What exactly comes to our mind when we say wisdom?

Is it being intelligent,
Is it understanding complex ideas, or
Is it knowing nothing at all?

Our value, Wisdom is at the heart of our curiosity.

Adam Grant, in his new book Think Again describes wisdom as

“...the power of knowing what you don’t know.”

We define our value of Wisdom as,

"Researching, developing and reflecting on ideas to challenge our own understanding and further our purpose."

In a world of aggressive certitude, where everyone is trying to compete, perhaps we have actually lost the true meaning of wisdom.

If we will look at our organisations, our work environment, we feel we need to know everything possible, but in reality the intellectuality lies with curiosity; to know more about the world, and about our own selves.

We are all scientists trying to discover our core being and it's okay if there is something that you don’t know, in fact this is something we need to accept, because that is how we keep discovering.

Wisdom is realising something much more transcendent than simply cognitive skills or knowledge, it's the ability to rethink and unlearn.

When we say rethink, it doesn’t mean to necessarily keep changing your thoughts; it signifies reflection, challenge and openness to being wrong.

It’s the realisation that you have to let your current thoughts be open and vulnerable to correction.

When you allow yourself to let your beliefs be free to change; and you are able to let go and not hold tightly onto them, that's when you experience wisdom.

Our work and research in the area of governance is centred around making it more human, more understandable and more adaptable. We connect our definition of governance to the murmuration of birds, showing collaboration, cohesiveness, and togetherness. They form themselves into beautiful shapes in the sky using a singularity of purpose and clear values and principles.

So, when we talk about wisdom, it's about being or staying curious, in being courageous and having difficult conversations; there’s much more rethinking required than thinking.

Well established organisations are at an increased risk of stagnation if they do not nurture curiosity and wisdom. Start-ups on the other hand, often by their very nature, are innately curious.

Good governance requires adaptability, flexibility and agility, just like our murmuration of starlings. The culture we create in our organisations is the foundation of governance. Is yours innovative? Do you encourage failure?

In the uncertain world we now live in, curiosity is vital.

Curious about discovering how we are going to work in the future.

Curious about how human-beings are becoming increasingly important, despite the rapid development of AI.

Curious about how our emotions influence all of our decisions and how we can improve the decisions we make by developing emotional agility.

The more we are curious, the more we realise how little we know.

This pandemic has forced us to rethink and those organisations that have embraced change as the only constant, they will be those that truly emerge and survive in the months and the years ahead.

So what shall we do?

Stay open, be vulnerable, accept and recognise that rethinking is your route to longevity and being curious about ourselves and where we are, is what makes us human.

Everything falls apart, so being open to this and working with change rather than against it will allow things to fall apart beautifully.

Intelligence and wisdom are generally thought of as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world we need to ask ourselves these questions?

Are we curious enough?
Are we embracing failure?
Are we being human?

This is where everything matters, where we learn what we don't know.