Red Pen or Yellow Highlighter?
When you’re reading something from someone “outside your group,” are you a “red pen” person, or are you a “yellow highlighter” person?
A “red pen” person is like the teacher who gets out their red pen to mark up all the mistakes, errors, edits, problems, and wrong ideas a student has.
A “yellow highlighter” person is like the learner who gets out their yellow highlighter to emphasize all the good points, novel ideas, wise thoughts, and good points of another person’s perspective.
Our Tendency: “Yes, but.” Or, “Oh, no!” Or, “Hmm, interesting…”
Our tendency when reading or listening to someone from “outside our camp,” is to approach what they say through a critical, corrective lens, confrontive, or combative lens.
Sometimes our mindset is, “This person is the enemy. They are wrong. They need my corrective wisdom.”
Often our mindset is not even, “Yes, but…” Because a “yes-but” mindset at least stops long enough to discern the “yes”—to see something positive to emphasize with my yellow highlighter.
No. Our approach is often, “Oh, no!” Or, “No way!” Perceiving the person as “the enemy outside our camp,” we perceive that our only role is “truth-teller.” We see
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