What happened to the wise old man?

I have a theory about wisdom. It suggests that wisdom is not just about age, it's about place and space.

So what am I talking about?

Well it's a given that if you've lived a long time and seen lots of things in your life then you'll have a perspective worth listening to. This is only part of the story though.

The bigger part is the bit around how you reason your way through what you have seen over the course of your life. I recently read a brilliant article written by Chris Argyris 15 years ago called "teaching smart people to learn". The article is very interesting and the point that really stood out for me is about a common mistake we make about people and learning.

Ask any professional educator how to ensure that successful learning takes place and they will tell you that it all begins with successful needs analysis. In other words if I'm going to teach a class to you and really want it to be a successful learning experience for you, I need to meet with you beforehand to work out what you want from the class. This is step 1 of the learning cycle and is fundamental for almost any teacher, trainer, instructor, presenter and so forth.

In other words by matching the content of the class to the needs of the participant learning can take place. Bingo!

This is where the mistake is happening, according to Argyris. We think learning happens because we understand the participant's motivation. If we can understand why they would want to learn then we can give it to them and make them learn. Argyris suggests this is plain wrong.

Instead he suggests that people don't learn because of the motivation from learning. Instead he says that people learn when they are able to successfully reason through what is being presented to them. In other words if people can interpret what is being said in the class, and can relate how this fits in their own personal space in the world, then they learn.

When I read this first I have to say that it was not so obvious. Now it is crystal clear.

Take a 4 year old child that has burned his fingers on a fire and ask him to do it again. He won't do it. His learning was not driven by motivation, but by his reasoning of what happened when he put his hands on the fire.

Let's get back to the original idea.

So take someone who has lived a long time, are they a wise man/woman? Could they be useful as a resource when you need to talk through a really tough problem? It depends.

It depends on how they have reasoned through what they have seen in their life. We've all met old men and old ladies who seem to have really figured out life, really understand people. We've all met old men and old ladies who don't have a clue about how life works and spend all day moaning about the government, the weather, other people, their feet and so on.

OK - two down and one to go. Still with me?

Wisdom requires some experience (you have to have lived a little) and reasoning (you have to be able to interpret what you see and hear and relate that to your life and to the wider context of the world.. what Peter Senge calls Systems Thinking). You've got to be able to see the connections between things, cause and effect, and how a little change in one place can affect things in a big way in another place.

To make the final leap to wisdom you need one final component (the last part of my theory). You need space.

Space means time to think and reflect, a few minutes in the day to ponder what just happened, or maybe what happened over the last few months or years. This is the really hard part.

Nowadays nobody seems to have any space, you know... time to think, to pause, to reflect. From the moment you wake your brain is in gear thinking about what needs to be done today. Off to work and on with the iPod and you're listening to music or an audiobook or podcast. Into work and you're reading your e-mail or sending an IM. Maybe the only time you have when you're free to think is when you're in the bathroom.

This is important. You need time to think, to pause, to reflect.

In those old western movies there was often a wise man in the clichéd native Indian village, sitting in the biggest Teepee tent. He was wise and sat there smoking a big pipe and not saying much. He was usually old. He was able to see things differently to the others in the group. He would speak slowly and deliberately, and use simple expressions.

Most cultures have this concept, often a magistrate or judge. Think about it. Older, a good listener, able to reason through a bunch of facts. Not reading his/her e-mail when he/she should be focused on what is going on around him/her.

So - to recap. To attain wisdom you just (1) stay alive for a good few years (2) develop good reasoning skills and see the connections between things so you understand why things happen and (3) give yourself time to do (2) by not filling up your every waking moment doing "stuff", especially time-wasting value-less stuff like watching reality TV.

That's my theory for today. Anyone disagree?