I attended a virtual training course recently on legal developments given by Professor Edwin Peel of the Oxford University Law Faculty. He specialises in contract and commercial law and is in my view a true expert who I always learn from. And yet when asked a question he said there were no cases that provided an exact answer - at least that he knew of. Even such an accomplished lawyer and lecturer recognised the boundaries of his knowledge and respected them.
This is as very much as it should be. The people to be feared most in professional and business life are those who are always right and will brook no argument or opposition. These are individuals who whilst often very clever and even accomplished cannot seemingly tolerate a different view or perspective. This tendency increases and is reinforced the longer they practice or manage.
The problem is what if they are wrong or fail to consider others’ viewpoints or recent developments in their field. Nobody can know everything and knowing what you do and always looking to expand that knowledge is a great asset. Jim Collins the author of the book Good to Great also said “The best students are those who never quite believe their professors.” That is because they question everything and do not assume what is right.
And it is very easy as a specialist professional person or senior manager to have a tendency to be always right and to jump to conclusions. If we are honest we have all done this to some extent. The Cambridge English dictionary says “If you are dogmatic, you are certain that you are right and everyone else is wrong”.
I also found this article The Dangers of Dogmatism which says Dogmatism has been defined as the unfounded positiveness in matters of opinion; arrogant assertion of opinions as truths. .....Dogmatism gets individuals into trouble when they ignore evidence that does not support their line of thinking, when individuals engage in confirmatory bias (filter out evidence that goes against one’s beliefs), and when individuals are unable to tolerate conflicting perspectives.
Here is a blog How to Avoid Having Your Beliefs Become Dogma, interestingly from the sales community that suggests What makes dogma so dangerous is that it doesn’t allow for new and conflicting information. It proposes that to a to avoid a fixed mindset like this you should allow your beliefs to be questioned, purposely seek conflicting ideas and become agnostic – be open to using whatever works and whatever the circumstances demand.
This matters in management as well as in providing advice. This Forbes article Is Your Dogmatic Leader Suffocating Innovation? cites research which concluded that the reason managers who scored low in dogmatism responded better to constructive ideas was because they were able to take the perspective of their team members.
And great thinkers and leaders seem to concur on the challenges of being over dogmatic.
Bertrand Russell commented Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.
Albert Einstein observed The world is so full of possibilities that dogmatism is simply indecent.
While finally John F Kennedy in an address to Yale University on 11 June 1962 said Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
This is as very much as it should be. The people to be feared most in professional and business life are those who are always right and will brook no argument or opposition. These are individuals who whilst often very clever and even accomplished cannot seemingly tolerate a different view or perspective. This tendency increases and is reinforced the longer they practice or manage.
The problem is what if they are wrong or fail to consider others’ viewpoints or recent developments in their field. Nobody can know everything and knowing what you do and always looking to expand that knowledge is a great asset. Jim Collins the author of the book Good to Great also said “The best students are those who never quite believe their professors.” That is because they question everything and do not assume what is right.
And it is very easy as a specialist professional person or senior manager to have a tendency to be always right and to jump to conclusions. If we are honest we have all done this to some extent. The Cambridge English dictionary says “If you are dogmatic, you are certain that you are right and everyone else is wrong”.
I also found this article The Dangers of Dogmatism which says Dogmatism has been defined as the unfounded positiveness in matters of opinion; arrogant assertion of opinions as truths. .....Dogmatism gets individuals into trouble when they ignore evidence that does not support their line of thinking, when individuals engage in confirmatory bias (filter out evidence that goes against one’s beliefs), and when individuals are unable to tolerate conflicting perspectives.
Here is a blog How to Avoid Having Your Beliefs Become Dogma, interestingly from the sales community that suggests What makes dogma so dangerous is that it doesn’t allow for new and conflicting information. It proposes that to a to avoid a fixed mindset like this you should allow your beliefs to be questioned, purposely seek conflicting ideas and become agnostic – be open to using whatever works and whatever the circumstances demand.
This matters in management as well as in providing advice. This Forbes article Is Your Dogmatic Leader Suffocating Innovation? cites research which concluded that the reason managers who scored low in dogmatism responded better to constructive ideas was because they were able to take the perspective of their team members.
And great thinkers and leaders seem to concur on the challenges of being over dogmatic.
Bertrand Russell commented Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.
Albert Einstein observed The world is so full of possibilities that dogmatism is simply indecent.
While finally John F Kennedy in an address to Yale University on 11 June 1962 said Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
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