DISCERNING AND DECIDING

Deciding is one thing, discerning is another. While they are not the same, they are closely connected and intimately related. But how? Which one comes first? Which one drives the other?

The answer is that discernment comes first. First, you need to think— to really think. Then as you thorough and authentically think, you are enabled to consider things with a more indepth perspective and also from multiple perspectives. This, in turn, enables you to make many refined distinctions about differences that make a difference. That’s what discernment is and what it focuses on— making refined distinctions that enable you to be wise in your decisions.

How much would you like to be able to make wise decisions? How much would that create a richer and fuller and more satisfying life? This highlights the problem with poor. hasty, and/or unthinking decisions —such decisions usually set us on the wrong pathway, a pathway that we will come to regret. And this seems to be rampant among humans as indicated by statistics: 40% of senior level hires fail or quit within 18 months. 50%-plus of teachers quit their jobs within four years. 83% of mergers and acquisitions fail to create value for shareholders. 50% of marriages end in divorce.

I can’t imagine that anyone would argue against the need for wisdom when it comes to making decisions. Yet how many of us have made wisdom an essential step in our decision strategies? For most of my life, I thought that wisdom was a great idea. No problem there. But incorporate it into my everyday decision-making processes? How do I do that?

For that matter, what does it mean to have a step for wisdom in our decision-making process? To discern is to separate or distinguish between things that are different (dis- “apart,” cernere “to sift”). This ability refers to discriminating between things that are often confused in order to attain to perception, insight, and mental acumen. In discernment, you use a searching mind to mentally penetrate a subject to more fully and thoroughly understand it. For myself I have only recently realized the importance and value of such distinctions. And that’s why I have put them as one of the advanced skills in Meta-Coaching and one of the crucial factors in critical thinking. So in the new book, Executive Thinking they play a significant role (ch. 24 Thinking Strategies).

Something else about wisdom. Typically when we think about wisdom, we usually think about the process of learning from experience and that suggests why wisdom is more the gift of age rather than youth. It’s the mistakes and errors and wrong roads taken over time that gives us the

data-base of sufficient experiences to have made the learnings that make us “wise.” This is what now enables us (hopefully) to think through something rather than react.

Gregory Bateson said that wisdom consists of being able to take multiple perspectives on a single subject. It was this idea that led some of the first trainers in NLP to create the pattern for multiple perspectives.

First personal perspective is what you see from your own eyes, ears, and body. Second personal perspective is from the other person’s point of view— what I look and sound like in his eyes. Third personal perspective is the view from outside of both — from a third person. And fourth personal perspective is from the viewpoint of the system— seeing the fuller system of influences that are present and active.

Involved in discernment also is a thorough and pervasive questioning—a questioning that exercises a healthy skepticism as it looks for valid evidence and is not satisfied with superficial answers. I think it is in this sense that Pierre Abelard described wisdom as an aspect of doubting: “The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth.”

Involved also in the wisdom of discernment is the full acceptance of human fallibility. The contrast can be seen in the foolishness of the know-it-all youth who doesn’t even entertain the possibility of being wrong. Dietrich Dorner (1996) describes this in The Logic of Failure in these words: “The ability to admit ignorance or mistake assumptions is needed a sign of wisdom. People however tend to desire security over wisdom. The ability to make allowance for incomplete and incorrect information and hypotheses is an important requirement for dealing with complex situations.”

Oh for the wise discernment that can enable us to make informed decisions that serve us well.