Zachary's Birthday Dinner (continued)
Zach has always been a thoughtful, engaging and introspective kid with wisdom beyond his years. He decided to engage us in a discussion about the 2016 presidential primary campaign. I was surprised and delighted by his knowledge of the candidates. He thoughtfully pointed out many views of the candidate and discussed the positions of which he agreed and disagreed. Clearly, his analyses were based on his own 12 year old perspectives. Though not completely swayed by some of the counter points from the family discussion, he listened and integrated some new thoughts into his own perspective.
One thing I found particularly impressive was how he incorporated each candidate's demeanor into his analysis. He used words like "mean" and "nice". With further discussion, I learned that he added a "gut check" to his overall analysis.
As I usually do, I learned several things from Zach that day. His perspectives reiterated the importance of matching our words to our facial features and body language. Incongruence in these things is confusing and may not register with our "gut check", especially when making key organizational decisions. In his 12 year old way, he underlined the fact that despite professing our dependence and value on the quantitative, the qualitative is part of our human analyses and plays an important role in our decision making.
The takeaway…
Letting in new ideas and perspectives will help us grow and learn. BE Open.
(March, 2016)
