Brief note: I am going to do a number of blogs on different topics focused on pondering.
What is pondering and what’s it’s value? Pondering is like wondering and wandering in your mind at the same time. It is thinking about questions/statements/things deeply that are not as easily answered as you might assume.
We think about things but usually only for a short period of time and then come to some immediate decision or conclusion. Pondering is a deeper type of thought process; a sort of one-on-one dialogue with your mind that evaluates a question/situation from as many sides/ways as you can possibly imagine. The objective is the variety in thinking not in reaching a conclusion or decision.
It starts with questions regarding a topic, and it requires time to look/think/talk to yourself about it from as many different perspective as you can.
GOOD LUCK
The complete idiom is, “curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back”. My focus is on the term curiosity. Curiosity might not get the general employee killed in an organization, but I don’t think most would state their organization values curiosity. If asked how would employees in your organization answer this question: What is more valued here, curiosity/imagination or conformity in thinking?
Why does it seem a three-year-old possess the most inquisitive mind? Early in a child’s language development one word quickly becomes overused: WHY? You could say that curiosity is part of the human genome. Given that, what causes it to dissipate so quickly?
Who is the teacher’s favorite student, the conformists or the person always testing the rules? The smart ones learn quickly to color between the lines while the inquisitive one’s are building things.
Curious people reject the default/accepted position and automatically think about whether a better option might exist. They usually start by asking or thinking about why the default exists. The desire to ‘fit-in’, and ‘don’t rock the boat’ or ‘don’t make waves’ are well engrained/learned phrases by the time an employee hits your front door.
What is the value to your organization to have a culture that values and rewards curiosity across the board. If it is valued how is it communicated and rewarded?
“The reasonable man adopts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adopt the world to himself.” George Bernard Shaw.