, the fear of comparison keeps our tremendous qualities and potentials locked inside in our nature.
WISDOM IS MANIFEST WHEN CHARACTER AND COMPETENCE OVERLAP. People who are known to be wise have good, solid judgment. Their knowledge is impregnated with principles that do not change. Wisdom or wise judgment—the confluence of character and competence—is a critical component in the quest for quality of life.
Why is this so? There are so many trends and fashions in business thinking. There was Total Quality, then reengineering, then disruptive innovation, and who knows what’s next? There is value in all of these trends, but real wisdom is beyond them.
In my mind, what is beyond is simply what is beneath, what is foundational. Purely technical or conceptual solutions to problems may prove necessary but will always be insufficient. What is often lacking is the character side. Without character, you can’t have wisdom, in spite of competence. And without wisdom, you simply can’t build and maintain an enduring institution, whether it be a marriage, a family, a team, or a company. Now, you may surely build something, but it won’t last. About 80 percent of new businesses fail within the first year; only about one in twelve businesses survives a decade.
Increasingly, unconventional wisdom is necessary to deal intelligently with the false dichotomies and true dilemmas of the day. We just can’t get by without genuine, character-based and competency-supported wisdom to deal with the vagaries of the marketplace, diverging opinions, tough trade-offs, and tender relationships.
I know of no other time in history when the need for wisdom has been greater than it is today; and this, paradoxically, in the middle of a great Information Age and knowledge explosion. The truth is out: The more technology advances without wisdom, the worse things become. But in wisdom is the greatest leverage of all—a wise person can turn passive knowledge into a great contribution to the world.
WISDOM LIES BEYOND KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION. Since we live in an Information Age and knowledge economy where information is becoming more readily available and more of a commodity to be sold at lower and lower costs, the key thing is not only knowledge of your competitors, customers, products, and processes, but also a wisdom that lies beyond knowledge. The great philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows, for details are swallowed up in principles. The details of knowledge, which are important, will be picked up ad hoc in each avocation of life, but the habit of the active utilization of well-understood principles is the final possession of wisdom.”
Ultimately, character growth only comes from bringing our judgment in alignment with correct principles. It is not merely an intellectual endeavor. Primarily, it is an endeavor of orienting the mind, the will, and the soul toward enduring principles. That is what builds integrity.
You might be technically and conceptually competent, so that you understand the big picture and see how all the parts relate to each other, and yet be incapable of working productively with others because you lack certain qualities of character. Only when you have both character and competence, harnessed by wise judgment, will you have the ability to build relationships, to build high-trust cultures, and to build enduring institutions undisturbed by every fickle thing that happens daily in the marketplace.
People ask me why they should care about primary greatness—or about greatness at all. Some feel they already lead a great life and don’t see any reason to change it. And I don’t dispute that.
But there is something in us that is always calling us to be greater and better than we are. And if we don’t listen to that voice, we risk at every moment falling into secondary greatness, where we become limited by the social lens through which we see the world or, even worse, we become fixated on the forces that constrain us and fall victim to an enemy-centered paranoia.
By contrast, the end of a life filled with primary greatness is wisdom—a perspective that embraces principles, continuous growth, and an integrated wholeness. It is a perspective that brings peace to the inner person and prosperity to the world. It is a perspective that brings security because the principles upon which we live our lives are solid, enduring, and will never change.
• If your orientation is selfish, self-oriented, or self-referenced, you will be in some state of vertigo. If this is your state, how do you overcome self?
• Record the answers to these questions in your personal journal: As you have asked and answered the application questions in this book, have you become more rooted and grounded in the natural laws and principles of primary greatness? Do you have a firmer grasp on the ultimate questions: What are my life and work all about? What is really important here? What is my real worth? How am I doing in my journey toward primary greatness?