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Which information sources can I trust?

Do you trust the information you read online? Or the information you watch?

I’m often marking reports from my MBA students and looking at the information sources they choose to reference. YouTube videos and blogs simply aren’t credible, and I bang on about peer reviewed research journal articles, but what information sources exist in between? How can I decide which sources I can trust?

I have found the CRAAP Test to be helpful. The CRAAP Test looks at five aspects of information sources to determine their credibility.

Currency

Currency can be more important in some disciplines (eg science and medicine) than in other fields (eg humanities). Currency is important to ensure you are not using information that has been overtaken by new, better ideas.

  • When was the information published or posted?
  • Is currency important to your topic?

Relevance

While I may not find the perfect source that gives me the perfect answer to my questions, it is important that the source is related to my question.

  • Is the information central to my question or does it just touch on it?
  • Is the context of the information the same as that for my question?

Authority

Authority lets us know that the author has is an expert in the specific topic.

  • What are the author’s credentials and/or background in the topic in question?
  • Are they reputable?
  • What is the publisher’s or sponsor’s interest (if any) in this information?
  • Is the journal/website reputable?

Accuracy

The accuracy of a source is a good indication of its credibility.  Look for errors and false statements.

  • Does the source contain any false information or errors?
  • Are conclusions supported by evidence?
  • Are there facts or steps missing?

 Purpose

Sources may be written to entertain, inform, persuade, or some other purpose.

  • Is this fact or opinion?
  • Is it biased?
  • Is the language used meant to evoke a strong, emotional response? 

Additional Questions for Online Sources:
What is the domain (.com, .org, .gov, .edu)?
Who is the site publisher or sponsor?
Is the site a spoof, ironic or comedic?

The CRAAP test was developed by Sarah Blakeslee and her team of librarians at CSU Chico in the early 2000s. See more at Blakeslee, S., 2004, The CRAAP Test, LOEX Quarterly, 31 (3).

Image credit: umaine.edu

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When you plant lettuce…

Executive coaching often begins with a the client lamenting their current situation. Specifically, when team members are not performing, there is a tendency to blame them that some managers simply cannot see past.

On the other hand, many senior leaders have learned that blaming their team members is not the right approach, and recognise the many powerful ways they can influence their teams. It’s always exciting to start a coaching engagement with these leaders, as the door is already half open for spectacular possibilities.

Coaching the first group is sometimes threatened by getting bogged down in blame and powerlessness. While there are many tools to help lift a client out of that quagmire, I have found one of the best is a beautiful quote by Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Buddhist monk from Vietnam who spent much of his life teaching in France.

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you
don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not
doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or
less sun. You never blame the lettuce.

Yet if we have
problems with our friends or family, we blame the other
person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will
grow well, like the lettuce.

Blaming has no positive
effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason
and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no
reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you
understand, and you show that you understand, you can
love, and the situation will change”

Helping my clients focus on the environment quickly shifts the conversation towards positive, powerful possibilities.

How does it land for you?

(See also https://www.fallingangelrisingape.com/falling-angel/when-you-plant-lettuce/)

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Terminal and Instrumental Values

Our values help us decide the right course of action or the right way to behave in a particular content. When we discuss our values, we are often describing how we define ‘good’ and ‘how everyone should behave’.

There’s a lovely way to distinguish two types of values:

Terminal Values describe the end state of what you are working towards or believe is important. They are values like Freedom, Wisdom, Equality or An Exciting Life.

Instrumental Values describe the way we wish to achieve the end state. How we wish to behave or what we think of as ‘good’. They are values like Imaginative, Logical, Polite or Clean.

Terminal Values are what we want and Instrumental Values are how we want to get there.

Milton Rokeach described the Rokeach Value System (RVS) in 1973 using Terminal and Instrumental Values. Although Rokeach has been widely criticised for his choices of values and limiting each list to 18, nobody has developed a better system. Research using his Rokeach Value System (RVS) required participants to rank all of the values in two lists. It has demonstrated a correlation between values and the roles people aspire to and achieve.

The full list of Terminal Values

  • A Sense of Accomplishment
  • A World of Beauty
  • A World at Peace
  • A Comfortable Life
  • An Exciting Life
  • Equality
  • Freedom
  • True Friendship
  • Mature Love
  • Self-Respect
  • Happiness
  • Inner Harmony
  • Pleasure
  • Social Recognition
  • Wisdom
  • Salvation
  • Family Security
  • National Security

The full list of Instrumental Values

  • Ambition
  • Broad-Mindedness
  • Capability
  • Cheerfulness
  • Cleanliness
  • Courage
  • Honesty
  • Imagination
  • Independence
  • Intellect
  • Love
  • Politeness
  • Self-Control
  • Logic
  • Obedience
  • Helpfulness
  • Responsibility
  • Forgiveness

When you look sincerely at this list, you will probably find it lacks just the right words to describe your values. Fell free to add your own.

A great leader must first know themselves. What are your terminal and instrumental values?

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Judgement Clouds Judgement

Terry Pratchett was a hilarious and insightful author whose wisdom was sometimes lost in the laughs. According to his Discworld novels, wizards and witches are special because the are able to “see things that are really there”.

Of course, to make the best possible decisions in life, we’d all like to see the world as it really is. But that’s never the case.

We simply don’t have enough brain power to see the world for what it is. We make broad generalisations, use stereotypes and labels to simplify the world into a manageable size in our minds. This is absolutely necessary for us to survive and thrive, but we need to be careful that our generalisations don’t stop us from seeing things that are really there.

When we make judgement, we are creating generalisations.

We need to become more aware of our own judgements so that we can see the world more accurately. Time for reflection, for meditation, good advice from wise friends, and time will help us to see the world as it really is, and help us make better judgements.

How have you limited your own perception? (Maybe your friends can tell you!)

Image Credit: blog.ipleaders.in

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Maintaining the Mind

If we want to get the best performance from our tools we know we need to spend some time looking after them. We maintain our cars, our computers, our air conditioning, even our hair.

We know that if we want to perform physically, we need to work on our bodies through fitness, nutrition and rest.

What do we do for our minds? Our mental and emotional states are, without doubt, our greatest assets. They allow us to perform tasks, to maintain relationships, to make wise decision and to be happy. If our mental and emotional health are not the best they can be, then we certainly can’t be great communicators, leaders or effective in our day to day lives.

How do you maintain your mind? We can find nourishment in social activities, sleep and inspirational stories, but there’s another important ingredient to mental and emotional health – meditation.

Meditation gives the mind the stillness it needs to rest, to allow dominating thoughts to lose their power, to take a wider perspective of problems, of relationships and of our lives.

We meditate naturally when we stare into a fire, watch the clouds or sit under a tree. But most of us don’t do that every day. This TED talk by Andy Puddicombe is a wonderful summary of why meditation is so important to include in our daily lives.

How do you maintain your mind?

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Paradigm Shift

The most rewarding moments of my coaching are when I can help my client see the world, or themselves, in a new and more accurate way.

There’s an art to creating the right environment for a paradigm shift. But sometimes, a bold statement just slaps you with one. Like this gem from The Valorie Clark…

Letting go of false assumptions feels a little like being let out of a cage. Did this help you see something differently?

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The Aha! Moment

There is something so pleasurable about connecting the dots and coming to a new, inspired understanding. That moment when we exclaim Aha! with the new found perspective that changes everything.

I’ve come to realise that the Aha! moment is a primary driving force in my life. It happens in at least four ways.

In humour. The punchline of a joke is intended to sharply turn us from one understanding to another, and it feels great to let go of a set of assumptions.

In coaching. When I delve into my own, or another’s, assumptions, beliefs and habits and to find a new way of being. To suddenly understand the limitations of a belief or a relationship or an approach, and to just let go and be filled with the energy of the new potential. This is the best part of coaching for me.

In puzzles and cryptic crosswords. Like in humour, we are often intentionally misled to amplify the satisfaction wen we finally get the solution.

By simply being curious. Looking a little deeper into our history and culture, language and science. I have found the more I learn, the more I can connect the dots, the more Aha! moments, the more I want to learn!

I have recently had a wonderful little Aha! moment. I always used to think that the Milky Way was a little bit boring as a name for our galaxy. Our nearest galactic neighbour is Andromeda – cool name. Why do we call our own the Milky Way? Did the ancient Greeks call it ‘galaxy’?

It then struck me that lactose and galaxy share a syllable.

It turns out that the Greeks called the Milky Way galaxías kýklos or ‘milky circle’. Also, the galactic band is an anatomical description for part of the nipple, so we come full circle.

Is the pleasure of an Aha! moment associated with gaining new insight, or is it the pleasure of letting go the old assumptions?

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Intuition

I recently fell down and sprained my hand.

After the pain subsided, I gingerly felt it, tried to move my thumb, explored my new limited range of movement and pressed to see if any bones were broken. I tried to figure out how to fix it.

In a moment of relief, I realised this wasn’t a problem I had to figure out. My body knows how to repair a sprain, and I just have to let it.

My conscious mind might be pretty good at moving my fingers and sensing things, but it doesn’t really know how my thumb works, how to nourish it, repair or maintain it.

The mind is like that too.

My conscious thoughts can perform some rudimentary operations, like adding numbers or knowing the meaning of the word ‘tree’, but the mind is so much deeper. It knows how the mind works, how to nourish it, repair and maintain it. This deeper mind is so much more powerful than our conscious thoughts, providing solutions to problems, inspiration for fun and creativity, intuition to find the right path, empathy to develop lasting relationships.

As leaders, we need to learn to listen to our deeper mind. Like Einstein said, the rational mind should be the faithful servant.

How much are you valued for your deeper mind?

Image Credit: Social Science Space

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The Golden Rule in Leadership

Sometimes known as the Golden Rule, and one of my mother’s favourites when I was growing up. Paraphrasing Jesus Christ, it goes…

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you“

How does this apply in leadership? If the role of a leader is to direct activity of their team, but we don’t want the team to direct the activities of the leader, are we living by the golden rule?

When roles create an asymmetry in relationships, we can rely on principle and values to help us live by the golden rule. For example, respect, loyalty, openness, and courtesy can go both ways, and we love it when they do.

So, can we modify the Golden Rule for leadership? How about…

“Be the leader you would love to follow”

How would you phrase it?

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Learning with Others

As a lecturer, I find myself constantly drawn to the appeal of lecturing – to just open my mouth and let all of my wisdom fall into the eager ears of my students.

But that’s not how learning works, especially for adult learners.

Teaching is a process in which we must first engage the attention of the learner, then provide ways for knowledge to pass into memory, then help the learner to consolidate the learning by constructing concepts that sit with their current suite of concepts, beliefs, values and attitudes. This last point especially is a very personal, even private, process.

I’m always amazed at how often I attend sessions on new and better ways of learning, only to be talked at for 50 minutes. Guest speakers espousing the virtue of peer learning or problem based learning or role play or reflection – and they just talk at me, as if this moment is the exception to the rule.

So I set about creating a different kind of session where I lecture for 2 minutes tops, and only after the group is engaged.

Disaster in Space – Social ConstructivismDownload

Here is a presentation on social constructivism, using social constructivism. The slides are dead, and I hope you can breathe life into them and make sessions as fun as I’ve had with them. The first task is for individuals, the second is for groups in the example. It’s a great exercise that can be tailored for team building, ice breaking, conflict management or just for fun.

You’ll find NASA’s recommendations here. Learners always want to know!

Disaster-in-Space-NASA-RecommendationsDownload