What Is The Essential Skill For A Challenging World?

Have humans always considered the current time period they’ve inhabited to be the hardest?

All I’ve ever heard throughout my life is we’re facing a new world; things aren’t as easy as they used to be; in former times one could…; in this new competitive environment…

In the sense that every époque brings its own challenges, then sure, we have unique challenges to meet.

Most of our conversation around meeting these challenges focuses on technical solutions and being more creative and innovative in our thinking and subsequent actions. Unfortunately much of this approach focuses almost solely on the head, ignoring a whole set of skills that come from another centre within us.

Recently I was speaking with someone involved in the Singularity movement. This person was writing on the topic of communication, his main point being that company leaders’ biggest communication challenge was to speak openly and honestly and resist the impulse to protect their own reputation, turf and position.

Often the way people try to attack this problem is to change the verbiage: “I need to change my language to achieve greater levels of integrity, humility and honesty.”

This is an outside-in approach, tinkering with the outer framing without addressing the body of the issue.

The truly transformative approach is to use the power not of the head but the heart and practice love.

Some of you might be ready to abandon this article at this point, believing that I’m coming from a sentimental, romantic place. Not true.

M.Scott Peck, renowned psychotherapist and author of the wonderful book (among many)The Road Less Traveled, defines love this way:

“the will to extend oneself to nurture one’s own and others’ spiritual growth.”

He speaks of the difference between a loving feeling and actual love. When viewing it this way, love becomes a skill, one that, alas, isn’t taught nor very often trained.

If leaders really want to create a rich, positive environment for their followers, employees, partners and customers, they will want to be honest with them- even when it hurts or is profoundly uncomfortable.

This applies to any of us. In doing so, we also love ourselves, becoming stronger by being willing to risk our position and self-image in favor of openness and the growth of all.

A few weeks back I was booked to consult with a group of young entrepreneurs. During session, I achieved the remarkable feat of having a third of them (in this case two out of six participants) leave the room in tears. They missed a large part of the training and barely participated upon their return.

My initial reaction was of course to blame them: they needed to “grow up”, get “stronger”, be more “open to feedback”.

While all of that may be true, simply staying stuck in that defensive position was a posture entirely lacking in love.

What did it mean in this context to practice the skill of love? Rigorous self-examination: what was my part in their upset? What could I have done differently? Is there something I could have done better?

It wasn’t fun to sit on the two-hour train ride home and consider these questions. Much better to leave it all at these crybabies’ feet. But finally I had to admit that yep, I could have been more sensitive at the outset of the training to their clearly uncomfortable state. I could have been gentler and the evidence suggests that would have been a more productive approach.

So what to do?

I emailed them and told them this. Our resistance to love is strident: even while writing the email, certain of my action, I wanted to turn back, delete the whole thing and retain my ludicrous self-image as a perfect, untouchable authority figure.

In writing and sending the email, I practiced love and consequently grew a little stronger, a little more expanded, a little more fearless. If I was able to admit fault, I could leap out into the world without regard for my reputation.

For the entrepreneurs, I can’t know exactly how my email might serve their growth- but it does give them evidence that even those who scare or discomfit them are vulnerable humans themselves. It also can open a space where I might be able to suggest in a more trusting environment that they may indeed need to be stronger and better equipped to stand up to challenge, even when that challenge is insensitive.

Personal growth fuels all other expansions. Machines will never occupy the loving space: yes, I know there are many who will violently disagree but going by Dr. Peck’s definition (and countless others), to love is a living act.

What can we do today?

Nurturing our own and others’ spiritual growth can be exercised through extending ourselves in our work (both solitary and in our collaborations), our interactions, the way we listen, we way we challenge and encourage, the goals we set, the habits we practice, and above all, how present we can be in this moment.

It’s something we can practice and it can raise our levels of commitment, energy, creativity, sense of connection and, most importantly, joy. It isn’t hard to see the results and rewards that can flow from a continual loving practice.

I know that today there will be moments when it will be difficult to love. What draws me forward to those moments is knowing that therein lies the most powerful transformation I can effect, both internally and in the world.