Middle Of The Night Thoughts...

Woke up in the middle of the night with something in my head and thought, well that's got to be a blog doesn't it?

Ready?

It was:

Great minds think alike, but exceptional minds think of things never thought of before. Small minds don't think at all.

And then as I was thinking about it my head gave me a little more to ponder.

We say great minds think alike but we also worry about groupthink being a problem. So what happens when your group is all great minds does that cancel out the bad part of groupthink? Or is that groupthink is more likely to happen when you have one or two great minds thinking alike and the rest of the group deciding just to follow that thought?

And then can it become an the Emperor has no clothes moment?

Just waiting for an exceptional mind to point out the error.

But...then we have the other problem. Small minds don't think at all. They do something much worse. They know.

I know this is right because...

I know this is the truth because...

And it doesn't matter how many things you show them, they don't change because they aren't thinking about it, they are knowing.

And great minds in one area can be small minds in another. They can even be exceptional in one area and then just a "knower" in another. A knower not a grower? Something like that.

And it can even be worse if you are an exceptional thinker you can convince yourself that you are right in an area where you are not thinking at all. I just listened to a podcast about this recently, maybe the You Are Not So Smart one...if you're interested I will try and find it.

We can all be susceptible to the knowing problem.  And it depends on how attached you are to the identity that goes with what you know on how willing you are to give it up. Tribalism is all based on knowing. Even if a lot of what you believe is based on great minds thinking alike. And even if it started with an exceptional idea.

Anyway....

This is what was in my head at 2 AM. Great minds think alike. Exceptional minds think of things never thought of before. Small minds don't think at all.

What are you?

And if you aren't exceptional would you even want to admit it to yourself?

I know I wouldn't...