Dogma or Catma?
I recently moved house and have been meeting our new neighbours. Last week I was invited around to meet John and Mary. I felt very privileged to be sitting on the sofa with John, aged 84, who I learned is a professor of cell biology and a Fellow of the Royal Society, just two of his many achievements. I was particularly impressed to discover that at Cambridge he had worked alongside Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick, who co-discovered the structure of DNA. John had plenty to tell me about his experience in cellular biology, but one of the striking stories I recall from this first meeting was from the early stages of his career around 1950.
Cellular biology was very new in the 1950’s and he was a young research professor keen to get involved in this new area of biology. However, many of the older and more established biologists and medics resisted this new direction. They would not accept it as a valuable or credible area of research. They could see no practical use for what at the time were only a small set of ideas, discoveries and theories. Luckily that didn’t put off the new wave of cellular biologists and today many new innovations in medical science have emerged as a result.
John’s story got me thinking about my own beginnings in the computer industry. I recall sitting in a field, sometime during 1980 at the Brixton carnival listening to a reggae band, telling my friend how I was feeling bored with my work as an electronics engineer. Here’s how the conversation continued:
‘Why not come and work with me fixing computers?’ asked my friend.
‘But I know hardly anything about computers’, I replied.
‘Neither do the rest of us’ he said.
And my new career direction was set.
What I didn’t know at the time was that established mainframe and mini computer engineers did not take micro computers (as they were called at the time) seriously, and so refused to enter the field. This meant that new businesses in both manufacturing and servicing had to look to other similar professions to recruit suitable technicians. I remember being so excited about this whole new area of computing that we learned our profession as we went along – we had to as there was no one to learn from, and we enjoyed every minute of the new crazy world of fast, personal computing.
The reason for telling these stories is that even today, in a world where every day brings new developments in all areas of endeavour, I still find large pockets of resistance to new ideas in the area of human achievement and the evolution of smarter thinking. It seems the more radical the idea the stronger the resistance. Why are so many intelligent people so fearful of letting in new ideas? Why would anyone who must recognise that change and evolution are set in nature be so resistant? Over the years I have been able to identify some of the reasons, but there is one common theme which seems to run through just about all types of resistance, and that’s a rigid attachment to personal dogma.
The defence of ones own ideology, or what’s really important builds a wall that keeps fresh ideas at bay. Whether it’s religious extremism, political views, a set of beliefs about how people should be managed, or the legacy of beliefs inherited from an influential parent, the process is much the same – my ideas are 100% worthy and watertight, others’ ideas couldn’t possibly be of any real value.
It’s useful to have a map, or a rule structure with which to make decisions in life. It’s useful to have a set of values which keep you on a stable footing, and it’s useful to keep an open mind to the way other people organise these aspects of their life. It’s useful because existing as an island usually leads to unhappiness and depression. We all need other people. But other people are unlikely to fit neatly into our worldview, and so we learn to become flexible and accept that other people, cultures, professions, age groups, and social groups live within very different mental structures from our own. Or do we?
During a project with a US investment bank to help improve the effectiveness of a team outsourced from India, I asked why a young new recruit from Mumbai visiting London for the first time had not been socially included in the team after 2 weeks. A quite senior analyst answered quite sincerely ‘we don’t know what they eat’.
When we mix with people who are different from us and remain isolated in our thinking we become more dogmatic and closed to the world of opportunity and change. When we are so fixated on our own processes that we expect the rest of the world to comply with our way we are setting ourselves up for stress and conflict.
When we can move amongst different people and make friends we have learned to be flexible and open. If you can become more open and curious as the years go by your mind will remain active and your heart will remain young. Age is not measured in numbers these days, but by the speed at which the mind closes down to new ideas. When you can keep open both your human and business processes to allow new solutions to emerge you are working more in harmony with nature.
I once worked for a company which seemed to breed arrogance as a cultural strategy. It worked only as long as the market was growing. As soon as the market flattened out it no longer worked, but the real downside was a lack of alternative strategy. No curiosity, no openness and no further growth as a result. In today’s tough economic climate those who learn to adapt are able to thrive. The banking sector is now a symbol of what can happen when arrogance rules.
When Richard Bandler and John Grinder were testing their ideas in the early stages of what is now known as Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) they were ignored by staff of mental institutions and psychiatrists. How could a couple of young upstarts tell them they were doing it all wrong after all their years of specialist training? Unperturbed by this and encouraged by their results they persevered and took NLP out into the mainstream of popular psychology, self help and business.
I have heard that it takes more than a generation to change ideas to the extent that the majority accept the new idea as valid and meaningful. The earth used to be flat. The sun used to orbit the earth. Some women are witches and must be burned at the stake. The computer will never catch on. The earth’s resources are unlimited.
I wonder how many more cures to human suffering might have been developed by now if the biologists in the 1950’s had been more open, welcoming and supportive of the new wave of cell biologists? I also wonder whether people today who dismiss new ideas and pass judgment live in a smaller world, and with more regret than those who are curious and hungry to know the truth.
Are you making decisions for yourself and your business as a result of Dogma or Catma? That’s the question. Be curious – but don’t let it kill you!
David Molden.
