What is the Paradigm that Influences You?

As I write this blog, I am attending a conference in Rome Italy, that is focusing in on Pediatric Brain Injury.  I was invited to deliver a keynote on the "Importance of Social Capital as an Antidote to Social Isolation."

Needless to say, the majority of delegates at this international, some 500 folks from 43 nations, are primarily from medically allied disciplines - medicine, psychology, rehabilitation, social work and the like.  So I framed my talk in a fairly broad way, discussing micro and macro implications, and exploring what we know about the impact of social capital on our lives.  It was a fairly generic look at critical topic for us all.

The talk was well received and I was pleased that the audience generally accepted and seemingly agreed with the points I was making.  As the conference proceeded, and especially during the breaks and social time we spent, it was intriguing to me how various people responded to me on what they made out of the talk.  Given that there were 43 countries represented of course there were cultural interpretations.  There were also generational and gender differences that influenced how people thought about relationships.

Most interesting to me, however, where how various disciplines/life experiences reacted to the talk.  The MD's from a framework of health; the psychologist's thinking about behaviors; and on and on.  This notion of how we hear and interpret things, and especially those things that are broad and sweeping, primarily from our paradigm of influence.

This, of course, makes sense and seems quite natural in the course of things, but may also be the reason why change takes so long to unfold.  If you hear something that goes against the grain of your paradigm, it could be the reason why new things often don's see the light of day.