New

By Pastor Paul Gauche

Today’s Word: ‘New’ as in… we don’t really learn unless we are challenged by something new, someone new, some new idea, a new perspective. We’re better together and when we consider different points of view and look at challenges from diverse perspectives, this allows for something to happen that wouldn’t otherwise happen if we weren’t open to new, different, even diverse points of view.

That’ll change the world.

Carly Fiorina is an American businesswoman and political figure. She is well known for her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard and as the Chair of the philanthropic organization Good360. Carly Fiorina is a leader among leaders; she knows one when she sees one. Ms. Fiorina understand that the gift of leadership is the ability to collaborate – to literally co-labor with others whose views, perspectives and values may be different. In a recent interview on the Lincoln Project podcast Carly Fiorina talked about the benefits of welcoming new points of view and how the ability to do that emerges from a healthy sense of diversity. Here is what Ms. Fiorina said about the role of diversity in collaboration and leadership:

“Diversity is critical to problem solving because when we only talk to people who agree with us, or we only spend time with people who are like us – and let’s face it, it’s easier, sometimes it’s a lot more fun when you just hang with my tribe. It’s more fun, they get me… And in the social media world you can hang with your own tribe all the time. But here’s the thing – and a psychologist will tell you this, a neuroscientist will tell you this, we don’t learn unless we are challenged by something new, someone new, some new idea. We don’t learn. We don’t come up with new ideas. We get, in other words, [stuck] in a rut. And the thing is when you’re facing a difficult problem – whatever rut you’re in, it’s not enough because you have to be more creative. You have to be more innovative. You have to think up new ways to solve this old problem. The old problem that’s been hanging around for a really long time because the old ideas aren’t working to fix it. And so you literally can’t solve it without coming up with new ideas and you’re not going to come up with new ideas if you’re only talking to people like yourself. It’s a fact. It’s a fact in business. It’s a fact psychologically. It is one of the tragedies of what our politics has turned into. What are we doing? We’re all shouting at each other. But nothing’s getting better.”

I like to imagine Jesus sitting around a small fire in his hometown stoking both the fire as well as the hearts of his followers for the mission ahead, and saying something like this:

“Look guys, pair up. You’re better together. If you go alone, you’ll only have half of what you really need: each other and each’s perspective. You’ll run the risk of only telling a flat, black-and-white, one-dimensional story. But when you go together and listen to each other and hear the perspectives of others, you’ll discover the three-dimensional kingdom God, the Realm of New Life that’s emerging all around us! People need all three dimensions. They need to hear new perspectives about what God is up to, they need to see what God is doing, feel it, taste and even smell what God is doing in the world.”

Friends, we’re better together and when we consider different points of view and look at challenges from diverse perspectives, this allows for something to happen that wouldn’t otherwise happen if we weren’t open to new, different, even diverse points of view. When we come together to work together, play together, talk and laugh together, we begin to reap the benefits of learning something new, someone new, some new idea, a new perspective.

That’ll change the world.

#100days50words

Paul Gauche is the Pastor of Life Transitions at Prince of Peace. His posts are part of his #100days50words project, where be blogs about a different word each day. You can follow his project on Instagram (@pgauche), or on his blog, Thriving Rhythms.