Today’s thought is about authenticity. While reading Harvard Business Review’s Management Tip of the Day, I am no longer surprised to find myself thinking about ASB’s Early Childhood Curriculum (not to mention the rest of our school’s standards and benchmarks). Today’s tip is a great example. It is adapted from “To Be Authentic,” by Amy Jen Su and Muriel Wilkins. Distilling the article down to its two main points, HBR suggests that “to be authentic” a person must “have a point of view” and more importantly “be transparent about their opinion.” I don’t think the authors have gone far enough in the equation they have designed for authenticity. I think there is more.
We all know that our 5-year-olds, and of course our teenagers, have an opinion about everything and they do not shy away from sharing that opinion. Having an opinion and being transparent about it, is not an issue for the child of the 21st century. The trick, and therefore our responsibility as parents and teachers, is to educate our children on how to articulate the whys beneath their opinion and then create opportunities for them to be open to and engage in conversations about their opinions and the opinions of others. In the simplest of terms this could look like this:
“How was your day today?” asks the parent.
“Good,” says the child.
“Why?” asks the parent.
“What do you mean, ‘why’?” the child will probably ask.
“Why was it good?” the parent clarifies.
And just like that the parent has delivered their first “why” of Sakichi Toyoda’s 5 Whys. And so, not only has a real conversation commenced, but also the critical skill of being able to articulate an opinion has begun to develop. And as is developmentally appropriate we, the adults, need to start replacing “how was your day?” with deeper questions like, “what do you think about the xyz in Mumbai,” (followed by 5 whys) or “how would you have solved the abc problem?” or “why do you think the United Nations decided to blah, blah, blah?”
If we follow this skill development, for the next 30 years we should see graduates who know (deeply understand) why they hold the opinion they do; thought leaders who are able to build passionate support for initiatives because they are crystal clear about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how it will be done.
Wouldn’t that be refreshing? And isn’t that a lofty and yet attainable goal for a family and an educational institution? I sure think so.
That’s all for now. I welcome feedback of all sorts. Please do not hesitate to send me thoughts of your own. I look forward to the dialogue.