Progress-focused

Whether you see the benefit of cultivating wisdom in work situations depends on whether you believe that wisdom can be developed at all. Recent experimental research has shown that the important components of wisdom are indeed malleable. In a new book chapter, Igor Grossmann (2020) lists what is known about the malleability of wisdom. He also offers suggestions for how wisdom can be cultivated at work. 

Igor Grossmann was born in the Soviet Union, grew up in Ukraine and Germany, and studied in Germany and the USA. Currently, he is the director of the Wisdom and Culture Lab at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is one of the leading researchers in the field of wisdom research (view his Google Scholar profile ). His work focuses on demystifying wisdom and modeling of cultural change. He also co-hosts the On Wisdom Podcas t and initiated worldaftercovid.info . In this interview we will talk about topics like what wisdom is, why there now appears to be an ever-greater call for wisdom, how individuals may reason and act more wisely, and how wisdom may be taught. 

Igor Grossmann has interviewed more than 50 prominent behavioral and social scientists from around the world to forecast the World after Covid , and share their advice on the wisdom people can use now to make it a better place. 

Who still wants to have a leadership role in a large organization in these complex times? The role of leaders seems quite challenging. To begin with, organizations themselves are often extremely complex. As a leader within organizations, you are faced with all kinds of problems, differences of opinion and diverse interests. As a leader, how can you ever have the information, knowledge and skills to bridge these contradictions and to find solutions to these problems? In addition to that, consider the environments in which organizations have to operate. These are also characterized by enormous complexity, change and uncertainty. As a leader in all this turbulence, how can you ever know for sure which way the organization should go? Doesn't being a leader require almost superhuman energy, capabilities, and social skills? 

Traditionally, philosophers have studied wisdom. But within psychology, this subject has received relatively little attention until recently, especially when compared to a subject like intelligence. But this has changed in recent years. There has been more consensus on what we mean by wisdom, to what extent it occurs in humans and what it correlates with. Grossmann & Brienza (2018) describe in a new article how wisdom can make a unique contribution to solving the complex issues of our time.  

Intelligence is relatively important in both psychology and Western societies. Two Canadian psychologists have pointed out the importance of other aspects of our cognitive functioning that they consider to be just as important and have wrongly received less attention. One is Keith Stanovich who argues for much more attention to rationality. The other is Igor Grossmann who points out the great importance of wise reasoning. In two new articles that he co-wrote with colleagues, he explains what wise reasoning is, why it is so important and how we can teach it. 

Both in our own everyday life and in society, we are often confronted with important issues that are difficult to solve with knowledge and rationality alone. The reason for this is that these issues are complex, surrounded by a great deal of uncertainty and often involve different perspectives and interests. Consider how to deal with the Corona crisis, the rise of artificial intelligence and the possible ethical consequences, political polarization and the spread of misinformation. Many philosophers and psychologists think that wisdom is necessary to tackle these kinds of issues effectively. But what is wisdom?