The Discipline of Rational Thinking

by Dave Kahle

We all know that we find ourselves in an incredibly turbulent, complex, rapidly changing, and information-saturated world. Intuitively, we understand that our ability to navigate these turbulent waters is the single biggest challenge we will face for the balance of our careers.

     Because these times are unprecedented, we need to intentionally create some mechanisms to help us.  If we’re smart and intentional, we can build some routines, attitudes, and competencies into our personal lives and into our business culture that will help us to survive and thrive, even in these unprecedented times.

     In earlier articles in this series, I proposed we intentionally build ‘sails’ into our routines – those habits, attitudes, and processes that power us forward. At the same time, we focus on energy and forward movement, we need to intentionally build ‘keels’ into our lives and corporate cultures.  

     Keels are those principles, practices, and beliefs that hold us down and keep us on course. Like the sails and keel on a sailboat, the dynamic tension between these two opposing forces empowers us to act at our optimum.

So far, we have examined these sails:

• An acceptance of personal responsibility
• An attitude of openness
• A propensity to take risks

We’ve also looked at these keels:

• An articulated vision or purpose
• The discipline of regular reflecting and planning.

I believe in you

I believe that your business has potential to become a powerful Kingdom entity. To reach that potential, you’ll need to engage with Biblical business content and connect with other like-minded folks. We provide that in the XI Community – an online community providing content and connections for Christian Businesspeople.

Won’t you join me?

It’s time for our next keel:  The discipline of rational thinking.

Let’s begin by defining our terms.  Here are some definitions from the Oxford Dictionary:

Rational –– based on or in accordance with reason or logic.

Synonyms include:  logical, reasoned, well-reasoned, sensible, reasonable, cogent, coherent, intelligent, wise, judicious, sagacious, astute, shrewd, perceptive, enlightened, clear-eyed, clear-sighted, commonsensical, common-sense, well advised, well-grounded, sound, sober, prudent, circumspect, politic, down-to-earth, practical, pragmatic, matter-of-fact, hardheaded, with both one’s feet on the ground, unidealistic, joined-up

Thinking — the process of using one’s mind to consider or reason about something.

Rational Thinking – according to Ted Wrigley, writing in Quora, ”rationality is a filtering process in which we try to weed out what is ephemeral, inconsistent, changeable,           unfounded, contradictory, or in any other way overly dependent on the momentary states of inner or outer experience. “

Rational thinking is one of the processes that ... CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE