Sublime

‘The sense of self emerges from the activity of the brain in interaction with other selves.’

We come to know our own minds through our interactions with others. Our mirror neuron perceptions, and the resonance they create, act quickly and often outside of awareness.

developing Martin’s “opposable mind” isn’t easy. You have to give up exclusively identifying with your own, singular point of view. If you want to train this kind of creativity and problem solving, what the research shows is that the either/or logic of normal consciousness is simply the wrong tool for the job.

This question eventually led O’Brien to Chris Argyris, whose writings resonated with Hanover’s managers’ experience. Argyris’s “action science,” offered theory and method for examining “the reasoning that underlies our actions.”9 Teams and organizations trap themselves, he says, in “defensive routines” that insulate our mental models from examinati

1. Build self-awareness to build mutual awareness

It is through the myriad of daily experiences that personal consciousness evolves.

“You’ve got to recognize not just who they are, but who they want to be.”

At Hanover, O’Brien wrote about “advanced maturity” as entailing building and holding deep values, making commitments to goals larger than oneself, being open, exercising free will, and continually striving for an accurate picture of reality. Such people, he asserted, also have a capacity for delayed gratification, which makes it possible for them