Leverage Points Blog

This Sunday during Sunday school I received insight about the Foundation of Leadership of the Trinity of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Especially the thought pattern of seeing God in others and the reality of God knowing himself from one to another as well as tne oneness of his love.

Thanks Mark for this piece. It certainly gets to the heart of the matter. We could change the world tomorrow quickly and simply, if only we could generate a mass change of mental alignment, attitude, temperament, mindset, focus - what we pay attention to - what ever word you wish to use. We all have a "switch" in our heads which has two settings: "autopilot" and "mindfulness". Unfortunately autopilot requires no thinking and as such is the low energy default alternative. Being mindful, asking the hard questions, thinking about what we do, who we are and where we are going all takes energy. In light of this of course the more-of-the-same pathway is the one most travelled. It’s a matter of entropy. 
 
The members of your 3 day workshop were already “primed” and energised to be responsive to each other, to the presenters and the moment – easy to set the switch to “mindful”. It’s harder to create this frame in the day-to-day world, but not impossible – quite a few workplaces already do this and many a family as well. Unfortunately the “forces for the darkside” utilise our tendency for mindlessness to push their own agenda be it political, religious or economic. It is in the interest of those who wish to accrue power to keep the silent majority compliant and distracted (not that I am advocating a conspiracy theory here). 
 
The more I think of Leadership, the more I believe that truly great leaders create the freedom, choice, space, time and environment for their (willing) followers to gain an inner locus of control, personally develop their talents, find their own meaning, purpose and vision and switch on this consciousness. What I call the “uplift” process. 
 
To partly answer your question: ”If complete strangers can develop a kind of shared vision within a few hours, why does it take us so long to do so within our own organizations, if it happens at all?” - I suspect that our organisations and managers have over 100 years of history (habitual behaviour patterns) plus hundreds of small, subtle mechanisms which make this difficult – all barriers to consciousness in the workplace. In the traditional organisation there are too many status, territory and power games – too much focus on the short term – too much attention paid to making money for absentee share holders – too many structures, policies and procedures which have standardisation and compliance as their goal. In the traditional hierarchical bureaucracy we are contained within “Zimbardo Barrels” which trigger expectations to behave as unthinking drones. Low-level fear and learnt helplessness is rife (and situational). Complete strangers, primed to give & learn and placed in an external environment with a generative culture, supportive framework and positive, compassionate teacher-leader-facilitators are of course supremely well placed to rapidly develop the depth of interpersonal relationships, trust and disclosure to share their own experiences and stories and thus quickly create a shared vision. The barriers to deep dialogue and trustful sharing simply don’t exist in the workshop context (so our equally natural tendencies to communicate and create come to the fore) but the negative expectations and habits come flooding back in spades once you return to the workplace. Human behaviour is nothing but “contextual”. 
 
Your second question (rhetorical as it might be) is also important: Why do we spend so much time and energy fighting fires, blaming others, and taking knee-jerk reactions to the everyday events happening around us? Again we are trapped in a vicious cycle – these actions are those of other around us, it is expected that we behave in these ways – so we do - UNLESS we become mindful enough to say “enough, I don’t have to be this way”. It’s a catch-22, we have to be mindful enough to escape mindless reactivity, but what triggers that self-consciousness and what maintains a mindful state? Again, having real leaders who focus their mindful attention on “uplifting” or liberating others and having supportive generative relationships – yes friends – who keep your head above water, who let you know when you are slipping into mindless ways – are vital. 
 
Any vicious cycle can be reversed and turned into a virtuous one – it just requires the input of energy – in this case from passionate people who want to change the world. So more power to you Mark, to your readers and to leaders like Peter Senge who can make this happen. 
 
Cheers, Ian