Reimagining Remote Teaching Volume 26
Willing to Be Disturbed
A chapter from Margaret J. Wheatley’s Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations
to Restore Hope to the Future. Wheatley asks educators to reflect on their willingness
to have their beliefs and
ideas challenged by others. She also espouses the idea that strong leaders cannot
create change unless they are willing to be disturbed. This is a great read when working
with teams that are
stuck and need a fresh approach to the work.
Wheatley, Margaret J. Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future San Francisco: Berrett-Koshler Publishers, Inc., 2002
“Willing to Be Disturbed”
As we work together to restore hope to the future, we need to include a new and strange
ally—our willingness to be disturbed. Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas
challenged by what others think. No one person or perspective can give us the answers
we need to the problems of today.
Paradoxically, we can only find those answers by admitting we don’t know. We have
to be willing to let go of our certainty and expect ourselves to be confused for a
time.
We weren’t trained to admit we don’t know. Most of us were taught to sound certain and confident, to state our opinion as if it were true. We haven’t been rewarded for being confused. Or for asking more questions rather than giving quick answers. We’ve also spent many years listening to others mainly to determine whether we agree with them or not. We don’t have time or interest to sit and listen to those who think differently than we do.
But the world now is quite perplexing. We no longer live in those sweet, slow days when life felt predictable, when we actually knew what to do next. We live in a complex world, we often don’t know what’s going on, and we won’t be able to understand its complexity unless we spend more time in not knowing.
It is very difficult to give up our certainties—our positions, our beliefs, our explanations.
These help define us; they lie at the heart of our personal identity. Yet I believe
we will succeed in changing this world only if we can think and work together in new
ways. Curiosity is what we need. We don’t
have to let go of what we believe, but we do need to be curious about what someone
else believes. We do need to acknowledge that their way of interpreting the world
might be essential to our survival.
We live in a dense and tangled global system. Because we live in different parts of
this complexity, and because no two people are physically identical, we each experience
life differently. It’s impossible for any two people to ever see things exactly the
same. You can test this out for yourself. Take any event that you’ve shared with others
(a speech, a movie, a current event, a major problem) and ask your colleagues and
friends to describe their interpretation of that event. I think you’ll be amazed at
how many different explanations you’ll hear. Once you get a sense of diversity, try
asking even more colleagues. You’ll end up with a rich tapestry of interpretations
that
are much more interesting than any single one.
To be curious about how someone else interprets things, we have to be willing to admit
that we’re not capable of figuring things out alone. If our solutions don’t work as
well as we want them to, if our explanations of why something happened don’t feel
sufficient, it’s time to begin asking others
about what they see and think. When so many interpretations are available, I can’t
understand why we would be satisfied with superficial conversations where we pretend
to agree with one another.
There are many ways to sit and listen for the differences. Lately, I’ve been listening
for what surprises me. What did I just hear that startled me? This isn’t easy – I’m
accustomed to sitting there nodding my head to those saying things I agree with. But
when I notice what surprises me, I’m able to see my own views more dearly, including
my beliefs and assumptions.
Noticing what surprises and disturbs me has been a very useful way to see invisible beliefs. If what you say surprises me, I must have been assuming something else was true. If what you say disturbs me, I must believe something contrary to you. My shock at your position exposes my own position. When I hear myself saying, “How could anyone believe something like that?” a light comes on for me to see my own beliefs. These moments are great gifts. If I can see my beliefs and assumptions, I can decide whether I still value them.
I hope you’ll begin a conversation, listening for what’s new. Listen as best you can
for what’s different, for what surprises you. See if this practice helps you learn
something new. Notice whether you develop a better relationship with the person you’re
talking with. If you try this with several
people, you might find yourself laughing in delight as you realize how many unique
ways there are to be human.
We have the opportunity many times a day, everyday, to be the one who listens to others,
curious rather than certain. But the greatest benefit of all is that listening moves
us closer. When we listen with less judgment, we always develop better relationships
with each other. It’s not differences that
divide us. It’s our judgments about each other that do. Curiosity and good listening
bring us back together.
Sometimes we hesitate to listen for differences because we don’t want to change. We’re
comfortable with our lives, and if we listened to anyone who raised questions, we’d
have to get engaged in changing things. If we don’t listen, things can stay as they
are and we won’t have to expend any energy. But most of us do see things in our life
or in the world that we would like to
be different. If that’s true, we have to listen more, not less. And we have to be
willing to move into the very uncomfortable place of uncertainty.
We can’t be creative if we refuse to be confused. Change always starts with confusion;
cherished interpretations must dissolve to make way for the new. Of course it’s scary
to give up what we know, but the abyss is where newness lives. Great ideas and inventions
miraculously appear in the space
of not knowing. If we can move through the fear and enter the abyss, we are rewarded
greatly. We rediscover we’re creative.
As the world grows more strange and puzzling and difficult, I don’t believe most of
us want to keep struggling through it alone, I can’t know what to do from my own narrow
perspective. I know I need a better understanding of what’s going on. I want to sit
down with you and talk about all the
frightening and hopeful things I observe, and listen to what frightens you and gives
you hope. I need new ideas and solutions for the problems I care about. I know I need
to talk to you to discover those. I need to learn to value your perspective, and I
want you to value mine. I expect to be
disturbed by what I hear from you. I know we don’t have to agree with each other in
order to think well together. There is no need for us to be joined at the head. We
are joined by our human hearts.