In a Changing World, You Need to Know Which Way the Knowledge Flows

There’s an interesting trend that occurs in times of mounting pressure and high uncertainty which is that it’s a natural human tendency to seek out people that agree with us, that are similar to us because it’s a source of comfort in a world that’s so rapidly changing. 

The paradox is that actually that comfort is creating even more vulnerability to us because we’re becoming siloed.  We’re becoming contained.  There’s a great book called The Filter Bubble.  We create this bubble around ourselves where we reinforce the beliefs that we have, the views that we have in a world that’s rapidly changing.

Rather than constantly questioning and challenging our beliefs and being willing to think differently about the opportunities that are out there we withdraw into what we’ve done before.  And in a world that’s rapidly changing that’s a formula for vulnerability.  It says that, in effect, you’re going to be more and more out of step with a world that has a different set of needs and a different set of opportunities.  And so the way to really participate in that world successfully is to find ways to connect and participate in what we call knowledge flows. 

It’s this opportunity to see many different perspectives, get many different points of view and continually challenge our thinking, come up with new ideas, new approaches that will help us to become even more effective in the world that’s changing around us. 

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think’s studio.

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