Reply To: Exercise 5: Write Others’ Beliefs and Write Society’s Beliefs
Leadership Step by Step
Others’ Beliefs Reflections
I reflected on and thought about others’ beliefs a lot this week and I need to acknowledge that carrying around something to write on and to write what I’m observing in the moment is not something I did very often. I observed and noted what I thought might be a person’s belief, but I wrote it down later. On my first run through the chapter, I missed the “society’s beliefs” part, so I just did that at the end of the week.
I have spent most of my professional life working with people in ways that take deep dives into what they believe and how that influences their behavior and emotions. In preparing for that career, I took a deep dive into my own beliefs and the consequences of those in my life. It was still helpful to do this exercise in a more random way, looking at the people and the world around me in the frame of beliefs.
I suppose that one trend in my observations might be that I tend to look through a lens of emotions and so my observations were often focused on what emotions I believed I was witnessing. Fear, joy, guilt, anger, hopelessness, hopefulness (and more) underly the beliefs I identified.
Regularly observing how others are behaving through the lens of beliefs helped me keep it in my pocket for regular use. How accurate I was is not determinable without further information. It is my experience that we learn how accurate we are as we interact with people using the underlying assumption about their beliefs and observe if that assumption moves us in the direction of better understanding. I think I am accurate much of the time based on my experience in life thus far.
Consciously taking the vantage point of looking for beliefs was helpful in recognizing my own judgements. This motivated me to look beyond that impulsive response to one of interest and curiosity. In this time of political upheaval, I found the practice helpful and calming.
I participated in several meetings this week around an organized response to what is anticipated to be coming with the next administration. I noticed that much of what was accomplished by those leading these meetings was a very strategic effort to help people join in a belief that individual action matters and is most effective in numbers. Truly, the meetings were all about addressing beliefs. The specifics of this or that action was secondary to first believing that our actions do matter.
I like the idea of “keeping in my pocket” for use at any time my curiosity about what the belief is that underlies any given behavior I am witnessing.
Society’s Beliefs
1. Buying things in packaging is normal
2. Government should help me/ protect me
3. Borders protect us
4. Flying is normal
5. Buying more improves the economy
6. Technology will help solve the climate crisis
7. Laws should be fair
8. Music is part of our identity
9. Money matters
10. Family matters
11. Creating trash is normal
12. “Someone” is in charge