Gandhi Kicks Darwin’s Butt
Perspective Transcends Time
Everyone lives within an environment that powerfully and stealthily influences their perspective of the world. We take our new stimuli and ideas and filter them through our preexisting belief systems. It is how we provide context to our understanding. This is true today, and it was true in the time Darwin was constructing his theory of evolution.
Scarcity Implications of “Survival of the Fittest”
The reason this matters in today’s business development is we as a society have adopted blindly some of Darwin’s assumptions in the creations of our social evolution. Specifically, I am making reference to the concept of “survival of the fittest.” This idea emanated from what are now known to be flawed Malthusian Economic concepts concerning the inability of the arithmetically limited earth to support a geometrically growing population. This impending catastrophe was the setting within which Darwin envisioned his battle for resources and threat to our survival. The only problem is that the underlying belief has been demonstrated to be false.
Beliefs Determine Actions
Basing our social and economic theory on this flawed paradigm of scarcity has created a cultural business environment of win/lose negotiation and winner take all competition. The problem is that this thinking is on par with the hungry cancer cell ravaging its host. Winning at all costs ultimately leads to a loss for everyone.
Driving Home a Point
This dynamic can be seen throughout the collapse of the once great, (and hopefully future great) U.S. car industry. Belief in the wisdom of “survival of the fittest,” a take all you can get stratagem created low trust between management and leadership, dealers and the consumer, and manufacturing and the public. Believing themselves to be in a battle for survival against their natural partners led to dysfunctional relationships that squandered resources and crippled a once very healthy organism.
The Contagion Need Not be Pandemic
Unfortunately, these beliefs and practices have not been isolated within the car industry. The stories of abuse of power and manipulation riddle the news leaving many of us to believe we have no choice but to join in the race to the lowest common denominator. Enron, Arthur Anderson, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and the sub-prime mortgage industry all built their business models on the principles that unbridled capitalism justified any collateral damage as long as they were able to capture their kill.
The Future Belongs to Corporations Who are Socially Responsible
The corporate graveyard is being filled with corpses of organizations inspired to win at all costs, and our nation faces economic collapse if we continue down this path. This is the time we must recognize our flawed paradigm and rebuild our corporate and social greatness by pursuing a path of “thrival of the fittingest” over “survival of the fittest.” The future will be secured and led by those who effectively collaborate and create synergy with others, expanding the pie, rather than selfishly trying to grab a disproportionately big slice of a pie.
Gandhian Actions Steps
Gandhi, the physically small and politically powerless Indian who inspired the birth of the largest free democracy on the planet is credited with these great words of wisdom, “be the change you want to see in the world.” With that thought in mind, we look at action steps we can embrace today to move our world in the direction of ‘thrival” rather than “survival.”
1. Create a “box of safety” within which to explore feelings, thoughts and beliefs.
2. Leave your ego at the door and drop your defensiveness.
3. Listen compassionately to fully understand other’ s needs and objectives.
4. Present your perspective clearly and passionately.
5. Work together to create win/win solutions and powerful partnerships that endure.
For some, these steps may seem to be weak, or unnecessary. My caution is that such perspective is at the heart of many failing systems where greed and quarterly returns have moved our focus off creating naturally sustainable and prosperous organizations and societies and onto the quick fix. We may well be able to capture short turn rewards by killing the “Goose that lays our Golden Eggs,” even children can understand the myopic nature of such an approach.
Please let me know your perspective on my thoughts. Challenge any premise or share with me where we align in thinking. We will be hosting a business development tele-seminar called “Get Real, Get Connected and Get After It.” If you have interest in learning more, fill out the form below.
The Need for Healthy Conflict
Creating Our Own Future in an Economic Decline
Today I began working with a new organization excited to take charge of their destiny in this turbulent economic climate, Their primary focus of our work together is to help them embrace the practices that will increase the effectiveness of their collaboration and ultimately optimize their team productivity. They recognize the need for greater efficiency in their efforts and are committed to align their energies to optimize their results. Like many companies who are proactively engaging this challenge, they are creating a bright future for themselves.
Building Trust and Reaping Highly Functioning relationships
While preparing to meet with this group, I revisited a classic reference in team building. Pat Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Reading this in our current social, political and economic environment, one might be struck by the disparity between the underlying operation of our social system, and those more desirable of a functional team. The foundation of this challenge is a lack of real, demonstrable trust.
Silent Compliance is not Trusting, It’ s Avoidance
Now, as we find ourselves facing a collapse of the mortgage and banking industry, many say our problem stems from too much trust, rather than too little. At first glance this appears to be true. However, a truly trusting relationship is accompanied by healthy conflict, demonstrated as a willingness to challenge ideas and perspective. This wasn’t present in the run up to this collapse. The allure of easy credit and rising values was too attractive for many to stop and question the assumptions upon which the housing bubble was being created.
Relationships Require Vigorous Debate to Remain Strong
We Instead of vigorously debating the issues to ensure the assumptions beneath the meteoric build up were valid, we collectively embraced the perspective of the “experts,” and lost our connection to common sense. We wanted to believe that our economy could continue to be built on leverage and restructured financial instruments. And as the saying goes, “We most easily believe that which we most want to believe.” We saw the Emperor’s new clothes and we liked them.
Meaningful Dialogue Needs a Free Flow of Ideas
What does any of this have to do with team building, and more importantly, why is it so critical that we once again engage our most critical thinking? We are facing a global challenge that will require coordination and collaboration of many disparate voices if we wish to succeed. That will require from each of us is a desire to understand the perspective of the other, but also to courageously and with civility, present our own perspective. Only through this free flow of ideas will the best solutions arise.
Authentically Communicate with Compassion and Courage
This demands both compassion and conviction. It calls for us to respect the intentions of others and to earnestly seek to understand their perspective. Moving forward, we will need new ideas to capitalize on the opportunities that will certainly present themselves. And new ideas are most often created when we combine different approaches, harnessing the strengths of each. Through our willingness to hold our ideas loosely and lessen our need to be right, we are prepared to capture the brilliance and creativity that result for vigorous collaborative work.
Exercise: In a relationship in which you have already developed strong trust, place your focus on areas where your beliefs are not aligned. Make it your objective better understand the other’s point of view from their perspective. Remain with this inquiry until you feel you absolutely understand their motivations and reasoning. After having gained such insight, request an opportunity to share your perspective so they might better understand you as well. Contemplate how this mutual respect and caring impacts your feelings about the relationship. Consider the consequences if you consistently sought to engage the world with compassion and courage. Please share you findings and let us grow through one another’s experiences.
Live on purpose!
John
The Sun Also Rises
Caution, Heavy Fog
A thick fog has settled over our economy. Like cautious drivers, we have slowed our pace, scanning the horizon for obstacles that might present a danger. Hazard lights are flashing each time we turn on the news, read the paper, or even engage in conversation with our friends. In response, we clench our hands around the proverbial wheel, fighting to hang on to the lives to which we have become accustomed. Strain and struggle epitomize the energy that dominates our society.
Incomplete Perspective
This seemingly appropriate response to our current situation is not merely imperfect. It is contributing to and prolonging our economic quagmire. There are no harmless thoughts. Believing we are at the affect of these global challenges moves us away from proactive life design and into reactive acceptance. Every thought we have shapes our expectations, and influences the effort and energy we bring to our challenges. If we wish to move beyond this current economic environment, we must engage life with positive expectation.
At a casual glance, this metaphor of driving cautiously and reactively in the fog seems logical. However, viewing our situation from such a passive and defensive vantage point fails to recognize both our responsibility and opportunity. We are not merely the drivers in this scene, but we are also the sun beams which must shine hot and bright to burn off the fog and eliminate the artificial barriers to our growth.
The Fog is Lifting
While their drumbeat may currently be overwhelmed, many are recognizing the amazing opportunity before us. These thought leaders are excited by the possibility to build on a new foundation and to do so based on the universal principles that always succeed. This collaborative shifting of consciousness will enable us to tap into the power of synergy, fully engaging our collective potential to create the world we most desire.
The answer to our challenges is not going to present itself on the news. It will not come from outside. Meaningful life change comes from within. This is a great time to abide in the core message of Gandhi’s inspirational life to “be the change you want to see in the world.” If we want more trust, faith, courage, and passion in the world, first model it with our lives.
Moving from Inspiration to Implementation
So how do we transfer this from concept to implementation. Who is not moved by the idea of peaceful co-existence and abundant productivity for all. However, living at full speed presents many challenges that come may come upon us faster than we are equipped to handle. In the throws of life, many of us will forget to “be the change,” instead reacting defensively, and possibly aggressively to our subconscious fears. Our nature betrays us by instinctively going into a fight or flight mode to threats that require neither.
What encompasses unlimited promise is that we need not live out of our instincts. One of the distinctive human endowments is the ability we have to choose our response, rather than to live reactively. By recognizing that our life experience is never the result of what happens to us, we expand the space between the event and our response to it. This allows us to act in alignment with our values, even when that might not be our immediate response. Maintaining this awareness allows us to move out of “victim energy” and to reclaim control of our lives.
Without this conscious shift, we will continue to attract into our lives more evidence that supports the belief that the world is happening to us, rather than that we are creating our world. This passive perspective results in what many refer to a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Wayne Dyer
Each of us has a primary paradigm, or lens through which we see the world. This determines the way we see things. This paradigm is influenced, though not controlled by the society within which we live. As the headlines have become increasingly negative, that societal influence has also become stronger and more consistent.
The Power to Choose
Fortunately, of far greater impact is a triad of choices we make in each moment:
1. what we will focus on
2. how we will manage our physical energy
3. the meaning we will give to the events in our lives