Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values
Metadata
- Title: Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values
- Author: Fred Kofman PhD, Ken Wilber, and Peter Senge
- Book URL: https://amazon.com/dp/B0034184XM?tag=malvaonlin-20
- Open in Kindle: kindle://book/?action=open&asin=B0034184XM
- Last Updated on: Thursday, December 26, 2019
Highlights & Notes
The easiest way to summarize the Integral Map is that it covers a spectrum of consciousness operating in both inner and outer worlds: the Integral Approach includes body, mind, and spirit in self, culture, and nature.
Body, mind, and spirit—and self, culture, nature—are all there, all exerting an influence, all actively shaping events, and you either consciously take them into account in any human endeavor or stand back and watch the roadkill.
Integral mastery begins with mastery of self, at an emotional level, a mental-ethical level, and a spiritual level. Anything more than that is not needed; anything less than that, disastrous.
a commitment to achieving a vision that exceeds any individual capacities, a vision that connects people in a common effort with genuine meaning. Such commitment is grounded in people taking unconditional responsibility for their situation and for their ways of responding to it.
When people continually challenge and improve the data and assumptions upon which their map of reality is grounded, as opposed to treating their perspectives as the truth, tremendous productive energy is unleashed.
Nobody is immune from unconsciousness. The best way to deal with it is not to judge it, but to touch it with compassion and awareness.
I realized then that awareness is not a one-time decision. Staying conscious is an ongoing process that demands constant attention and commitment. I vowed to keep my eyes open and look beyond appearances.
I now understood that human beings are not just rational beings who calculate; we are emotional-spiritual beings who seek meaning.
I learned that happiness and fulfillment do not come from pleasure but from meaning, from the pursuit of a noble purpose.
Leadership is about being more than knowing; about emotion more than cognition; about spirit more than matter.
Losing a job is not just an economic blow; it is a blow to your identity.
but that these qualities demand the courage to face existential anxiety.
They learned that speaking the truth is essential, but that the truth that needs to be said and heard is not the one most people call “truth.”
They learned that impeccable commitments are essential for cooperative relationships, but that they require a strong foundation of personal values.
Learning is a contact sport.
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self. WALT WHITMAN, FROM “SONG OF MYSELF”
Cogito ergo sum. (I am conscious, therefore I am.) RENÉ DESCARTES Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness … is a matter of conscious choice. JIM COLLINS2
Success in business requires dealing with human beings, which is to say conscious beings.
Living consciously is a state of being mentally active rather than passive. It is the ability to look at the world through fresh eyes. It is intelligence taking joy in its own function. Living consciously is seeking to be aware of everything that bears on our interests, actions, values, purposes, and goals. It is the willingness to confront facts, pleasant or unpleasant. It is the desire to discover our mistakes and correct them … it is the quest to keep expanding our awareness and understanding, both of the world external to self and of the world within. NATHANIEL BRANDEN
Consciousness is the ability to experience reality, to be aware of our inner and outer worlds.
To be conscious means to be awake, mindful. To live consciously means to be open to perceiving the world around and within us, to understand our circumstances, and to decide how to respond to them in ways that honor our needs, values, and goals. To be unconscious is to be asleep, mindless. To live unconsciously means to be driven by instincts and habitual patterns.
Consciousness enables us to face our circumstances and pursue our goals in alignment with our values. When we lose consciousness, we are swept away by instincts and habits that may not serve us.
And so is a conscious business. Business is an essential part of our lives, so doing business consciously is an essential aspect of living consciously. In order to do business consciously, we need to ponder the most fundamental questions pertaining to reality and human existence and let these insights guide our business choices.
A conscious business promotes mindfulness for all of its stakeholders. Employees are encouraged to investigate the world with rigorous scientific reasoning and to reflect on their role in it with equally rigorous moral reasoning. They are invited to contemplate their own selves, finding what it means to live with virtue, meaning, and happiness. They are also asked to think of their colleagues as human beings, rather than as “human resources.” Finally, they are required to understand their customers, offering them products and services that support their growth and well-being. A conscious business fosters peace and happiness in individuals, respect and solidarity in the community, and mission accomplishment in the organization.
Conscious employees are an organization’s most important asset; unconscious employees are its most dangerous liability.
use seven qualities to distinguish conscious from unconscious employees. The first three are character attributes: unconditional responsibility, essential integrity, and ontological humility. The next three are interpersonal skills: authentic communication, constructive negotiation, and impeccable coordination. The seventh quality is an enabling condition for the previous six: emotional mastery.
Conscious employees take responsibility for their lives. They don’t compromise human values for material success. They speak their truth and listen to others’ truths with honesty and respect. They look for creative solutions to disagreements and honor their commitments impeccably. They are in touch with their emotions and express them productively.
Conscious employees require conscious managers if they are to fully commit their energy to organizational goals. Unless they feel acknowledged, supported, and challenged by their managers, conscious employees will withdraw. Conscious managers create the right environment for employees to blossom as professionals and as human beings. They enable employees to contribute their best. Nothing is more vital for exceptional performance than conscious management.
No matter what type of business, the only way to generate a competitive advantage and long-term profitability is to attract, develop, and retain talented employees.
Finally it should be obvious that if management views workers not as valuable, unique individuals but as tools to be discarded when no longer needed, then employees will also regard the firm as nothing more than a machine for issuing paychecks, with no other value or meaning. Under such conditions it is difficult to do a good job, let alone to enjoy one’s work. MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI
“Talented employees need great managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.”
1 Do I know what is expected of me at work? 2 Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? 3 At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? 4 In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work? 5 Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person? 6 Is there someone at work who encourages my development? 7 At work, do my opinions seem to count? 8 Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important? 9 Are my co-workers committed to doing high-quality work? 10 Do I have a best friend at work? 11 In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress? 12 This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
The worst leader is he who people despise. A good leader is he who people worship. A great leader is he who makes people say: “We ourselves did it.” LAO TZU, TAO TE CHING
Leadership is the process by which a person sets a purpose for other persons and motivates them to pursue it with effectiveness and full commitment. Leadership transforms individual potential into collective performance. The leader’s job is to develop and maintain a high-performing team. Her effectiveness is demonstrated by the performance of the team.*
An essential part of the manager’s job is to enlist the full cooperation of those she leads, shifting their motivation from external compliance to internal commitment.
Without trust and respect, followers will rarely exert more than a minimal effort in the pursuit of the goals set by a leader.
A great manager leads through unconditional responsibility, essential integrity, ontological humility, authentic communication, constructive negotiation, impeccable coordination, and emotional mastery.
…Leadership begins with what the leader must Be, the values and attributes that shape the leader’s character … Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do. BE-KNOW-DO: LEADERSHIP THE ARMY WAY
Every object has length, width, and depth; every business has It, We, and I.
When we look at an organization from the impersonal It perspective, we consider its ability to achieve its goals, pursue its vision, and fulfill its mission in a way that enhances its capacity to continue to do so in the future.
Stripped of the human dimensions, business appears to be an unconscious activity in which success and failure depend exclusively on the management of mindless things. However, business success essentially depends on the leadership of conscious beings.
When we look at an organization from the interpersonal We perspective, we examine its ability to create a community that works with solidarity, trust, and respect. In the interpersonal realm, the goal is to build a network of collaborative relationships—a community in which people feel included, respected, and enabled to contribute their best.
If people do not cooperate and respect each other, the organization will fail.
When we look at an organization from the personal I perspective, we focus on its ability to foster well-being, meaning, and happiness in each one of its stakeholders.
conscious organization’s goal in the personal realm is to promote the self-actualization and self-transcendence of everyone it touches.
In order to obtain energy from its employees, the organization needs to provide them with opportunities for physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. If an organization’s people do not experience this well-being, it will fail.
I believe that the highest leverage can be gained by focusing on culture. I also believe that the strongest determinant of an effective, healthy culture is conscious leadership. Developing consciousness in its top managers is the most efficient way for an organization to improve.
Culture is best described as the standard beliefs and expectations of “how we do things around here.” Culture develops from the messages that group members receive about how they are expected to behave. It comprises shared goals, beliefs, routines, needs, or values. Cultures exist in all groups, from corporations to sport clubs, from schools to families.
To change a culture, the leaders have to change the messages people receive about what they must do to fit in. When people understand that there are new requirements for belonging, they adjust their behavior accordingly. Cultural change starts with a new set of messages. Culture-changing communication is nonverbal—the “doing” rather than the “saying”—and comes most vividly from leadership behaviors. The behavior of leaders exemplifies what people with power—and those who aspire to have it—are supposed to do. A small change in a senior manager’s behavior can send a big message.
The good news is that a cultural change inevitably leads to an organizational change. If the leadership can change people’s beliefs about “the way things are done in this organization,” things will definitely be done differently. Those who adjust and fit into the new culture will thrive; those who don’t will leave. As the culture changes, its thoughts, behaviors, interactions, systems, processes, and results will change.
The bad news is that changing a culture is exceedingly difficult. Culture is not something that leaders can change by decree. They can only reshape it through new behaviors. The chicken-and-egg problem is that leadership behaviors are strongly determined by the existing culture. Furthermore, those who have reached leadership positions are the ones who thrived in the old culture.
In the hands of a mature, healthy human being—one who has achieved full humanness—power … is a great blessing. But in the hands of the immature, vicious, or emotionally sick, power is a horrible danger. ABRAHAM MASLOW
Unconditional blame is the tendency to explain all difficulties exclusively as the consequence of forces beyond your influence, to see yourself as an absolute victim of external circumstances.
Essential selfishness is the exclusive focus on ego gratification, without concern for the well-being of others. It is the drive toward immediate satisfaction, without considering the long-term consequences of your actions on others—or even on yourself.
Ontological arrogance is the claim that things are the way you see them, that your truth is the only truth. It is the belief that the only valid perspective is the one you hold, and that anybody who sees things differently is mistaken.
The manager has a role in aligning individual efforts as parts of a team strategy, but the most effective tactical responses come from the employees with local knowledge.
When unconditional blame, essential selfishness, and ontological arrogance become the toxic infrastructure of an organization, they lead to three types of perverse interactions: manipulative communication, narcissistic negotiation, and negligent coordination.
At work we interact in three basic ways. We communicate to understand each other, we negotiate our differences to make decisions, and we coordinate our actions through mutual commitments.
The challenge of communication is to share difficult information with honesty and respect in a way that honors your values, deepens your relationships,
The challenge of decision-making is to turn disagreement into consensus, taking care of each party’s concerns.
The challenge of coordination is to make and fulfill commitments in the face of uncertainty and change.
Manipulative communication is the choice to withhold relevant information in order to get what you want.
In order to develop a sense of community it is necessary to view the other person as a legitimate partner, one who deserves to be heard and make her own decisions freely and with full information.
In a negotiation, the narcissist seeks to win against the other, as opposed to win with the other.
Negligent coordination is a careless way to collaborate, making promises without a serious commitment to honor them.
Heaven and hell are not realms of the afterlife; they are states of mind.
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse. DON JUAN, YAQUI SHAMAN
We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances—to choose one’s own way… It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful. VIKTOR FRANKL
When blame meets avoidance, conflicts escalate and people feel alienated.
You must take unconditional responsibility; you need to see yourself as a “player,” as a central character who has contributed to shape the current situation—and who can thus affect its future. This is the opposite of seeing yourself as a “victim,” subject to forces beyond your control. The player is in the game and can affect the result. The victim is out of the game and can only suffer the consequences of others’ actions.
Response-ability is the source of power and integrity, the power to influence your situation and the integrity to do so in alignment with your values.
The victim knows the way to innocence. “If you want to look good,” he thinks, “you can’t be seen as part of the problem. You have to blame external circumstances over which you had no control.” The player knows the way to power. “If you want to be part of the solution,” she thinks, “you have to see yourself as part of the problem. Unless you recognize your contribution to a bad situation, you won’t be able to change it.”
We take the victim stance to protect ourselves from blame. We want to look good and project an image of success—or at least to avoid the tarnish that comes with failure. Victimhood is an attempt to cover up our incompetence so that we look more capable than we really are. Whether we like to admit it or not, many of us depend on other people’s approval for our sense of achievement and happiness. Thus, we expend a great deal of energy building an “unblamable” public image.
External circumstances and internal impulses influence your behavior, but they don’t determine it. You are a conscious human being; you always have a choice.
If you expect the ones who made the decision that suited their needs to solve your problem, I wish you luck.”
Since the victim does not see himself as part of the problem, he cannot imagine himself as part of the solution.
This is the sharp hook behind the bait of innocence. The price of innocence is powerlessness.
Freedom distinguishes a human being from every other type of being; being human means being able to choose. Perhaps the most important exercise of this freedom is the decision about whether to live as a victim or a player.
The traditional definition of freedom describes it as our capacity to do what we want. We want to be “free from” constraints. This freedom is “relative” or “conditional” because it depends on factors beyond our control. Life is full of constraints.
The essential or unconditional definition of freedom is our capacity to respond to a situation by exercising our free will.
Essential human freedom is unconditional because, as we face our situation, we can choose to do what we deem best.
Freedom does not mean doing what you want without consequences; it means having the capacity to choose, in the face of a situation, the response that is most consistent with your values.
If the challenge is greater than her capacity to respond, the result will be negative, a failure. If her capacity to respond is greater than the challenge, the result will be positive, a success.
The player always describes herself as a significant part of her problems. She is willing to take the hit of accountability because it puts her in the driver’s seat. Self-empowering explanations let her understand how she contributed to the situation and find ways to improve it. When she understands what she did or didn’t do that contributed to the problem, she understands what she can do or not do to prevent the problem from recurring.
In any situation, the player strives to do her best to respond according to her values. The player feels secure, but not out of a naive faith that everything will work out. Her peace of mind comes from knowing that, regardless of the challenge, she has the unconditional ability to respond. She may not achieve the result she desires, but she can behave righteously in the face of her trials. Her impeccable efforts yield joy, freedom, and dignity.
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. VIKTOR FRANKL
Accepting your freedom requires that you account for your choices. Freedom and accountability are two sides of the same coin.
Power is the prize of responsibility; accountability is its price.
Blame obscures what’s causing the problem and what can be done to solve it. When things go wrong between people, each individual owns a piece of the mess.
Nobody “creates” his reality alone. At the same time, nobody can relinquish responsibility for “co-creating” his circumstances. You contributed to bringing about your present, and you can contribute to bringing about your future.
Pity is an empty form of support. Nurturing the victim’s feeling of helplessness, resignation, and moral outrage is a cheap way to be friendly.
Remember, your drug dealer is not your friend. Neither is your victim-support buddy.
The questions to elicit the story of the victim are: 1 What happened to you? 2 Who wronged you? 3 What was wrong (or unfair) about what he did to you? 4 Why do you think he did this to you? 5 What should he have done instead? 6 What should he do now to repair the damage? 7 How should he be punished?
The questions to elicit the story of the player are: 1 What challenge did you face? 2 How did you contribute (by acting or not acting) to create this situation? 3 How did you respond to the challenge? 4 Can you think of a more effective course of action you could have taken? 5 Could you have made some reasonable preparations to reduce the risk or the impact of the situation? 6 Can you do something now to minimize or repair the damage? 7 What can you learn from this experience?
You can act like a player in the face of others’ choosing to act like victims, and in the face of a system that rewards innocence and punishes responsibility. Ultimately, you don’t take the player role because it is convenient or because others will appreciate you; you take it because it is the way you choose to live.
If the challenge is greater than your ability to respond, you fail; if your response-ability is greater than the challenge, you succeed.
taking responsibility for changing the culture. These are the “conscious leaders.”
A conscious leader goes beyond being an example of playerhood. He commits to “lowering the bar” so that others have a smaller challenge to become players. He also commits to “raising the bar” so that others find it impossibly challenging to stay in the organization as victims. In his personal interactions, the conscious leader helps others to find their own power, freedom, and responsibility. In his role as cultural architect, the conscious leader (with his conscious leadership team) gives a clear message that, “The way we do things here is the way of the player.” This is a message he communicates consistently through his behavior; symbolic acts such as hiring, promoting, demoting, and firing; and implementation of formal systems such as budgeting, strategic planning, reward and recognition, etc. Consciousness of man’s inherent freedom, responsibility, and power is the most important quality of a business leader, not just for the well-being of the organization’s members, but for the success of the company itself.
If executives do not operate with an overarching common vision and purpose, they will see themselves as victims. They will feel alienated from their peers and abused by decisions that constrain their individual performance. They will then retrench into turf-protecting behaviors and deal with the rest of the organization antagonistically. This behavior will communicate very clearly to everybody else that “the way to get ahead in this organization” is to adopt the stance of the victim and blame others for one’s difficulties.
Thus the most important function of the leader is to encourage everyone to see him- or herself as a member of the larger system, pursuing a common vision, holding common values, and cooperating with each other in an environment of mutual support and respect. Only a conscious leader can evoke the spirit of unconditional responsibility in each of her followers and in her organization as a whole.
Awareness of choice is essential to personal power, responsibility, dignity, freedom, and humanity. Regardless of the situation, you can respond to your circumstances in alignment with your values. True success is not accomplishing your goals, but feeling happy and at peace. Beyond success lies the serene joy of integrity. That is why essential integrity is the heart of success beyond success.
This is the roar of the player. It is the shout of recognition that arises when a human being owns his response-ability, his integrity, his freedom, and his power.
Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny. It is the light that guides your way. HERACLEITUS
The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge … remember me [the Essential Truth] at all times and fight on … Whatever you do, make it an offering to me. THE BHAGAVAD GITA
Paradoxically, assuming responsibility for results can create as much pain as avoiding responsibility for your behavior.
We cannot be happy when we betray what we value most.
You can see that every action has two purposes. First, you act in order to move toward a desired result. Second, you act in order to express your values.
Your integrity hinges on whether your values-in-action agree with your essential values. When they do, you feel pride. When they do not, you feel guilt.
In such moments, the concern for success becomes paramount, obscuring any qualms about integrity. In those moments you starkly face a question of priorities: you put integrity first and subordinate success, or you put integrity second and uphold success at all costs.
According to logic, you cannot do better by having fewer choices. However, human beings are not computers, and sometimes more choice means worse outcomes.
[Socrates] was the first [philosopher] to teach the priority of personal integrity in terms of a person’s duty to himself, and not to the gods, or the law, or any other authorities … It is a priority that has been reasserted by some of the greatest minds since … Jesus said: “What will a man gain by winning the whole world, at the cost of his true self?” And Shakespeare said: “This above all: to thine own self be true.”
There are some important differences between success and integrity. Success is in the future. It is the outcome of a process that takes time and depends on factors beyond our control. Integrity is immediate and unconditional.
Discipline allows you to regulate and direct your energy toward your goals in alignment with your values. Discipline is the capacity to maintain awareness and choose consciously in the face of instinctual pressures. The self-control to subordinate immediate gratification to long-term objectives is essential for success beyond success.
Disciplined companies responded to challenges effectively; they were able to maintain flexibility on a tactical level while remaining firmly anchored in their core mission and values.
In the midst of a crisis or a phenomenal business opportunity, an organization without discipline operates unconsciously, guided by fear or greed.
For those who fuel their engines on the fear of failure, the focus on integrity threatens to leave them “running on empty.” They doubt that anyone can function without the carrot of achievement and the stick of frustration.
Some say that my teaching is nonsense. Others call it lofty but impractical. But to those who have looked inside themselves, this nonsense makes perfect sense. And to those who put into practice, this loftiness has roots that go deep. LAO TZU, TAO TE CHING
If you optimize the sub-systems, you sub-optimize the system. Systems theory teaches that in order to optimize a system, you must sub-optimize its sub-systems.
When people in an organization forget their common ground, business goes poorly. Information does not flow, decisions tend to protect sub-organizational concerns, and performance suffers. Systemic myopia does not just create problems at the task level. Interpersonal relationships become strained, and conflicts crop up everywhere. Furthermore, individuals feel tremendous stress. Instead of trusting fellow employees, they grow wary of them. Who wants to have an enemy covering his back?
“In order to win the game, you must be willing not to win the sub-games. If you try to win the sub-games, you will lose sight of the goal and probably lose the game.”
Seek refuge in the attitude of detachment and you will amass the wealth of a spiritual awareness. Those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do. They who have renounced their selfish attachment to the fruits of their action live in wisdom. Neither agitated by grief nor hankering after pleasure, they live free from lust and fear and anger. Those who are deluded become attached to the fruits of their action. Performing all actions for my sake [the Essential Truth] and without expectations, act free from the fever of the ego. THE BHAGAVAD GITA
Sacrifice” comes from the Latin sacrificare, which means “to make sacred.” When you make a sacrifice, you relinquish a lower goal in order to pursue a higher one.
Everything you do—work, play, pray, study, marry, have children—is a search for happiness.
Spending time with your family will not make you happy; spending time loving your family will. The way you do any activity is more important for your happiness than the activity itself.
If business is to become a true means toward your happiness, you need to pay attention to the way you do business.
Although the outcome is important, happiness depends more on the process.
Certainly one explanation is that while people are built to work, most jobs are not built for people. What employers from the pharaohs down to modern TQM managers have been primarily concerned about is not how to tailor a job so as to bring out the best in the workers but rather how to get the most out of them. So one of the intriguing paradoxes of the human condition is that while surveys indicate that about 80 percent of adults claim that they would continue to work even if they had so much money that they didn’t have to worry about having more, the majority can hardly wait each day to leave their job and go home. MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI
Fullness-based competition, on the other hand, is a game of ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen keep their priorities straight, taking lower means, such as making money, as a path to higher ends, such as happiness, peace, and freedom.
“…[I]n matters of happiness and misery … men come often to prefer the worse to the better; and to choose that which, by their own confession, has made them miserable.”
To demonstrate our skill, we need a challenge. All competitive games rely on this principle.
It may come as a shock to discover that some of the best opportunities to display values are challenges that the characters cannot overcome. Admirable characters may fail, but they fail gloriously.
“You know you can’t save them. They will all die.” She replied, “Your strength falters because you see only poor sick people. My love endures because I see Jesus Forsaken in his distressing disguise.”
To overcome adversity, we first need to encounter it. We need to come face-to-face with the naked hardship of life. At this moment, some of us may feel like saying, “Damn!”
Adversity can be an ally, an opportunity to show greatness.
You can learn from every situation. You are unconditionally responsible. You can express your values in the face of any circumstance.
Similarly, life’s adversities can provide nourishment for the heart and allow it to bloom.
Once you relax your attachment to success and commit to success beyond success, you cannot be swayed by external conditions. Focusing on essential integrity makes you happier, more peaceful, and more courageous. Furthermore, it provides you with the support to take a leap of consciousness, to transcend your own particular way of interpreting the world and embrace others.
The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life. He may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford to him. VIKTOR FRANKL
We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. THE TALMUD
Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them. DAVID HUME
If … we are wise enough to base our self-esteem not on being “right” but on being rational—on being conscious—and on having integrity, then we recognize that acknowledgment and correction of an error is not an abyss into which we have fallen but a height we can take pride in having climbed. NATHANIEL BRANDEN
In times of change, the learners will inherit the Earth while those attached to their old certainties will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. ERIC HOFFER
Ontology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of reality. Ontological arrogance is the belief that your perspective is privileged, that yours is the only true way to interpret a situation.
Ontological humility is the acknowledgment that you do not have a special claim on reality or truth, that others have equally valid perspectives deserving respect and consideration.
There’s an old story of two clerics arguing about how to do God’s work. In the spirit of conciliation, one finally says to the other, “You and I see things differently, and that’s okay. We don’t need to agree. You can do God’s work your way, and I’ll do God’s work His way.”
That which eludes perception also eludes response.
Our biology does not just determine the range of possible experiences; it defines the range of possible actions.
If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern. WILLIAM BLAKE, FROM “THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL” ***
In fact, language determines our experiences as much as our raw sense perceptions do. At a fundamental level, we don’t talk about what we see. We see only what we can talk about.
Shared language allows us to live in a shared world, communicate, and coordinate our actions.
We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. HENRY DAVID THOREAU ***
We think that our history belongs in the past, but that is not the case. Our history informs our understanding of the present and the decisions and actions through which we shape our future. We reap what we sow, not just materially but also mentally.
All four of these filters—biology, language, culture, and personal circumstance—shape our mental models. These mental models, in turn, condition our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Because of the tremendous power of mental models, we can only live within them. That is to say, we live in our experiential reality, the reality that shows up in our interpretative space.
We live in the same objective world, but because of the differences in our mental models, we each experience and make sense of this world in dramatically different ways.
We don’t recognize our mental models; they are transparent and invisible to us. We see the world through them, but we don’t see them.
To work efficiently, you need to do more than accept everybody’s views. You need to create a shared map of the situation that will enable you and your counterparts to get things done together.
When someone talks about a “problem,” she isn’t describing an external reality, but rather expressing a concern about her well-being. There is no problem without someone who finds a situation problematic: that is to say, someone who does not like what she imagines the situation will bring.
The mutual learning model is based on three assumptions: My rationality is limited. My mental model conditions my perceptions and interpretations. My point of view is always partial. As a result, I can’t claim any certainty about how things are or how they will be in the future. My beliefs are just hypotheses—always subject to disconfirmation. Other perspectives are complementary. Since other people operate with different mental models, they may see things that I do not. They can provide additional data that can better inform my assessments. As a result, I’m eager to understand other people’s views, especially when they disagree with my own. Errors are learning opportunities. A defect is a treasure. Like a symptom that reveals an underlying illness and enables its treatment, a mistake is an opportunity to examine and improve the process that created it.
Define goals and strategies consensually. When facing a challenge, open your goals and strategies to negotiation. The more inclusion, the more wisdom—and the more buy-in. This does not require that you abdicate authority. You can request permission from the group to make tie-breaking decisions when consensus can’t be reached in a reasonable time. (More about this in Chapter 6.) Win with others. Implementation takes collaboration and flexibility. Consider that every person can provide information to help you achieve your objectives. Support and respect those who see things differently from you. If you find their views convincing, adopt them. Changing your mind is a sign of openness and strength. Share your views and listen to others’ views. Share your data, concrete examples, opinions, and ideas with others so that they can reach their own conclusions. Create conditions for open conversations so that others feel invited to do the same with you. Encourage mutual inquiry. Maximize internal commitment through free and informed choices. Provide maximal information and minimal coercion to help others decide how to satisfy their needs and interests. Encourage people to take responsibility and accountability for their choices. Accept feelings as valid. Recognize that humans are emotional beings and that feelings are critical components of our behavior. Consider all feelings valid and worthy of investigation.
Although nonhuman issues such as statistics, flow charts, finances or high technology … are obviously essential to managing a successful business, companies are not failing because they lack this technical knowledge: their failure is with people. We seem unable to learn that workers will not do high quality work much more because of the way boss-managers treat them than because they do not understand the technical or statistical aspects of what they are asked to do. WILLIAM GLASSER
Many organizations have implicit paradoxical codes of conduct. Some of the typical messages in these cultures are: • Keep others informed, but hide mistakes. • Tell the truth, but don’t bring bad news. • Take risks, but don’t fail. • Beat everybody else, but make it look as if nobody lost. • Be a team player, but what really matters is your individual performance. • Express your independent ideas, but don’t contradict your boss. • Be creative, but don’t deviate from the rules. • Promise only what you can do, but never say “no” to your boss’s requests. • Ask questions, but never admit ignorance. • Think about the global system, but you’d better optimize your own sub-system. • Think long-term, but you’d better deliver immediate results. • Follow all these rules, but act as if none of them exist.
- Muy importante tener estas reglas presentes
“You should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. “I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.” “Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!” LEWIS CARROLL, ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
Argyris explains that defensive routines are strategies that enable individuals and organizations to avoid embarrassment, allowing them to ignore the inconsistencies between their words and their actions. In an organizational defensive routine, • The manager gives a contradictory order (or two different managers give contradictory orders). • The manager makes his order undiscussable. • The manager makes the undiscussability of his order undiscussable.
Although inconsistencies are inevitable, they are also manageable. Organizational life is too complex to avoid contradictions. Inconsistencies are a fact of life, but not sufficient to create organizational defensive routines. The fundamental trigger for the defensive routine is not the contradiction but its undiscussability. Consequently, the best strategy to deactivate a defensive routine is to make it discussable. A culture of mutual learning, in which people are open to discussing their behaviors, is the best antidote against organizational defensive routines.
- Como lidiar con inconsistencias
Laughter is a sure sign of shifting from arrogance to humility. When you observe your mental models without attachment, you lighten up. You stop taking yourself so seriously. You relax your opinions and lose the smug notion that your views are obviously correct.
Humor is the royal road to ontological humility.
To communicate with ontological humility and support mutual learning, you need to distinguish facts from opinions and to express your opinions productively.
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868–1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!” “Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” ZEN PARABLE
A fact is objective. You are awake. This is chapter number four. It’s snowing. You experience facts through your senses. Other people could also experience the same facts through theirs. Facts are public; they refer to the mutually observable world. To report a fact you can use sentences of the type, “S (subject) is P (predicate).” The subject of your statement of fact is the sensible world.
An opinion is subjective. I believe you should go to sleep. I find this chapter interesting. I think this is a great day for skiing. You form opinions in your mind. Other people cannot read your mind. Your opinions are private; they do not refer to the mutually observable world, but to your ideas about it.
An opinion is toxic when it masquerades as a fact. Because of its sentence structure, a toxic opinion appears as an expression of fact.
The problem with toxic opinions is that they make a claim to describe objective reality. Thus, differing toxic opinions lead to conflict.
To maximize effectiveness, deepen relationships, and live authentically, you must “refine” these toxic opinions and extract the truth at their core. Even the most unconscious and impulsive opinions contain very important information.
A man whose axe was missing suspected his neighbor’s son. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, and spoke like a thief. But the man found his axe while he was digging in the valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor’s son, the boy walked, looked, and spoke like any other child. TRADITIONAL GERMAN STORY
Some people believe that observations are good and opinions are bad. I disagree. Opinions are essential to making decisions. What makes the difference is whether you express your opinions effectively or toxically.
Effective opinions distinguish clearly between verifiable and nonverifiable statements.
The first condition of an effective opinion is that you own it. You must acknowledge that it is your opinion as opposed to the truth.
The second condition of an effective opinion is that you explain your reasoning. Upon request, you must be able to provide the facts and the desires that support your assessment. Opinions arise from comparing objective conditions with subjective desires. For example, you would think that a snowy day is “great” if you hoped to ski, but “terrible” if you hoped to sunbathe.
The third condition of an effective opinion is that it points to a desirable change in the task (solving the problem), the relationship (enhancing cooperation and trust), and the well-being of all participants in the conversation. Effective opinions trigger actions that would not occur otherwise.
Ontological arrogance is stiff and hard. Ontological humility is flexible and supple. When people are aware of how mental models affect their experience and how others’ perspectives can contribute to a richer understanding of a situation, they operate in the spirit of mutual learning. They are able to address difficult situations with effectiveness, while deepening their relationships and enhancing the quality of each other’s lives.
Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are both tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail. LAO TZU, TAO TE CHING
We tend to see ourselves primarily in the light of our intentions, which are invisible to others, while we see others mainly in the light of their actions, which are visible to us. J.G. BENNETT
Exchanging valid information is the first step in any cooperative effort. It is impossible to create a shared understanding of a situation without an honest disclosure of all sorts of information, from basic facts to opinions, feelings, interests, and desires.
In regard to the task, we need to assume that each one of us can provide significant information to the other. Thus, our goal becomes to explore each other’s reasoning, to understand why we think what we think. We need to assume that we have contributed to the current situation and explore our role in it.
In regard to the relationship, we need to realize that cooperation stems from solidarity, not self-righteousness. Mutual trust and respect are at the core of every productive interaction, so the feelings we have for each other are fundamental to a successful conversation. These feelings are not always productive, so before we can jump into a task we need to address our own feelings and the other’s.
In regard to the self, we need to understand that the psychological stakes are high, that there are serious identity issues at play. We need to expand our view of ourselves and realize that no simple all-or-nothing label can describe who we are. Thus, the goal is to act in alignment with our essential values, focusing on integrity as the only way to experience true self-esteem. We need to stop all the “controller” attempts to achieve self-worth through proving that we are right and the other is wrong.
A human life is an ongoing process that involves a constantly changing physical body as well as an enormous number of rapidly changing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Your life therefore is an evolving experience, a continual flow. You are not a thing; that’s why any label is constricting [and] highly inaccurate … Abstract labels such as “worthless” or “inferior” [or “worthy” or “superior”] communicate nothing and mean nothing. DAVID BURNS
To deactivate the negative attribution of intentions, we need to accept that we can only know the impact that others’ actions have had on us, but we cannot know what intentions they had when they acted the way they did. Similarly, we can only know what we were thinking when we took some action, but we cannot know what impact our actions had on others. In a productive conversation, the goal is to let others know what impact their actions had on us, and inquire as to what led them to act the way they did. Conversely, we need to inquire to learn what impact our actions had on them, and to reveal the reasoning behind them.
In order to avoid the escalation of negative attributions and emotions, it’s necessary to understand, acknowledge, and validate the impact of our actions on the other before even beginning our attempts to clarify our intentions.
theoretical mastery without practical skill-building counts for very little in this world. And the only way to build skills is to exercise in a safe practice field under the guidance and support of a coach.
No conscious decision makes an idea appear; no conscious decision makes it disappear. In fact, it usually works precisely the opposite way. The harder you try to get thoughts and feelings out of your head, the more they stick; the harder you try to ignore them, the more they demand attention.
On the other hand, “swallowing” toxic thoughts and feelings is hardly a panacea. Silence helps avoid immediate confrontations, but it does not generate solutions. Hiding relevant information makes it impossible to discover and address difficulties. While a real conflict remains hidden, people spend an immense amount of time discussing tangential issues. Interpersonal relationships suffer.
We can only repress intense thoughts and feelings for so long. At some point the waste has to come out. Usually, it’s in the form of anger directed toward the wrong people at the wrong time. Since we can feel safe around our loved ones, we feel free to hurt them. We swallow resentments at work and spit them out at home.
We cannot control the appearance of toxic thoughts and feelings in our mind. If we express our toxic thoughts, we create a lot of damage. On the other hand, if we don’t express them, we also cause great harm. Finally, we cannot really hide our thoughts and emotions for long. We may be able to keep them inside, but their essence oozes out in counterproductive ways.
“Whenever you are offered two equally bad alternatives, choose a third.”
More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. WOODY ALLEN
Acknowledging that you are always a part of the problem means that you are not perfect, which in “all or nothing” logic implies that you must be awful. Feeling so vulnerable about your identity, you will not accept any ownership. When faced with negative information about yourself, you will become defensive; you will deny or justify any involvement.
we frequently operate within the unilateral control mode, trying to “win” conversations, showing others that we are right while they are wrong. In order to communicate anything from your left-hand column effectively, it’s essential to remind yourself that its content is not “the truth,” but just your judgments and interpretations. You need to express them humbly, aiming for mutual understanding.
Something we were withholding made us weak Until we found out that it was ourselves We were withholding from our land of living, And forthwith found salvation in surrender. ROBERT FROST, FROM “THE GIFT OUTRIGHT”
We spend so much time focusing on how to express ourselves that we often overlook what is perhaps the most crucial part of any conversation: listening to other people.
The ability to pay attention is inversely proportional to the need to be right.
Our first reaction to most of the statements which we hear from other people is an immediate evaluation, or judgment, rather than an understanding of it.
I believe this is because understanding is risky. If I let myself really understand another person, I might be changed by that understanding. And we all fear change.
Only after feelings and identity issues have been settled is it possible to start addressing the task.
A manipulation tool is most powerful when I have it and you don’t.
A collaboration tool is most powerful when we both have it. If
When you and I speak our minds, we may discover that our ideas are not so far apart. Or we may discover that we have a lot of disagreements. That’s one of the main reasons why many of us hide our truth. We want to avoid conflicts. No wonder.
If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail, but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park, I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact. And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider— lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark. For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep, the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear: the darkness around us is deep. WILLIAM STAFFORD, “A RITUAL TO READ TO EACH OTHER”
In the creative dispute, the persons involved are aware of the other’s full legitimacy. Neither loses sight of the fact that they are seeking … to express the truth as they see it. In no way is either person reduced by this. Such a confrontation, within a healthy atmosphere of love and genuine relatedness, enables each individual to maintain a unique sense of self, to grow authentically through real communication with other persons, and to realize the worth of simplicity and directness in relationships. CLARK MOUSTAKAS
“Love” is the radical respect of the other as a legitimate other. HUMBERTO MATURANA
Wherever there is life, there is conflict. Every life form, from the single-cell amoeba to the gigantic blue whale, experiences conflict. Conflict arises wherever there are needs and scarce resources to satisfy them.
There are no difficult conflicts. There are only conflicts we don’t know how to resolve.
Majority rule is four wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. ANONYMOUS
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. MAHATMA GANDHI
It is wrong to demand that the individual subordinate himself to the collective, because it is by its most advanced individuals that the collectivity progresses and they can really advance if they are free. The individual is indeed the key of the evolutionary movement. SRI AUROBINDO
Constructive negotiation creates new possibilities. People become more focused on winning with the other than over the other. They understand that in order to create the most value, they need a working relationship, and that such a relationship can only be founded on respect for every individual’s interests. This approach reveals people’s preferences and constraints and engages everyone in constructing solutions that go way beyond the original alternatives. It maximizes efficiency through cooperation.
There are three factors necessary for a conflict. Disagreement. A disagreement is a difference of opinion.
Scarcity. Some limitation prevents each party from obtaining what each wants independently of the other’s actions. Scarcity creates interdependence, which in turn creates conflict.
Disputed Property Rights. The parties disagree about who has the power to allocate resources, or about what decision-making mechanism will be used in the case of irresolvable differences.
When property rights are clear, differences in opinions and scarcity need not lead to conflict; they may even lead to cooperation.
If any of the three elements disappears, so does the conflict.
The problem is that we take our opinions to be more than simply our view of the world; we think of them as an accurate description of the world. Furthermore, we identify with our opinions and hold them as if they were essential parts of ourselves. We get very attached to our thoughts, rather than considering ourselves the free thinkers of such thoughts. A challenge to our opinions becomes a personal affront, an insult that calls into question our worth. Of course, we jump into the fray to defend ourselves.
Your high self-esteem does not detract from mine, and vice versa. Each party is entitled to his opinion, and nobody has the right to claim ownership of the truth. Thus, we can agree to disagree and be at peace.
Unfortunately, things don’t work out so easily when the dispute concerns religious, moral, or political issues, especially when we are in relationship to each other and we need to adopt a common set of values. If we want to stay together, we cannot just agree to disagree and go our separate ways. Relationship means precisely that we do not go our separate ways. We need to find some common ground to resolve our interpersonal conflicts.
This is not so much a matter of who is right but of how to live with each other.
To stay together, we need to define mutually acceptable standards of behavior.
An operational conflict involves a decision that will affect what resources get allocated to each party. The ultimate issue under discussion is who gets what. In operational conflicts, there is a concrete decision to be made that will have objective consequences.
The best way to address an operational conflict is through consensus. In order to work toward a consensus, each party must be granted veto power in the decision-making process at the outset; a decision is not reached until everybody—not a simple majority, or all but one person, but everybody—accepts it and commits to implement it.
Consensus doesn’t mean that everyone believes that the decision is the best. Consensus means that everybody can live with the decision.
Authority-based consensus—in which both of us agree that you have ultimate decision rights—is a delicate matter. Unless the senior person knows how to wield this power wisely, decisions will get made, but the process will not encourage collaboration and creativity.
Authority, as a primary form of decision-making, tends to weaken interpersonal relationships and erode effectiveness. To counter this, constructive negotiation creates an environment in which the employee can be encouraged to contribute his information, while the manager maintains the power to make decisions if consensus cannot be reached in a reasonable amount of time.
There is nothing more self-empowering than doing one’s homework and entering a negotiation with a high BATNA.
A wise man lived poorly “You must not be so wise,” a neighbor challenged him. “If you bowed to the king, you wouldn’t need to live with so little.” “And if you lived with little,” the wise man responded, “You wouldn’t need to bow to the king.”
Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid. Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice. LAO TZU, TAO TE CHING
“What would you get through X that is even more important to you than X itself?”
“What would you attain through X that is even more important to you than X itself?”
One hears a great deal today about “the end of hierarchy.” This is blatant nonsense. In any institution there has to be a final authority, that is, a “boss”—someone who can make the final decisions and who can expect them to be obeyed. In a situation of common peril—and every institution is likely to encounter it sooner or later—survival of all depends on clear command. If the ship goes down, the captain does not call a meeting, the captain gives an order. And if the ship is to be saved, everyone must obey the order, must know exactly where to go and what to do, and do it without “participation” or argument. “Hierarchy,” and the unquestioning acceptance of it by everyone in the organization, is the only hope in a crisis … It is a sound principle that one person in an organization should have only one “master.” PETER DRUCKER
To avoid these spurious attempts, it’s necessary to establish certain principles and behaviors. The ground rules I suggest are the following: Information is free; everybody can speak to anybody about any issue he finds relevant. If two people have an operational conflict, they must first try to solve it themselves using the process described in this chapter. If they can’t reach an agreement, they must bring the problem to the attention of their manager (or managers) together. If one of the parties refuses to take the problem jointly to their manager, the other must inform the first that he’ll do it alone and invite the reluctant party, once again, to escalate the matter together. If the former continues to refuse, the latter can then unilaterally take the problem to a superior.
1 “Have you and your colleague tried to resolve this problem using constructive negotiation?” (If the answer is no, say “Go and try that first.” If it is yes, ask the next question.) 2 “Have you invited your colleague to be here to jointly escalate the problem with you?” (If the answer is no, say “Go invite him first.” If yes, ask the next question.) 3 “Have you told your colleague that if he didn’t come with you, you would bring the problem to me alone?” (If the answer is no, say “Then go and tell him first.” If it’s yes, listen to the employee’s situation, or call the colleague to attend the discussion.)
Although it is possible for lower-level managers to shirk their responsibility and attempt to transfer it to their bosses, it is an incorrect generalization to think that all escalations are examples of incompetence.
It is very important to understand that it is possible to say “no” to the transaction while saying “yes” to the other person and the relationship.
The good news is that it takes only one person to prevent a conflict from escalating. The bad news is that it takes two people to create a win-win solution.
Working constructively in the midst of conflict requires perspective and discipline.
Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work. It’s hard to imagine an organization without some semblance of trust operating somehow, somewhere. An organization without trust is more than an anomaly, it’s a misnomer, a dim creature of Kafka’s imagination. Trust implies accountability, predictability, reliability. It’s what sells products and keeps organizations humming. Trust is the glue that maintains organizational integrity. WARREN BENNIS AND BURT NANUS
Economic life … depends on moral bonds of social trust. This is the unspoken, unwritten bond between fellow citizens that facilitates transactions, empowers individual creativity, and justifies collective action… The social capital represented by trust is as important as physical capital. JOHN G. BRUHN66 ***
A successful commitment maintains clarity among its participants about the most concrete of matters: who commits (is accountable) to deliver what by when (to whom).
Every time we make a request, we expose ourselves. We acknowledge that we need someone’s help to achieve a desired result. In the same way that asking a question shows that I don’t know an answer, making a request implies that I cannot accomplish something alone. If I have a fragile ego, admitting that I’m lost might strike a blow to my self-esteem. I might decide, like the stereotypical male, to avoid this problem by never asking for directions.
Many professionals derive their self-esteem from “making it alone” or “knowing it all”—or at least from looking like they can or do. That is why many refrain from asking for help, often at the expense of not getting the job done.
To avoid this frustration, they would rather not ask, even though not asking guarantees that they will not get what they want.
The main difference between an expression of desire and a request is the existence of measurable standards for assessment of fulfillment.
We can express a well-formed request using the following formula: In order to accomplish W (the satisfaction of a need), I ask you to do X (a specific action) by Y (a specific time). Can you commit to that?
A request is not a commitment.
If the challenge of a request is summoning courage to initiate a conversation, the challenge of a response is finding the strength to continue the conversation honestly.
I suggest that before you make a commitment, you take a breath and consider four questions. 1 Do I understand what the other is asking of me? 2 Do I have the skills and resources to do it? 3 Am I convinced that those on whom I depend will deliver for me? 4 Am I willing to be held accountable for anticipating potential breakdowns?
These clear responses can be used as a checklist by accepting statements included in it and challenging any others. The six answers are, 1 “Yes, I promise.” 2 “No, I do not commit.” (Although I can try…) 3 “I need clarification.” 4 “I commit to respond by (a definite date).” 5 “I accept conditionally. I can commit to do what you ask if R (a mutually observable condition) happens. Would that work for you?” 6 “Let me make a counteroffer. I can’t commit to doing X by Y, but I could do S by T. Would that work for you?”
Impeccability in commitments entails owning your promise and taking care of your creditor (the person to whom you have made the promise) under any circumstance.
An unproductive complaint seeks to soothe one’s hurt. Unproductive complaints look for sympathy and support from third parties; they are repetitive and conclude with negative personal judgments; they discharge emotions and seek revenge. Predictably, they do little to improve matters.
A productive complaint has four immediate goals: repair or minimize the damage to the task, mend and strengthen the relationship, restore impeccability, and learn from the mistake in order to design more effective ways of cooperating in the future. In the long term, a productive complaint seeks to establish an organizational culture of achievement, trust, and mutual accountability.
Always discuss hurts before anger … If we initiate important conversations by attacking or angrily criticizing [the other], we immediately set off in our partner the need for defense. If the listener feels attacked, she will immediately shut down emotionally and begin to focus on how to protect herself or withdraw from the fray. This can be avoided by beginning any conversation over an issue that has angered you by first explaining how the situation has hurt you … [This] arouses less need for self-defense or counterattack. Much more often than not it will open the door to real dialogue … Beginning dialogue with an angry critical attack usually precipitates a fight, shuts off real discussion of the issues, breeds resentment and frequently stifles any real change. JOHN W. JACOBS
The following seven steps outline a structure for apologizing productively. Since they are mirror images of the steps of the productive complaint, I will not repeat the explanations. • Establish the appropriate purpose (individual context) for the apology. The goal is to repair the breakdowns in coordination, trust, and impeccability, and the hurt feelings. • Establish the appropriate context (prepare the conversation). Choose an appropriate time and place and express to your counterpart your desire to repair the breakdown. • Acknowledge the previous commitment. Own your promise. • Acknowledge your failure to honor the commitment. Take responsibility for the non-fulfillment. Offer an explanation. Explain what happened. Distinguishing this explanation from an excuse that invalidates the commitment is paramount. You aren’t trying to justify yourself or evade your responsibility; instead, you’re trying to share your experience and situation as part of the problem’s context. • Inquire about the damages and apologize. Before offering to repair any damages, you must first know what they are. By inquiring into them, you more clearly understand the ramifications of the problem; this also helps the other to express his pain. Your goal isn’t to argue but to listen to and acknowledge the other’s perspective. • Offer reparations and negotiate a recommitment. Although you can offer reparations, it’s important that you ask the other what he needs to feel appropriately indemnified and allow him to declare the issue resolved. • Learn and prepare for the future. As with a complaint, the last step of the apology is transforming the mistake into an opportunity to learn.
There are no excuses for not apologizing and leaving the creditor hanging out to dry.
Impeccability in commitments is an unconditional discipline; it doesn’t depend on others. You don’t behave impeccably only toward people who behave impeccably toward you. You behave impeccably because that is the way you want to live.
To restore impeccability and trust, we must apologize.
Through their behavior, leaders communicate that “this is the way we do things around here.” Their actions tell people, “If you want to fit in this organization, you must act in alignment with these standards. If you don’t, you will be ostracized, you will be shunned, you will be expelled.”
The expensive proposition is to live these values day in and day out—and to challenge those who don’t, even if they seem to be delivering business results, to change or to leave the organization. Actual behavior is where the rubber meets the road. When leaders don’t act in alignment with their espoused values, their words mean nothing.
“What you do speaks so loudly, that I cannot hear what you say.”
When people observe inconsistencies between the organization’s espoused values and the values-in-action demonstrated by its leaders, they will become cynical.
“As a leader,” I answered, “you are not just responsible for doing it, but for holding others accountable for doing it as well.
Cultural change is a double-or-nothing deal. When leaders don’t hold themselves and others accountable for living up to stated values, they make a bad situation worse. They create a schizophrenic organization ruled by duplicity, contempt, and cynicism.
Holding people accountable for broken commitments is not enough. To create a culture of impeccability, you also need to acknowledge and praise their contributions.
Yet all employees want more than monetary incentives; they desire meaningful challenges, dignified treatment, and heartfelt words of praise.
True appreciation can be very moving. It supports excellence. A high-praise environment is a high-performance environment.
There are three fundamental mistakes people make when appreciating others. People say things such as: • “I wish to appreciate Elena’s efforts. Without her, we wouldn’t have finished the Municipal job on time. Let us thank Elena for her contribution.” • “You did great at the meeting with Felix! Thank God you were there.” • “You are wonderful! You are such a hard worker. And a real team player. You are helpful, reliable, and intelligent. You’re a real asset to the team!”
Acknowledgments that are direct, specific, openhearted, and respectful require a high level of disclosure. You may feel more exposed making them, but they are fresh, intimate, genuine, and sincere. If you want to create a culture of impeccability, you need to care for people both by demanding accountability and praising contributions.
The heart has reasons that reason knows nothing about. PASCAL
…the higher the rank, the more interpersonal and human the undertaking. Our top executives spent roughly 90 percent of their time concerned with … people problems. Our study of effective leaders strongly suggested that a key factor was the creative deployment of self. WARREN BENNIS AND BURT NANUS
Emotional intelligence is missing from our school curricula. Formal education eschews the development of emotional competencies to focus exclusively on intellectual matters.
What you learned in school distinguishes superior performers in only a handful of the five or six hundred jobs for which we’ve done competency studies. It’s just a threshold competence; you need it to get in the field, but it does not make you a star. It’s the emotional intelligence abilities that matter more for superior performance. LYLE SPENCER JR., THE HAY GROUP
[After analyzing 181 competence models from 121 organizations worldwide,] I found that 67 percent—two out of three—of the abilities deemed essential for effective performance were emotional competencies. Compared to IQ and expertise, emotional competence mattered twice as much. DANIEL GOLEMAN74 ***
we need to consider the emotional double-edged sword: On the one hand, emotions can derail our thought processes; on the other hand, without them there is no reason to think. Emotions are absolutely necessary for rationality.
Emotions condition not only our experience, but also our actions. They define the range of possible behaviors.
Emotions also affect physiology. Different emotional states correlate with the secretion of different hormones and with metabolic changes.
Your beliefs generate the fear regardless of whether they are true or false.
Strictly speaking, you are not afraid because of the cougar; you are afraid because you believe that you are at risk.
Your emotions arise from your perceptions and interpretations, and those perceptions and interpretations are shaped by your mental models. You don’t experience reality as it is, but as your individual mental model filters it. What you feel depends on what happens “out there” only insofar as it triggers what you experience “in here.”
Your mind may be yours, but it doesn’t always do what you want.
You may understand that your thoughts can be deceptive, but your body doesn’t. Your body doesn’t know whether your mind is accurately perceiving the external world or just freaking out. It responds to all mental messages as though they were accurate.
The capacity to relax is a natural gift of all human beings. Once our mind is clear of its usual sources of worry, serenity seems to be its natural state.
It seems that the secret to a relaxed body, heart, and mind is to let go of excess preoccupations.
There are five basic competencies for working with your emotions: self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-regulation, self-inquiry, and self-expression. These competencies correlate with five skills for working with other people’s emotions: recognition, acknowledgment, influence, inquiry, and listening.
Self-awareness is the capacity to know what is happening within yourself. The capacity to feel one’s inner state is a basic survival skill of every organism, but human beings can develop it to a very high level. You not only experience your inner states; you can reflect on them and make them an object of your awareness. When you say “I feel fear,” a part of you is afraid, but not all of you. There is a part that notices that the other part is afraid.
Awareness is at the foundation of freedom and responsibility; it is the basic tool for managing emotions and actions.
In order to notice feelings, you need to separate from them and adopt an objective viewpoint. Instead of looking at the world through your emotions, you need to look at them in order to gain perspective.
You can manage your emotions by expanding your inner space to hold them without repressing them. You can stretch your awareness through “witnessing”: that is, adopting a perspective from which you can observe the emotion with little attachment, capture the information that it provides you, and respond in alignment with your values.
Instead of tying down your emotions, it is better to give them lots of space.
From the witness perspective, you can observe with equanimity the part of yourself that is taken over by the emotion.
The second step to managing your emotions is to accept them without judgment. You need to realize that your emotion is an automatic impulse that arises beyond your control. Thus, there can be no moral prescription about what you ought or ought not to feel at any moment.
Compassionate acceptance and critical analysis are equally necessary for emotional mastery.
It is impossible to prevent an emotion. What is possible, and vitally important, is to abstain from acting impulsively.
“Emotions need not be acted on when we see that to do so is counterproductive, but if they are treated with respect they can become invaluable pathways to important information … It is a mark of wisdom and maturity to understand that we have the power to be a nonjudgmental witness to our emotions, thoughts, and memories without being controlled by them or driven to act in self-destructive ways.”
If you criticize your emotions, you will never understand them.
As Nathaniel Branden explains: Desires and emotions as such are involuntary; they are not subject to direct volitional control. The result of subconscious evaluations, they cannot be commanded in and out of existence, any more than beliefs can. But it is impossible to compute the amount of guilt and suffering produced by the notion that certain desires and emotions are proof of moral culpability. “Because I feel such-and-such, I am a rotten person.” “Because I don’t feel such-and-such, I will burn in hell.” Self-[acceptance] requires the freedom to approach the content of one’s inner experience as a noncritical observer, an observer interested in noting facts, not in pronouncing moral judgments … To approach self-examination with the question “What does it imply about my character if I have such-and-such thoughts or such-and-such emotions?” is to make perceptual self-censorship a foregone conclusion.
“There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse. It is the root of all emotional self-control, since all emotions, by their very nature, lead to one or another impulse to act.”
Widespread ignorance about emotional regulation has created two common myths: that both explosion and implosion are healthy. The first myth is the idea that the “free expression” of our impulses is productive. The second is the notion that the way to handle emotions is to repress them.
In regard to integrity, you are only accountable for your actions, not for your emotions. Emotions are good advisors, but terrible masters. You need to listen to them, but without abdicating your responsibility to behave with integrity.
Those who enter the gates of heaven are not beings that have no passions or who have curbed the passions, but those who have cultivated an understanding of them. WILLIAM BLAKE, FROM THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL
Happiness: We feel happy when we believe that something good has happened.
Sadness is the expression of care in the face of a loss.
Enthusiasm: We feel enthusiastic when we believe that something good may happen.
Enthusiasm calls for effort to achieve the desired objective. When we channel enthusiasm into concrete actions, we increase the probability of achieving our objectives.
Fear: We feel afraid when we believe that something bad may happen.
Fear calls for risk mitigation, preparation, and protection. When we channel fear into concrete actions, we decrease the probability (or the impact) of the loss.
Gratitude: We feel grateful when we believe that someone went out of his or her way to do something good for us.
Gratitude calls for appreciation. When we thank the person who helped us, we recognize his deed and acknowledge its impact on our well-being.
Anger: We feel angry when we believe that someone has hurt us inappropriately.
Guilt: Guilt is anger directed toward oneself. We feel guilty when we believe we have done something inconsistent with our values.
Every time we block an emotion we incur an emotional debt, which sooner or later we have to pay—with high interest.
I feel A when B, because I think C. Does this make sense to you? (Listen in silence and acknowledge.) What I’d like is D, so I want to ask you E. Is that acceptable to you?
Emotional mastery requires that you be more interested in being effective than in saving face.
Healthy emotional expressions are adequate responses to life’s circumstances.
Problems arise when our distorted thoughts exacerbate our emotions to the point that they become harmful, preventing all productive expression.
unless you see yourself as a contributor to your experience, which includes your emotions, you cannot see yourself as able to influence your experience.
Although emotional drives exert influence, ultimately your behavior is an act of will. It is possible to feel intensely without acting unconsciously. In fact it is possible to feel intensely only when you trust yourself not to act impulsively.
When people fall prey to confusion and assume that their thoughts are emotions, they close off rational inquiry.
Confusion gets magnified when people consider their emotions to be supporting evidence for their opinions.
Should-ing: This is the tendency to think in terms of obligations as opposed to possibilities. When people impose expectations on others, on the world, and on themselves, they spend most of their time feeling angry and guilty.
Checking an emotion’s underlying story for cognitive distortions enables us to validate its grounding and find positive ways to express it. It’s crucial to distinguish rational reflection from repression. To analyze doesn’t mean to invalidate or censure; it means to consider the validity of thoughts and the relative convenience of different possible actions. Given its underlying story, every emotion can be investigated through a corresponding series of questions. These questions can be part of an internal dialogue (asking oneself) or an external dialogue (asking another).
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. RUMI, “THE GUEST HOUSE”
Without forgiveness, anger turns into resentment and guilt into shame.
Forgiveness is not absolving bad behavior. Forgiveness doesn’t mean approving or condoning actions that fail to meet your standards. It doesn’t exclude demanding compensation or taking corrective action. You may even sever the relationship. You can forgive an employee who isn’t doing his job to your satisfaction and still fire him. Forgiveness allows you to do what you need to do without resentment.
Forgiveness is not pretending that everything is all right when you feel it isn’t.
Forgiveness is not adopting a holier-than-thou attitude or doing others a favor. If you forgive out of a sense of superiority or pity, you are confusing forgiveness with arrogance.
Forgiveness is the choice to let go of resentment. It’s a commitment to live in the present, free of anger’s inertia. To resent is to cling to the past, to keep alive the original suffering. Resentment is self-righteous rumination. It calls for revenge rather than reparation. It promises relief, but it yields only suffering.
When you forgive, you accept what has happened without denying your grief. You establish your inner peace and freedom—not freedom from loss, but freedom to respond openheartedly to any loss. This lets you feel secure and powerful in a world full of risks.
Emotional mastery requires that you forgive yourself. It’s critical, however, that you distinguish self-forgiveness from self-indulgence. Just as forgiveness doesn’t absolve wrong behavior, self-forgiveness doesn’t erase justified guilt.
Self-forgiveness is the ultimate source of resilience. It allows you to bounce back after a setback and grow from the failure. It turns errors into steps along the learning path. When you master forgiveness, you can identify mistakes (yours and others’) compassionately, without excuses.
When you master your emotions, you can bring equanimity to any relationship. If you can stay grounded in the midst of an emotionally charged situation, you can help others stay conscious. On the other hand, unless you master the emotional skills I described above, you cannot hope to help others.
To work with others’ emotions, it is necessary to accept them without judgment. It’s not only useless to chastise somebody for what he or she feels, it’s also counterproductive.
Challenging others’ emotions makes them feel judged, misunderstood, and disrespected. In extreme cases, it can make them doubt their sanity.
Nothing defuses emotions like your own relaxed and centered stance. Simply not reacting exerts a tremendous dampening effect on intense emotions. Accepting the other’s emotion without judgment helps him recover his equanimity.
Without a reaction, an attack can’t last long. Like a fire that runs out of fuel, the emotional heat will consume itself.
Once the emotion has lost its intensity, it’s possible to move onto the next step: inquiry and listening.
Inquiry and listening are about influencing others, not manipulating them. The difference is respect for their autonomy, focus on valid information, and free choice. Manipulation is an underhanded attempt that, were it made public, would embarrass the manipulator and infuriate the manipulated.
If a man is crossing a river And an empty boat collides with his own skiff, Even though he be a bad-tempered man He will not become very angry. But if he [thinks he] sees a man in the boat, He will shout at him to steer clear. If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, And yet again, and begin cursing. And all because [he thinks] there is somebody in the boat. Yet if the boat were empty, He would not be shouting, and not angry. CHUANG TZU, FROM “THE EMPTY BOAT”
The market system brings prosperity to those who satisfy the desires of others in the best and least expensive way. Wealth can only be attained by serving the consumer. LUDWIG VON MISES
Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love. And then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
“Work is love made visible,” said Kahlil Gibran. Service, rather than greed, is what drives a market economy. Business is a crucial arena for the expression of the human spirit. But love, service, and spirituality are not terms usually associated with the marketplace.
When business is conducted with a high level of consciousness, there is no tension between material and spiritual wealth. Conscious leadership can create a conscious business, one that integrates wisdom and compassion in support of human development. In a conscious business, ancient wisdom and modern economics come together.
The preoccupation with the sacred, they claim, ends in disregard for the mundane; if you are a mystic, you can’t handle logistics.
The word “spirit” derives from the same root as breath, and it was once used to mean the principle animating a living organism. Over time, the focus shifted from life to consciousness as the central concept of spirituality. Thus, we can define “spirit” as the life principle manifest in consciousness, and “spiritual activity” as an effort to develop consciousness in oneself and others.
Contrary to business school doctrine, “maximizing shareholder wealth” or “profit maximization” has not been the dominant driving force … of [exceptional] companies … Yes, they seek profits, but they’re equally guided by … core values and sense of purpose beyond just making money. Yet, paradoxically, the visionary companies make more money than the more purely profit-driven comparison companies. JIM COLIN AND JERRY I. PORRAS
I was stunned by the realization that it is impossible to suffer a loss when you love your opponent. There is loss, but no suffering. It is possible to compete with a loved one, but it is not possible to regret his success—even if it is at the expense of yours. The sense of separation is what creates fear and sorrow. “When there are two, fear arises,” says the sage. In the oneness of love, there is only joy. The oneness of love seems easy to feel with a child, but is it possible to feel something like it with a business competitor?
Only at the higher stages of maturity can we embrace our competitors as “neighbors” to love.
I have been thinking of the difference between water and the waves on it. Rising, water is still water, falling back, it is water, will you give me a hint how to tell them apart? Because someone has made up the word “wave,” do I have to distinguish it from water? KABIR
At this level, competition becomes cooperation. Opposition is merely a play that encourages everybody to excel. What appears as rivalry is really collaboration that transcends and includes competition.
When you feel full, there is no need to find your worth in external success. Competition becomes a spiritual practice, an opportunity to test your mettle and express your values. There is no need to prove that you are who you already know you are.
fullness, you don’t play the game in order to succeed; you strive to succeed in order to sustain the game.
The larger purpose of business—or sports, or any competitive activity, for that matter—is not to succeed, but to serve as a theater for self-knowledge, self-actualization, and self-transcendence.
We discover who we are and what we really stand for when we respond to (business) situations. We establish our values through our behavior and our dealings with other people and the world. We transcend ourselves as we expand our circle of care and concern to include colleagues, customers, and others. Of course, in order to keep the business game alive, players must strive to make money and accomplish their mission, but the game is about much more than winning. Material success is not the end anymore; it becomes a means to developing and expressing our highest nature.
A human being is a part of the whole called by us “the universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task is to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. ALBERT EINSTEIN
What kind of work environment supports fulfillment? An environment in which people feel respected, listened to, valued, supported, and entrusted with meaningful and challenging work, one that allows them to operate in alignment with their values as they contribute to the mission of the organization with autonomy, power, and integrity. This is what the psychologist Abraham Maslow called “self-actualizing work.”
The only way to achieve happiness is not to pursue it directly. Happiness arises as a consequence of pursuing integrity and meaning, not happiness. As Viktor Frankl remarked, “happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy—it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.”
The same happens with profits. The worst way to be profitable is to focus on profits. Profits are a consequence of customer care, employee engagement, enlightened leadership, and service orientation: of successful business strategies and efficient business processes running on capable business infrastructures. The most powerful of these infrastructures is a healthy organizational culture—a culture based on integrity, meaning, wisdom, and love. Such a culture not only produces extraordinary long-term business results, but extraordinary happiness and fulfillment as well.
Maximizing shareholder wealth has always been way down the list. Yes, profit is a cornerstone of what we do—it is a measure of our contribution and a means of self-financed growth—but it has never been the point in and of itself. The point, in fact, is to win … in the eyes of the consumer by doing something you can be proud of. JOHN YOUNG, HEWLETT PACKARD AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE FROM 1976 TO 1992
Be true to your own self, love your self absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless you have realized them as one with yourself, you cannot love them. Your love of others is the result of self-knowledge, not its cause. Without self-realization, no virtue is genuine. When you know beyond all doubt that the same life flows through all that is, and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realize the depth and fullness of your love for yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at any thing as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ
the sirens’ songs of money, power, and fame shipwreck those who don’t tie themselves to the mast of essential values. This doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to achieve success, money, power, and fame by breaking basic ethical rules—in fact, many do.
What it means is that those who betray fundamental human values for self-gratification end up in psychological hell.
The marketplace is the realm of voluntary transactions. When a voluntary transaction takes place, each party involved must receive more satisfaction from what he gets than he foregoes from what he gives up.
The best way to benefit from endings is to project them into the future while there is still opportunity to correct the present.
As the Zen masters say, “Die before you die, so you can truly live.”
Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive. Jump into experience while you are still alive… What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death. If you don’t break your ropes while you are alive, do you think ghosts will do it after? The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten— that is all fantasy. What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an empty apartment in the City of Death. If you fall in love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire. KABIR
You feel in a state of flow when the experience matters to you more than the outcome. Flow happens when you enjoy the play more than its result.
We feel relaxed and focused as we face a challenge that taxes our skills without overwhelming us. We feel at our best when we can test our competencies and values without an overwhelming fear of failure. In an optimal experience we feel simultaneously safe and at risk.
Two attitudes can ruin the fun: taking the game too seriously and not taking it seriously enough.
The main task of a conscious business is to help people succeed (accomplish their mission) while they develop healthy relationships (belong to a community) and experience an unconditional sense of peace, happiness, and growth (actualize and transcend the self).
Success beyond success focuses on essential rather than surface values, on unconditional rather than conditional goals, on process integrity rather than outcome achievement. Even though you cannot guarantee that you will win, it is possible to play any game as a full expression of your values. Whatever the outcome, you can demonstrate admirable characteristics such as fairness, courage, respect, determination, and ingenuity in the face of any challenge. Acting in alignment with your highest values yields a sense of inner peace. Even if you don’t succeed, you will feel the pride of having behaved honorably. You will still bear the sorrow of loss, the disappointment of defeat, and the consequences of failure, but you will bear them with poise. When you succeed beyond success, these are small ripples in a vast pool of self-confidence.
“Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat alike, engage yourself in your duty. By doing your duty this way you will reach salvation.”
Liberation comes from releasing the attachment to results and offering every action to your highest values.
My daily affairs are quite ordinary; but I’m in total harmony with them. I don’t hold on to anything, don’t reject anything; nowhere an obstacle or conflict. Who cares about wealth and honor? Even the poorest thing shines. My miraculous power and spiritual activity: drawing water and carrying wood. LAYMAN P’ANG
The reason is that all of these practices are based on a shift in consciousness. They cannot work when one sees work as an unavoidable hardship, endured only to acquire the means to satisfy one’s basic needs. To develop these skills it is necessary to see work as “love made visible.” Then one’s professional practice—and one’s life—become a work of art, guided by the desire to serve rather than the need to be served.
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. T.S. ELIOT, FROM “LITTLE GIDDING”
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of man as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. HELEN KELLER
If you survive [the encounter with knowledge] … you will find yourself alive in an unknown land. Then, as is natural to all of us, the first thing that you will want to do is start on your way back to [your home]. But there is no way to go back … What you left there is lost forever … everything we love or hate or wish for has been left behind. Yet the feelings in a man do not die or change, and the [man of knowledge] starts on his way back home knowing that he will not reach it, knowing that no power on earth, not even his death, will deliver him to the place, the things, the people he loved … [Knowledge] will change your idea of the world … That idea is everything; and when that changes, the world itself changes.
Significant journeys are processes, not events. They demand sustained energy, not a burst. They require that the traveler develop physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual toughness.
In the driest, whitest stretch Of pain’s infinite desert, I lost my sanity, And found this rose. RUMI
Paradoxically, the highest freedom is choiceless discipline.
Dalai Lama. “Achieving world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is exceedingly difficult,” he once said, and then he added, “and it is the only way.”
Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”