Sunday, November 16, 2014

A Mind with “Common Sense”

A wise person with common sense can become wiser, but a narrow-minded one may become even more closed-minded due to a misunderstanding of common sense.

Common sense implies that the very group of people has shared common beliefs that serve to understand and interpret the natural and social events, and also aims to guide, organize, regulate and judge human conduct. The combination of these common beliefs are shared by a large number of people, it can be defined common sense.

Common Sense drives simplicity. Common Sense often provides very simple solutions. Common sense is an accumulated experience from day to day activities. With common sense we avoid the complexity, we focus on core competencies, and we pursue long-term goals in a focused and coherent activities and create a real productive value with the company. There is no doubt, that it is a key capability of management. However, business leaders are so used to see complications everywhere that they do not see the simplicity, even when it is staring at our face. That makes common sense a rare commodity indeed.

A common sense in a local group is perhaps totally odd in a global environment. All the implicit knowledge of a particular social and cultural environment belongs to common sense. Common Sense is specific to the knowledge needed and shared with a specific social group. Many of these are tacit knowledge and their behavioral assimilation is given by the daily use that the individual and others in his/her environment make that knowledge. Some transfers via reputation or association with a group's reputation, but the recurrent demonstration is the only way significant common sense is recognized.  Have a common sense to make the right decision as there’s collective insight in it, but have the courage to challenge it if it turns to be the out of date conventional wisdom.

Common sense is neither oxymoron nor absolute truth; A system of knowledge, that is, in which individuals who belong to a sector of society gives it a reality a truth, and invest a certain portion of the trust. This knowledge system is based on shared beliefs about the nature of the physical world, human and social, that provide explanations of events, an interpretation of their own and the others' behavior, and that they are rarely questioned. Common Sense is based on levels of related skills development. People may have abundant experiences, but they do not know how to frame the right questions or how their experiences relate to useful outcomes. Then they may still lack common sense. The mind with common sense is not lack of critical thinking, but both critical and predictive. Common Sense = Self-Esteem (sharing of useful information within a social group) + Critical Thinking + Predicting Consequences (with an emphasis on sustaining desired outcomes).

The reason common sense is difficult to define is because it comes from the Source. How do you describe the Source? It is a belief that is held or not held by each individual. If you believe Common sense is common then it is. If you believe common sense is uncommon, then for you it is. People continue to weigh evidence, analyze and take measurements to answer. "What 'should' I believe?" The better-framed question is "What Do I Want To Believe?" "We experience what we believe. If we don't believe that we experience what we believe, then we don't, which still means the first statement is true." -Harry Pal

Learning common sense requires restructuring brain tissues to first think logically, and with accurate predicting of consequences. This is learned by practiced experience. Common sense facilitates practical needs, that common sense allows for pursuing long-term goals, that common sense is based upon focused and coherent facilitation of logic, that value (emotional, social, & logical sets of perspectives) drive desired outcomes. However, it is not a natural ability. Common Sense is ONLY attained from practiced experience; repeated engagement to reinforce the immediate use of common sense skills. 

Common Sense demands an understanding of each social group's objectives, and the skills of communication and physical manipulation to be productive within each social group. The greater the knowledge of the systems in which one lives, a correct inference to be made from the use of common sense. The effectiveness of common sense, and thus the ability to use this knowledge in a functional way, is directly proportional to the degree of familiarity with the environment in which it operates. Common sense helps the individual in many situations in life, but its validity will depend on the degree of familiarity you have with the issue at hand and the personal involvement. 

Common Sense is the foundation for being capable of being ethical. It is to judge righteously, especially in view of practical needs. The approach we follow common sense also in business strategy should not be underestimated, even if it leads to seemingly trivial solutions. One can judge "righteously", that is a political word of emotional influence. A person can only "attempt" to judge righteously. As humans, we do not see the entire picture to know what the complete consequences are for our actions. Good intentions but poorly considered outcomes, is most often destructive; and not righteous. 

Everyone 'knows' you can't teach common sense. But everyone 'knows' you can learn it, further, avoid those common sense pitfalls: the common sense of one social group is perhaps not making so much sense in the others; common sense is neither absolute truth nor nonsense, make sense of it, but don’t follow it blindly; on one hand, use common sense to make better and faster decision; on the other hand, have the courage to challenge it if it turns to be just out of date conventional wisdom. The mind with common sense is restructured, critical and predictive, not for keeping the status quo, but to make things simple, not simpler.


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