OTBT | MM | TT | WW

[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- HBR.ORG -- HARVARD -- But being honest inside an organization is more difficult than it sounds. People hoard information, engage in groupthink, tell their boss only what they think he wants to hear, and ignore facts staring them in the face. If you want to develop a culture of candor keep these recommendations in mind: 1) Tell the truth. 2) Encourage people to speak truth to power. 3) Reward contrarians. 4) Practice having unpleasant conversations. 5) Diversify your sources of information. 6) Admit your mistakes. 7) Build organizational support for transparency. 8) Set information free. ...

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HBR.ORG -- HARVARD -- Why is transformation so difficult to achieve? What most organizations typically overlook is the internal shift -- what people think and feel ... beginning with the most senior leaders and influencers. Few of them, in our experience, have spent much time observing and understanding their own motivations, challenging their assumptions, or pushing beyond their intellectual and emotional comfort zones. The result is something that the psychologists Lisa Lahey and Robert Kegan have termed "immunity to change." ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- FS.BLOG -- FARNAM STREET -- While we all hold an opinion on almost everything, how many of us do the work required to have an opinion? Great thinkers, like Darwin, did the work necessary to hold an opinion. Doing the work counteracts our natural desire to seek out only information that confirms what we believe we know. Doing the work means you can't make up your mind with a high degree of confidence right away. Doing the work forces you to challenge your beliefs because you have to argue from both sides. You become the somewhat impartial judge. What's on trial is your opinion. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- OZANVAROL.COM -- We've so lowered the threshold for stating an opinion that we stopped doing the work that's required to express one. Instead of bothering to listen, read, or even skim, we rely on sound bites ... But if we haven't read it, we shouldn't have an opinion on it. It's that simple. This means that, from time to time, we must utter those three dreaded words: "I don't know." When we candidly acknowledge that we don't have an opinion, our mind opens and our ears perk up. As Stoic philosopher Epictetus put it, "it is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows." ...

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THEFEDERALIST.COM -- It [is not] surprising that a small but growing number of social scientists are having second thoughts about the modern tendency to eliminate all religious and even broadly spiritual conversation from the public square.... Despite the pessimism in many faith communities about the direction of modern culture, secularism's institutional weakness and growing academic respect for the wisdom of traditional religion are two good reasons to be more optimistic. In combination, they may prove far more transformational than currently seems possible. ...

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HARVARD.EDU -- HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH -- The study sample included more than 5,000 youth who were followed for between 8-14 years.... The results showed that people who attended religious services at least weekly in childhood and adolescence were approximately 18% more likely to report higher happiness as young adults (ages 23-30) ... They were also 29% more likely to volunteer in their communities and 33% less likely to use illicit drugs and less likely to subsequently have depressive symptoms or smoke. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- UNMISTAKABLECREATIVE.COM -- Everything in life has an opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of distraction is time, energy, and effort that would otherwise be spent on activities that have that potential to change your life for the better. The one that has the most significant impact on your ability to manage your attention is your technology environment.... If there are thousands of inputs competing for your attention you end up going one mile in a thousand directions as opposed to going a thousand miles in one. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- UNMISTAKABLECREATIVE.COM -- Shallowness and Distraction vs. Focus and Depth ... With depth, we experience a different kind of joy, a kind that sustains carries, and inspires us to put pen to paper, brush to canvas, and commit to the expression of our soul's calling whatever form that might take. In a state of depth we create and make our dent in the universe. In a state of shallowness, we spectate instead of create; we're on the sidelines instead of in the game. ...

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THEFEDERALIST.COM -- It is impossible even at the conceptual level, let alone at the level of practice. The separation of church and state is one of the pieties of classical liberalism, and for good reason. It makes the necessary room for the expansion and protection of religious liberty. But I find the concept troubling, not because I don't love religious liberty, but rather because I do, and the separation seems like a somewhat flimsy foundation for supporting so important a value.... Let me explain. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- ISI.ORG -- INTERCOLLEGIATE REVIEW -- Competition is supposed to be healthy. But as we engage in all this competition, we usually don't stop to ask: why are we doing this to ourselves? I use some contrarian questions to escape from competition ... "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" Good answers are ones that are uncomfortable.... The real problem is conformity, a fear of stepping outside the bounds. We have become more lemming-like.... We live in a world in which courage is in far shorter supply than genius. ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- AREOMAGAZINE.COM -- We live in an increasingly hysterical society, plagued by constant outrage ... The path to happiness and personal fulfillment at a harrowing cultural moment like ours is not more outrage. Rather, it is the conscious, careful cultivation of a stoic attitude: an attitude of calmness ... Lines of stoic thinking can be found in every major religion.... Stoicism teaches that we have no power over external events and they have no power over us, if we train our minds accordingly. ...

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THEFEDERALIST.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: In 1999, Hazar Imam said he watches other (non-Ismaili) communities to learn how they retain their heritage, identity, and traditions.] ARTICLE: Is churchgoing and religious adherence really in "widespread decline" that conservative believers should suffer "growing anxiety"? Absolutely not. New research by scholars at Harvard University and Indiana University Bloomington is just the latest to reveal the myth.... But what about young people? We hear that young people are "leaving the church in droves," ... Pew reports that of young adults who left their faith, only 11% said they had a strong faith in childhood while 89% said they came from a home that had a very weak faith in belief and practice. ...

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[H/T AMAANA] -- THEATLANTIC.COM -- I had never been religious. Far from it, I was a confirmed atheist.... I used to teach at a big land-grant university in the Midwest. In that capacity, I did what most professors do.... [But now] I think religion should be taught in college. I'm not talking about "religious studies," that is, the study of the phenomenon of religion. I'm talking about having imams, priests, pastors, rabbis, and other clerics teach the practice of their faiths. In college classrooms. To college students. For credit.... And I'm going to tell you why. ...

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THEGUARDIAN.COM -- One of the sneakier pitfalls of an efficiency-based attitude to time is we start to feel pressured to use our leisure time "productively", too ... Travelling to unfamiliar places not for the sheer experience of travel, but in order to add to our mental storehouse of experiences ... In his 1962 book The Decline of Pleasure, Walter Kerr noticed this shift in our experience of time: "We are all of us compelled to read for profit, party for contracts, lunch for contacts ... and stay home for the weekend to rebuild the house." ...

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NYTIMES.COM -- New research also shows that academia has itself stopped short in both the understanding and practice of true diversity: the diversity of ideas ... A team of scholars from six universities studying ideological diversity in the behavioral sciences detail a shocking level of political groupthink in academia: for every politically conservative social psychologist in academia there are about 14 liberal social psychologists.... Improving ideological diversity is not a fundamentally political undertaking. Rather, it is a question of humility.... Having people around who think differently thus improves not only science, but also character. ...

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QUILLETTE.COM -- A common fear of 19th century thinkers, [was] the encroaching conformity of modern life: democratization, industrialization, the homogenization of opinion through the distribution of newspapers.... To resist requires many virtues, but above all the courage to dissent and the wisdom to innovate.... But as things stand, individuality is blunted just as the 19th century thinkers predicted it would be, and already was. Mill said of the best and brightest of his day that they "dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought ..." And here we are today, most grievously in our universities, where these trains of bold thought are lost ...

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OZANVAROL.COM -- Mimicking others isn't just an innocuous exercise. In so doing, we let ourselves off the hook. We tell ourselves that if we only had the right "tactic, routine, or habit" of a "world class performer," we'd be all set. Hence the recent Internet obsession with people's routines, as if the right routine were the only missing piece of an otherwise complete puzzle. We pretend that copying from success stories is an acceptable strategy, so we don't put in the hard work required to pave our own path. ...

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INTROVERTDEAR.COM -- Despite our distaste for the spotlight, introverts make up a good percentage of the artists, actors, musicians, entertainers, and writers of the world. Famous creative introverts include J.K. Rowling, Lady Gaga, Steven Spielberg, Dr. Seuss, Frederic Chopin, Harrison Ford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Elton John, Emma Watson, and SO MANY MORE.... Introverts can make just as powerful leaders as extroverts -- and sometimes even better ones. It's been reported that 40 percent of executives describe themselves as introverts, including Microsoft's Bill Gates. Other introvert leaders include Barack Obama, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and Abraham Lincoln. ...

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