Are we embarking on a new era of ethics and morality?

“Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me” Emmanuel Kant

A couple of weeks ago Mark Rosenberg’s Facebook post caught my eye. The one that started “So, uh, yeah. We need to talk about Harvey…..”. If you missed it, that’s too bad because it’s been deleted now. Although I’m sure a little trawl round the internet will surface it. What Rosenberg wrote about his old pal Harvey Weinstein what was anyone who was there at the time, knew. We all knew. And we all knew that we knew.

The whole exploding debate about what Harvey did and didn’t do, the more recent deep dive into the Westminster culture of sleaze, the Saudi kingdom pulling up princes for corruption, the call to social media giants to curb abuse — makes me wonder if are we embarking on a new era of morality?

On the one hand it’s the salacious digging over of the coarse habits of yesteryear to sell a few more ads and grab a few more viewers by expose media. On the other it’s a righteous indignation that the cultural norms of the time — because that is what this behaviour was - were ever considered ‘normal’. It was about the painful reality that even while Harvey was being a brutal bully and a sexual predator, his power-over was the gateway to an unimaginable lifestyle, hedonistic pleasure and worldly success. It is about the equally painful reality that career progress often demanded silence and subjugation.

It’s also about the collective guilt that comes with the human recognition that so often, unpalatable cultural norms are so normal that none of us do anything about them. That awful spine-chilling feeling that once again we all looked left while people marched towards the gas chamber.

In the context of what is going on in the even wider world, it’s even more nuts. Here we are picking over Weinstein when simultaneously as a species we are rapidly rowing back politically and putting Weinstein-like people into power.

WTF? Polarities. Wider and wider polarities.

Is this the final struggle between command/control and a brighter future?

What does it mean that we are suddenly finding an outraged sense of morality that we seemed to have misplaced when ‘winking’ at previous peccadillos? Is it just another distraction from the grand challenges of climate change, population growth, ever decreasing fertile soil on which to grow our food? Or is it, as I hope, a sign that we are readying for an emergent shift in consciousness propelled by one last final gasp of command/control?

According to Marjolein Lips Wiersma in her book The Map of Meaning, morality is the aspect of developing our inner selves and the ability of our characters and personaities to make a distinction between right and wrong. The kind of attributes that are associated by people when describing someone they perceive has moral authority include

• honesty
• trustworthiness
• the courage to do what is right rather than what is easy
• having ‘character.

Clearly valuable qualities to cultivate in both business culture and individual leadership.

In business the question of morality is active when we are put in positions where we have to ask ourselves questions like ‘what is the right thing to do here?’. It’s in the moment when you’ve been asked to make one cull of staff for operational reasons, and then you’re asked to make a second cull. Which you know is going to result in signifcant hardship both for those left who won’t be able to do their work efficiently and those who are going to be culled. What do you do? Do as you are asked or stand up and say no?

It’s active when we make a decision to raise prices because we want to use more sustainable materials in our supply chain, and risk a shift or loss in some of our customer base.

It’s active when we have to confront the question that what might be ‘right’ to us is ‘wrong’ for our company strategy or stakeholder interests. Some organisations have a moral code so deeply embedded in their way of doing business that this is not an issue, such as Patagonia and M&S Plan A’s deep commitment to the environment throughout the supply chain.

How do leaders find their moral compass?

Why then do we often fail to act with moral courage or fibre?

My personal experience suggests that as the ground shifts beneath you, and your worldview is undergoing transformation or challenge, your sense of morality shifts with it. When you have been doing a lot of work on key qualities like deep listening, empathy, collaboration, co-creativity, it opens your worldview to that of others and there is a period — often a long period — of questioning your previous norms and your idea of right and wrong. This can bring quite a lot of disruption and instability to the way in which you can act in the world for a while. I don’t know for sure if that is true for others.

One of the most common features of many of the change-making CEOs and leaders I’ve interviewed in the past few years for my book Activation, is their relationship with death. To a man (and woman obviously!) they have had some transformative experience or confrontation with mortality.

In the dark recesses of our minds, almost all human activities are framed by death anxiety and coloured by our collective and individual efforts to resolve this inescapable and intractable existential given. So many of us spend much of our waking life in denial. Leaders who have confronted this deep reality, don’t. And they don’t because they have confronted death and accepted its finality to some degree — which is nigh on impossible for the human mind — and in doing so have released infinite possibility to act during the rest of their time here on Earth.

One of the cornerstones of that journey seems to be a voyage through surety to the dark hole of uncertainty and back out again into comfortability with uncertainty that is accompanied by a steely moral imperative. Caveat here: this is my own experience so it is more than possible in seeing this experience in others I am seeking confirmation bias.

I was once very sure. I was highly paid to be ‘right’ and drop communciations solutions onto companies that would transform reputation or drive growth. I dug and learned and questioned all the time from a creativity point of view, but I never doubted myself. A period of reversals of fortune including a brush with advanced lymphoma, the departure of my parents, the loss of my home and beloved horses in the winter floods of 2013 was followed by a period of being unable to reinvent myself for work. My surety and confidence melted away as I had to confront a completely new reality. A second life. It has taken almost four years to come out of that hole. I may never be ‘sure’ again in the way that I was, but I also recognised that I had a quality that is becoming rapidly essential in a changing world. I was always comfortable with a degree of uncertainty as a life long business owner, and I have been able to tap into that quality to find a new way forwards.

I have seen activist leaders in particular — especially those involved in fighting for systemic change in the environmental, sustainability, food systems, climate change landscape — almost give up wondering whether they are simply delusional to think we can stop a world hurtling towards 2c+. And then confront their own deep reality, pick themselves up, and go on. Often with a new humility that is more convincing than the old sword of justice, and always with renewed moral courage to stand up and be counted. It is not a journey from egocentric binary vision through doubt and back to egocentric binary vision. It’s a final and deep imperative that is often forged in the fire of despair.

“The darkest plaes in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” attributed to Dante Alighieri

What else helps?

Once that turbulent period of internal wrangling with your new moral compass or new worldview is coming towards an end, often a steely commitment emerges. With it comes a renewed sense of purpose, driven by the activation or re-activation of the fourth quadrant of human meaning which is service to others — people and planet.

In my research I have found 6 key pillars that currently support us through this most turbulent of times and help support a new moral compass.

Activating Purpose — both personal and organisational where personal develop is essential, and templates such as the UN SDGs can be extremely useful to organisations. Being able to join the dots inside business between organisational strategy, sustainability, CSR, brand and meaningful work brings the sense of collective purpose together.

Activating an Opportunity Mindset where activating creative thinking and developing an understanding of systems thinking are essential support tools.

Activating Meaningful Work — where taking a fresh look at organisational structure is essential. Examining where the barriers to creativity and innovation lie in the way in which organisations operate so that more autonomy is activated on an individual and team basis is critical. There are many routes to Rome here, but agile, self-management or ‘teal’ principles are worth exploring. Within those models, there is a need to re-examine roles and responsibilities, and most importantly begin to cultivate a culture of self-responsibility.

Activating Empathetic Communications — our ability to communicate effectively and compassionately is being rapidly eroded by the speed of change in organisations. There’s never time for reflective thinking in a world of desperate ‘doing’. We have to overcome the impact of globalisation which has opened up wide diversity around the boardroom table (sometimes) where there are different levels of consciousness, culture, gender and character.

Activating Future-Fit Structure — this is perhaps the most important pillar of all. It is difficult — though not impossible — to active the qualities we are speaking about in a hierarchical structure. Information and change in nature flows through organic, networked systems. Emerging business models like agile and self-management are being adopted by young vibrant start-ups but less by multi-nationals, purely because of the enormous organisational upheaval that would have to happen. That doesn’t mean that experiments in pockets of organisations can’t take place. Of course culture shifts that come as a result of increasing autonomy and meaningful work tend to leak out in to the wider organisation, but evolutionary change can be done this way for organisations brave enough to take the first step.

Activating Conscious Leadership — the glue that holds it all together. Incorporating a coached commitment across the organisation to personal development is an essential part of creating change. A whole book in itself. Fortunately others have written those chapters!

Our new venture We Activate The Future supports organisations to start the process of change through experimental workshops to build capacity and experience new ways of working, and provides support to embed future change. If you are interested in exploring ways in which your organisation could be more entrepreneurial, creative, or empathetic, do get in touch at hello@weactivatethefuture.com.