Breakthrough Newsletter - We' vs. 'we' and Spiritual Revolution
Breakthrough Newsletter
Volume II, Issue 7 July 2010
PITAGORSKY CONSULTING
In This Issue
Is Optimal Performance a principal goal of yours?
This program weaves together the critical skills for optimal performance, across weeks or months to enable measurable improvement. It consists of six segments that stand alone as well as build on each other.
"Productive insight; clear (often sudden)
understanding of a complex situation." Free Dictionary
Pop the bubble of conditioned
thinking and emerge into the creative realm of "no absolutes," continuous
change, uncertainty and unlimited possibilities.
Then, there can be innovation,
adaptation and optimal performance.
Performance & Open-minded Mindfulness:
Open-minded: questioning everything,
accepting diversity and uncertainty.
Mindful: consciously aware; concentrated.
Foundation for blending process, project,
engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize
performance.
This Newsletter
Our aim is to stimulate the kind of thinking, dialogue and understanding that leads to optimal performance.
"The weakness of humanity is our blindness, a cultural blind spot which some call ignorance, in which a selfish and immature ego claims the world as ours and prevents us from seeing ourselves as a part of the world. Kinship with all life is a biological (evolutionary) fact, but our cultural ways of doing, perceiving and relating, blind us to this reality." ¹ ~ Dr. Michael W. Fox
When asked recently in a radio interview about what I would do regarding the world situation, my immediate response was "Oy vey". The interview was about how to integrate spirituality into the work place so as to achieve optimal performance. Fortunately I didn't really have to address the world, only the part that we come in contact with while working. My heart goes out to those who do have the responsibility to figure out what to do about the world situation, even the ones I don't like and who in their efforts, have made things worse.
Clearly, the world is an incredibly complex system with problems ranging from terrorism to ecological disasters like the BP Gulf oil spill and seemingly endless conflicts among the world's nations and peoples. In comparison, our organizations and personal relationships are simple; though they are also complex.
People in organizations, communities and families have differing values, goals, styles of thinking, diverse cultural conditioning, personalities, levels of education, etc. Trying to make change from the top down is fraught with risk - no one really knows what the net effect of an action might be in a complex system. Expecting change to percolate up from the bottom may be reasonable but it is a very long term process. And it if does happen, it's not guaranteed that the results will be for the better.
Spiritual Revolution To better deal with our issues, we need what the Dalai Lama referred to as a spiritual revolution. Of course, many see or hear the word spiritual and cringe or immediately turn off or think it has to be linked to religion. But this revolution (perhaps there is a better term than spiritual that is not so loaded) is about finding a practical way to go beyond differences to enable us to effectively share our planet, neighborhoods, work environments and homes. On Facebook (June 6, 2010), the Dalai Lama referred to the revolution in the following way:
"My call for a spiritual revolution is not a call for a religious revolution, nor for a way of life that is otherworldly - still less to something magical or mysterious. It is a call for a radical reorientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self, a call to turn toward the wider community of beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognizes others' interests alongside our own." ~ Dalai Lama
In his recent NYC appearance he spoke of the difference between 'We' and 'we'. The We with a capital 'w' reflects the way all people are connected rather than the way we differ from one another. When we think 'We', we are more likely to recognize the interests we share and, hopefully, recognize that like ourselves others have personal issues that must be addressed if we are to live together.
Practical Application - Act Locally How do we take that from the abstract to the practical? From the world stage to the stage that we act upon every day?
The answer is to turn towards the wider community on our personal scale, locally. When we do and we see positive results we have the possibility of radical change in the form of a velvet revolution that spreads like a beneficial virus. When we turn towards the wider community and the results are not positive we can commit to transformation that will turn things around.
In interpersonal relationships we have individuals with selfish and immature egos who claim the world as their own. This prevents them from seeing the world as 'ours'. When they think "me, me, me", the result is invariably conflict. These people seek to dominate and dictate.
This tendency to see the world as one's own manifests itself in families, organizations, communities and relationships of all kinds.
As individuals we have the ability to turn towards the wider community instead of being totally focused on the small part of it that is personal turf. That turf may be as small as the domain of one's personal interest or as wide as a division or department. In communities it's my block vs. yours; my group vs. your group. In organizations, it is my department vs. yours in fights for budgets, influence, authority or autonomy; me against you in competition for the next promotion or just keeping one's job.
Organizations and Families Have an Advantage In organizations (businesses, not-for-profits, government agencies, etc.) and families there is the advantage of having a pretty clear sense of common goals and values. At least formally there is a unifying concept that provides a common focus and promotes thinking about 'We'. Of course, as anyone who has worked in an organization knows, people forget the big picture and focus exclusively on local turf; their own self interest. Sub-optimization (optimizing a particular unit at the expense of the optimal performance of the whole) results from this local focus. It is far too common, even in families.
Communities (from small villages to nations and regions) are less formally organized and more complex than organizations in that they tend to have less well defined and agreed upon values and goals. While politics does exist in organizations, it is not nearly as prevalent as a force as it is in communities. The broader the community the more difficult it is to balance the local focus (I and 'we') with the big picture ('We').
The Big Picture Perspective In organizations, taking a big picture perspective means increasingly recognizing that there is need for strategic visions, strategies, values and goals that are shared throughout the organization so that everyone can see the big picture and their role in it. We create models and architectural views of an enterprise, communicate values, goals and objectives, and institute governance processes that prioritize projects based on the degree to which they contribute to the common good. We integrate contribution to the overall organizational goals into the reward system for individual performers. We continuously review and improve processes to eliminate waste and promote effectiveness. We make sure everyone gets to see the big picture in a way that satisfies their concerns. All this is done to make sure the overriding goals of the organization are met. We can do something similar in families, neighborhoods, countries and regions.
In organizations, individual interests are routinely sacrificed for the common good; people are fired as the organization reorganizes, "smart sources" or down-sizes. Individuals are expected to understand what's going on and accept it. In this context, the advantage in successful organizations is that there is a person or small group of people making the decisions with a degree of objectivity and accountability. Their focus is on the big picture.
Unfortunately, some organizations and individuals also tend to routinely sacrifice the good of the communities they are part of for self interest. Families do the same. While this often backfires, greed and ignorance and insufficient accountability are at work to promote short term financial or personal gains as the predominant value. Then we find decisions being made that result in disasters like Bopal, the Gulf oil spill and the 'O' Ring failure that led to the Challenger disaster. We need to achieve a dynamic balance between satisfying the needs of the group and the needs of the individuals who make it up.
Keeping the Global Picture in Mind To perform optimally it is necessary for individuals to see the big picture. There must be communication about the interplay between local interests and actions and the way they impact the whole. The smaller the scope of a group, the easier it is to keep the big picture in mind. At the community level the communication is often far inferior to the communication in organizations. Things get fuzzy. Objectivity is lost as politicians obscure overriding goals and values and communicates often distorted irrational, illogical views so they can make their point, get elected and increase their supporters' power and wealth.
We see the loss of the sense of 'We' in the ranting of Tea Party advocates and others who promote anger and hatred over welfare programs, immigration policy and numerous other "liberal" initiatives. We also see it in the adherents of left wing politics who are blind to the reality of budgets and the difficulty in making lasting change for the better.
Commit to the Revolution As the Dalai Lama says, we must commit "to turn toward the wider community of beings with whom we are connected, and to conduct which recognizes others' interests alongside our own." That doesn't mean we have to sacrifice our own self interest. It means we have to open our minds to the reality that our own self interest is tightly linked to the self interests of the others who share our environment. We start to question the wisdom of acting out of greed, frustration and 'righteous' anger and do the hard work of changing our minds so that we act out of loving kindness and compassion, moderated by practical reality. We commit to at least doing no harm.
When we come into conflict with others, we remember that for the most part, the longer term relationship is far more important than the short term resolution of a single dispute. We seek collaborative resolutions. We give way to others when we can do so without feeling resentful or in any way like a loser. We remember that we are not our positions. We remember that sometimes winning is losing.
If we do all that, then we are on our way to being a part of the spiritual revolution. We set an example and subtly move others to do the same.
"You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one." ~ John Lennon, Imagine
