Understanding, Not Judgement.

Deirdre Morrison Author

Wisdom from Wei Wu Wei, that preempts much of what we now know through modern neuroscience.

"Wise men don’t judge. They seek to understand." Wei Wu Wei

Want to know how I chose this as the quote I wanted to post today?

I closed my eyes and scrolled through my file of great quotes.

So, why is it interesting that this is the one I chose?

I’ve been reading into the Task Positive Network and the Default Mode Network.

OK… What’s that got to do with anything? Well, the paper talks about the fact that organisations tend to lean towards Task Positive Network (TPN) thinking and strategies - as well as the many useful and helpful aspects of the TPN, it can result in judgement and the lack of empathy that comes with it.

The Default Mode Network (DMN), on the other hand, promotes connection and empathy - we see each other’s humanity more than our functionality. We access understanding in the DMN in a way that we don’t in the TPN.

We are trained - and rewarded - far more habitually for TPN thinking. But considering that the brain has roughly the same amount of availability of each, isn’t it time we started asking why? What are we denying ourselves, and those we interact with, if we don’t avail of the thinking, skills and advantages of both aspects?

We need both. And typically they don’t operate together. But we need to be able to switch fluidly between them, so that we can make the hard decisions, or be analytical when we need to with the TPN, but balance that with the empathy that comes with the DMN. Our thinking needs to be right, not just rational.

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