Wisdom is most challenged when life conditions present us with tragic and false choices. “Tragic Choices”201 is the title of a book by the former Yale Law School Dean Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt. It refers to situations where organizations and societies confront problems whose apparent solutions cannot avoid inflicting great suffering on many people. Many such “tragic” choices are false choices, masquerading or being promoted as tragic choices, when in fact they are not, and are amenable to creative problem solving. BHI offers a practical way to pierce the veil and to distinguish between tragic and false choices. BHI treats Wisdom not as a static set of values, but rather as an evolutionary process. Building upon a foundation of ethics, conscience, and logic, the living moment reveals compassionate decisions that include, and also transcend complexities and contradictions.
As Albert Einstein wrote:
“The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm, but because of those who look at it without doing anything.”
Big Heart Intelligence (BHI): Ask Kokoro
Now that you understand the crucial distinction between true Tragic Choices and False Choices, it remains for you and your team to tee up a challenging situation and decision and use some of the tools in this section to help you and your team reach a wise decision. Here is a straight forward protocol:
- Frame the challenge as your organization currently views it.
- Ask yourself: What are the critical controlling Assumptions that underlie how we have framed the Core Discovery Puzzle (CDP).
- Now drop these Assumptions and reframe the CDP.
- Proceed to do the same procedure by seeking to unveil biases and noise following the Kahneman and colleague protocol.
- Do the above analysis in teams so you have the benefit of the member’s feedback and insights.
- Now Ask Kokoro this reframed and refined CDP enriched by some of the sources of Personal and Organizational Wisdom.
- See if you can find low risk ways to test your new insights.
- Engage your core team members in reaching a collaborative decision.
- Closely monitor the action as implemented.
- Course correct where indicated.
- Finally, assess your critical decision, and see if you can place a value on the benefit streams that flow from it.