By: Frances Shuster, PCC

I have been hearing more and more messages in today’s climate about the idea of individuals and thinking. Some say children should not be taught critical or higher order thinking because it encourages them to question the teachings of their parents. Questioning ideas we have heretofore assumed to be true requires complexity of thought.

Kegan and Lahey, in Immunity to Change, indicate that mental complexity tends to increase with age, throughout adulthood, at least until old age.  They assert that more than 50% of people in leadership roles never reach the level of mental complexity that will be called for to live and lead in a complex society to which we are all moving. There is an expectation for greater capacity for innovation, self-management, personal responsibility, and self-direction in our increasingly complex world.

The ability to conceptualize multiple viewpoints simultaneously is one attribute of a high level of mental complexity.  I have mental filters, and I can step back and look at my filters as well as through them. In order to examine change initiatives thrust upon me by others, my highest response is to examine the initiatives with an eye on my own filters, recognizing them, so that I may look at them as I look through them.

Our own filters often go unexamined, holding us to lower levels of thought. We typically look through our filters without looking at them. This idea applies not only when change is thrust upon us, but also when we are the initiator of change that affects others, or even a change we desire for ourselves and are unable to achieve. Examining our own filters—looking at them—offers a perspective that allows us to be more intentional about how we deal with change, whether or not we have chosen the change.