The Three Truths of a Digital Mind

Steve Jobs once said, “Human minds settle into fixed ways of looking at the world”. He said this when describing the market entry point where Apple was able to disrupt and innovate—an ability that has made Apple one of the top technology giants in the world today. Looking at the world in a fixed way is human nature, this is how we evolved, it is how we survived, it makes sense, it is normal. The literature on evolutionary psychology and the neuroscience of leadership and engagement is rife with support for this. Unfixed ways of thinking are not easy to put on and do not represent the majority of our population, far from it. 

But, I believe, an unfixed mind is what is necessary to succeed and lead in a digital world. The type of thinking we need in a digital world can be gleaned from the final principle of the Agile Manifesto for developing software, “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.” Fixed minds are unable to reflect on where they are ineffective since they believe that their assumptions of today are immutable and right. Moreover, they really don’t see a need to question their assumptions—it just doesn’t enter the thought process. That is why we have come up with so many practices (like Agile or Lean) and tools (such as the Organizational Culture Inventory and Kegan’s Stages of Consciousness) to help us see the value in “unfixing” our mind.

In working with organizations struggling with “becoming digital”, I have begun to equate the “digital mind” with an unfixed mind. A mind that lets us more easily question our assumptions and uncover where they might now be partial, incomplete or insufficient for the problems of today.

So, if I want to be able to move into the unfixed state of mind needed for a digital world, I need a simple way to do that. I usually find that good, succinct questions are what help me the most when I want to try on new behaviors. What I have settled on to help me with this unnatural act of moving to an unfixed way of seeing the world is to use three statements or assumptions. I call these the three truths of a digital mind. (Which may sound a bit grand, so forgive me. But using the word “truths” causes me to continue to challenge and examine their usefulness, that may be somewhat counterintuitive, but it works for me.)

The first truth is about me, the individual, and it is to recognize that “I have a blind spot.” There’s something I’m not seeing at first. I never have all the data. And my blind spots are not necessarily fixed and unchanging, they are various and complex. My blind spot in situation A is not necessarily my blind spot in situation B. If I assume I have a blind spot then I probably need two things; I need to always look for it and I need help to see what lies there. One of the questions I can ask myself is “what have I missed before and where is this a pattern for me?” The things I have come to know about myself to be true can be very helpful here. 

Another idea is to stop making important decisions on my own, without getting the insight of people I trust or who have a different perspective or vantage point. Doing so might just be a little short-sighted. I don’t need to doubt everything I do, this is for the important decisions—the ones I really want to get as right as possible because of the impact they may have on myself, others, and the world.

The second truth is about others, and it is that “someone’s voice is missing.” Someone else would make this better, another instrument could change the music in a meaningful way. (Another singer always changes the song). I never know everything and moving forward without inviting challenge is the path of a fixed mindset. 

This is not so much about checking my thinking for blind spots, as discussed above, but about expanding the group that does the thinking (and talking) about the problems and solutions. It can also be about increasing diversity in the group or not just defaulting to the same group, based on hierarchy or convenience. Each problem is different, why should the groups that solve them so often be the same? We can experiment with different participants. Perhaps we should make our invitations broader and see who shows up (and who doesn’t) and what impact that has on the quality of our decision-making.

 Lastly, there is the truth about the situation itself which is “there’s more than one road (to succeed)”. You are never limited to one way to do what needs to be done. There are many choices, both big and small, all along the way. But with a fixed mindset, we tend to see only one road through our fixed lens.  

One practice a former mentor introduced me to was to, when making crucial choices, have more than one option that I could support and make work and then get some input on which one to pursue. And these options needed to be clearly different, not just slight changes in aspects that didn’t really matter. Just the discipline of trying to come up with a brand-new way to solve the problem that I could truly support was revealing. It was really difficult once the first answer was lodged (dare I say fixed) in my mind.

So, when talking to most people about becoming digital, I often start by asking them if they are cultivating a digital mind by assuming these three truths are true? Or, if they are not, will they experiment with asking themselves the questions that naturally follow from these three assumptions? If so, how does that impact how they behave? 

It has been my experience that spending more time in a less fixed state of mind helps us see disruptions before we get disrupted or it helps us see ways forward quickly when the disruption takes us by surprise. It keeps us from hanging on to a way of seeing the world, and ourselves in that world, when the world has rendered our lens somewhat out of focus (or greatly out of focus). It helps us think more “digitally”, which is the starting place for most of us in our own role in any digital transformation. 

For many of us non-techies, I believe that becoming more digital is actually a matter of continuous self-management. I would urge you to consider embracing the three truths and simply asking yourself, “If these are true, what are the implications for what I am doing or deciding right now?” 

Maybe ask yourself in the morning before the day starts, or at the end of the day as a reflection on the choices you made. Maybe reflect on them at the end of a meeting. You might even use them with your team as a ten-minute debrief after you meet or decide something. The trick is just to ask yourself “how might this ‘truth’ impact what I think I know and have decided to do right now?” However, you choose to use them I hope they might be a simple tool that helps you put on your digital mind in our increasingly digital world!