Why there is Hope for Life (and Work): Navigating without A Handbook and Lot of Deep Philosophy

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”
― Socrates

Dose # 118 of Sanity

We have a semi-robotic workforce today with people going through the motions. We have “hump Wednesday” where people are thankful for getting through half the week and TGIF (Thank Goodness It’s Friday) to celebrate the end of the week. I recently met with a former colleague in the Silicon Valley, who shared that she had seven more years. I asked her if she was in prison. No, she said. That’s when I can retire. She does not enjoy her current job and I understand why. But wow, how did we get here?

Why do we focus on making a living instead of making a life (where work is part of it)? Who will start a list that awards and recognizes the top 10 people who suffered the most during their career? The competition will be fierce. All the lists that are currently published do not reflect the reality of what is happening inside the walls of business today. All we see are the wrappers that tell us we must pursue “happiness.” Where does being human play a role in the current structure, which includes the ability to question and listen?

The biggest irony is that if you sit through a futurist talk today, you will hear many say that you don’t need to fear the robots (that humans are creating and calling artificial) because there will be a need for what they cannot bring: humane qualities. Do we get how insane this is? What if we designed differently? What is the mindset shift that is so needed right now?

I was asked during a leadership training if I truly believe what I wrote in my book. My response was, “why don’t you believe there is hope for business?” The people leading large organizations themselves have lost some sense of hope. So, I spent time re-introducing them the amazing people who were in the room and what they can do, together.All I did was bring some philosophy and questions to their attention. And it frustrated some who wanted the canned 5-step take-away and opened others who were ready to think differently and more holistically.

The same questions that I ask myself every day and explore deeply, which starts with examining what are the opportunities I have. The minute you can start adopting a conscious 21st century mindset of questioning, much shifts. But everything around us wants us to stay stuck in the problem sandbox and find short-term solutions. And the flavor of the month (and sometimes year) programs keep coming at us.

How many times can we report on the dismal state of trust and disengagement and loneliness in the world? Who is responsible for moving beyond the reporting and sharing of data? “Oh look, we are at an all time low …” and so the story continues. Why has so little changed if we have so much data?

I wrote the book to help us question and think. Often people tell me it is too long, which makes me smile, as that is one of the symptoms of our fast food culture. We want “content” (what happened to wisdom?) that is “snackable”, short and gives us our take-aways. Are we simply too busy to know what is valuable?

In life, what we value we make time for. We integrate exercise as movement when it is valuable to keep our bodies in motion. We integrate reading when we want to expand our minds. We also integrate vices like watching three hours of television a night to numb ourselves.

We have lost sight of what we value. What is valuable to you? No one else but you. What does your intuition tell you?

I was meeting with a head of a company who told me that he feels that he does not feel that he has anything meaningful to share as what he knows is simply “common sense.” I shared with him that the original title of my book was Our Journey to Business Common Sense but we had to change it because as Voltaire said: “common sense is not that common.” I shared with him that I felt that his wisdom can help so many people regain their sanity and that he should experiment by sharing his story.

Somehow, so many people have lost their ability to trust their intuition and themselves. And yet, it is available to all, whether you are purple, green, big or small. It is right here and has always been here.

At another intimate dialogue circle, someone asked me about hope, again. It is a recurring theme. They said they cannot do much as “change only comes from the top.” I asked them how that was working for all of us. If we wait for the change to come for the top, we will be waiting for a very long time. We already have been.

It’s 2017 and most leaders are still stuck in 20th century leadership. Organizations today spend more than half their time fixing problems they created themselves. We do not design holistically so we have internal turf battles, people creating programs for others who have not walked in their shoes, and endless meetings to share information. We pile more and more on, and most of it is unconscious as we do our jobs. We even no longer have a common definition of what “work” means in this century and yet the cost of burnout to organizations continues to increase. We have not integrated wellbeing into the equation as we continue to separate it into programs and initiatives that do not have a high return on impact.

The bottom line is the lack of clarity and questioning as key skill sets for this era are a huge opportunity for savvy conscious business leaders.

Isn’t it time to go back to our roots?

It’s important to look at the trends out there and see all the new shiny ones. But it is as much significant to question, why would this work for me? Why does my organization need it? Innovation for the sake of innovation helps no one. As I shared before, we keep layering more lipstick on the pig and all that does is frustrate the pig who simply wants to go about their business.

That is why my focus is on helping people unlearn and uncondition what no longer serves you so you can find your own path and the people who want to join you. This is not an easy journey, as I heave learned on my own path. But that is part of the unlearning — what is easy and hard mean to you and no one else. What are you willing to invest to examine yourself deeply?

“I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort.

From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be — what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing — I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am.

We do not know — neither the sophists, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I — what the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are. But there is this difference between us: although these people know nothing, they all believe they know something; whereas, I, if I know nothing, at least have no doubts about it. As a result, all this superiority in wisdom which the oracle has attributed to me reduces itself to the single point that I am strongly convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know.”
― Socrates

There is hope for life (and work) when we navigate without the manual and a lot of deep philosophy. What do you think? How about a dialogue?

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