Wiping the slate clean

a chance to wipe the slate clean

The other week, I sat listening to an educational psychologist in a school classroom surrounded by large tv screens, with but a residual nod to old tech, a mobile white-board. When I say "mobile white-board" let's understand that this was not the latest app for a phone or tablet - it was a white board on a set of wheels.

We got to speaking about "wiping the slate clean" in a psychological sense. But it did strike me that, perversely, such a phrase still found space in the very room where a black board and chalk used to be the backbone of a teachers primary communication tool-kit for teaching. Times change... or should we still be wiping the slate clean?

Long live metaphors! You gotta love em.

The psychologist was keen (I like that) and wanted to share as many gems of wisdom as possible during an impractically short session - so rattled off her key points like a machine gun spitting out wellbeing logic instead of armour-piercing bullets. But, there was one point that did pierce my armour.

We all carry around a bag of preconceptions of individuals - in fact, for almost all the people we have met. Most are good, warm, friendly preconceptions. Some are distinctly less so. When we meet the people in the latter, our brains preload our past experiences to allow us to steel ourselves for more of the same - we will be ready. But, by doing this we invite or encourage the same behaviour. In other words we inherit from the past an inbuilt bias towards them. The human brain is pretty sophisticated to do this, mainly to protect us - and we don't even realise it. But in doing so it unwittingly disadvantages the poor subject and inhibits our ability to participate well in today's discussions.

Sometimes, we all have to "wipe the slate clean" and start again with an open mind - often every day. To give people a chance to start again and to reset opinions or expectations. Everyone has their own values, pressures, environment, and biases that drive their own behaviours or opinions - which may change or, indeed, be entirely reasonable in a contemporary context. Sometimes it's our own filters that unhelpfully colour our view of others, often in a unreasonable way.

I can certainly think of many instances where I let the past get in the way of a good value adding conversation in the present. Pause for thought ..... We have all done it.

Next time you are due to meet someone, where you feel the bias of the past preload, why not consciously wipe the slate clean and approach the new conversation afresh? It might help both of you to achieve your goals.

The relentless march of technological change will one day mean that we do need to find a new reference for this slate wiping "thing". I do wonder what it will be... clean the whiteboard?