Hey guys, this post is written by Jack Hoey Jr. Jack is in charge of the overall operations of Seacoast Church and is quite honestly one of the wisest people I know. Every time I sit down with him I find myself being challenged to look at things differently. I’ve read this post and seen how Jack lives out what he’s saying here. I hope you enjoy it!

Clichés often annoy me, especially when I hear myself using one.  But it’s easy to see why we use cliches – they’re very convenient.

A cliché comes into use because it expresses an opinion or a viewpoint so satisfactorily that we don’t need to think about it any more.  At that point, when we reuse it unthinkingly, it becomes the mental equivalent of a habit.

And habits are profoundly useful.  Thinking is hard work, so we focus our limited mental energy on things that are important and new.  We let our subconscious handle trivial or repetitive tasks using tried-and-true methods.  Otherwise it would take hours to emerge successfully from the bathroom each morning, and we’d be exhausted by the time we did after all the decisions we’d had to make.

But mental habits create risk when we apply them to arenas where change is taking place.  For example, what customers want from your business can change.  If you interpret customer behaviors in light of habit-encrusted assumptions about what they want, you can find yourself out of step with the marketplace very quickly.

I sometimes hear that we should question everything.  That sounds noble, but it’s silly.  Questioning everything all the time is equivalent to rethinking your bathroom habits every morning; it’s a recipe for paralysis rather than improvement.  None of us has the time or energy to question everything.  The real issue is:  How do we question the right mental habits – the right assumptions — at the right time?

As I’ve wrestled with this issue through the years, I’ve found several practices that help me see things more clearly.

Pursue stimulating hobbies.  Why put this first?  Each of us needs to develop the capacity of our brains to think in unaccustomed ways.  Brain research shows what many people have known intuitively:  Unused portions of the brain actually shrivel, while learning new skills develops your neural capacity in the same way that lifting weights develops your muscles.  Peter Drucker, who continued to contribute fresh ideas to management thinking into his 90s, wrote an article some years ago in which he shared his secret:  Pursuing a new field of interest, unrelated to his profession, every two years.  At the time of the article, he was studying Japanese porcelains.

I love to read, but I read few management books or business magazines.  Why invest my energy absorbing facts and theories with a limited shelf life?  The value I gain from reading is that every so often I come across something that changes the way I think.  When I learn a new way to think, I’ve gained something of permanent value.  For me, reading books that cause me to think deeply, whether philosophy, history, or classic literature, provide more eureka moments than the flavor of the month in management thinking.

Go to the source.  I tend to make decisions quickly – sometimes too quickly.  When that happens, I often find that my mistakes were rooted in inaccurate assumptions.  If you think about the information you receive and process each day, most of it has been filtered and packaged by others.  This introduces distortions which affect our decisions.  Each of us needs to find ways of connecting directly with underlying realities.  When I ran a business, I set aside time each month to visit customers.  I didn’t make appointments beforehand and I went alone, so no one had the chance to think about what I might want to hear, and I could get honest reactions instead.  I also spent one day a month digging into detailed financial reports and analyzing numbers.  I found that this discipline helped keep me rooted in reality, because it presented regular opportunities for the data to challenge my assumptions.

Cultivate critics.  A wise proverb says, “The kisses of an enemy are profuse, but faithful are the wounds of a friend.”  Anyone who will tell you what you’re doing wrong, or what is missing from your perspective, is your friend.  Such friends are hard to find, especially if you’re the boss.  No one wants to give the boss bad news; the usual fate of messengers is too well known.  If you’re going to get the criticism you need when you need it, you have to invite it actively and warmly thank those who provide it.

Many people say they welcome constructive criticism, but receive it with folded arms and a scowl.  You must learn to control your reactions, even your body language, if you want people to volunteer negative opinions.  Be quiet while they’re talking, except to ask clarifying questions.  Don’t defend yourself.  And thank them – sincerely and warmly – for what they’ve said.

In different ways, these ideas reflect the importance of different perspectives on a problem.  Each of us has an incomplete perspective.  We need to invite others to share what things look like from their angle.  And we need to develop our own ability to look sideways at things.  Often just a different angle on an old problem can yield new insights.