Many people we talk to in business are suggesting that the economic challenges we face today are the catalysts for a new era.
It seems fairly obvious that in the West we are heading towards a global-centric stage of development and we will require a considerable amount of aligned energy and intelligence going forward if we are to succeed and recover from the current crisis.
At 4D we believe the new era is the era of 'human being’ in the work place and the further evolution of human potential in general.
As healthy business practices are the foundations of healthy economies and ultimately healthy societies, we feel this is an exciting time. If we get it right.
Most successful Western businesses have already successfully satisfied the needs required to flourish in 3 basic dimensions:
• Resources - Finance, knowledge, technology and workers.
• Organisation - Hierarchy, systems and processes.
• Status - Brand and market position through customer relationships and community.
But what's required now is galvanising the fourth dimension.
This is the collective energy and intelligence generated by the talent, attitude and behaviour of an organisation's people. This is the key differentiator in a competitive market place. The energy and intelligence of it's people is a company’s best asset and the greatest resource available is human creativity.
Ecology, sociology and psychology can tell us more about the workings of the human mind and our connection to the environment than at any time in our history. We are at the dawn of a new understanding of ourselves and the eco- systems that both created us and those we create and operate within. We can no longer ignore the fact that we are connected, in a profound and fundamental way to all of humanity and the environment. The actions of business can no longer operate in isolation from its people or the rest of the global system.
However, in the past people may have been expected to selflessly give up their values, ideas and beliefs and become merged with a whole in service of a tribe, a community, a society a nation or a company. This is currently becoming unacceptable to many people today and in the past few years has led to uprisings, continued dysfunction and the failure of nations, cultures and businesses alike.
We are now heading for an age where the focus is on personal awareness, realisation of potential and individual uniqueness and autonomy together with a greater sense of belonging and being part of something much bigger. This brings with it an enhanced sense of individual empowerment but, at the same time the need to take responsibility for our actions, create alignment and be mindful of the right use of power.
Here are some possible tenets for evolved, 4 dimensional thinking for business leaders.
Creative behaviour is innate, necessary and fundamental and expresses itself in an environment of growth, freedom and optimism.
Destructive behaviour is contingent, born of frustration and fear and expresses itself in an environment of stasis, restriction and authoritarian control.
Evolution is an absolute and universal law. Any organisation that does not evolve will be unsustainable.
Allowing an individual to pursue their own self-interest, but in a way that automatically benefits everyone else, whether they mean to or not, is the secret to the new evolution of business.
Ensure your organisation's culture makes everyone feel free to create, develop and evolve, important, needed, useful, successful, proud, respected, rather than unimportant, interchangeable, anonymous, wasted, underused, expendable and disrespected.
Bearing in mind that the work we do becomes part of our identity and the way others define us, our work must authentically express who we are on all levels. This requires, courage, honesty and an absence of fear.
Help people find meaning in their organisations. If we find no meaning in our daily activity we may eventually feel our lives to be meaningless.
Ensure as people develop they are given responsibility and power, rather than left in a state of passive dependency.
Organisations that share information across departments with increased employee involvement perform significantly better than organisations that are run autocratically.
Flexibility and adaptability will be significantly related to financial success in the future.
Leadership roles should be interchangeable and needs based not awarded on length of service alone.
Managers and leaders should be enlisted from experts in their particular field and lead based on their knowledge not on their ability to intimidate or wield power.
Companies that will succeed in the future will be those that are closer to a natural organism in the way they function. Committed to continued evolution for the good of all, both inside and outside of the business. Like the human immune system, the energised and evolving organisation is constantly aware, and reflecting on the patterns and habits of it’s systems and processes, checking for any dysfunction. This would require a ‘no blame’ culture in order to encourage the workforce to be vigilant and take responsibility to openly flag up and address challenging issues helping to keep the organisation open and healthy.
The 4th dimension of an evolving organisation is the energy and intelligence of people operating as an integrated whole.
And we could really do with some new ideas!
Integral Perspectives On Personal & Professional Development
The 2nd Dimension - Emotions
The 2nd D in our 4D human being framework is the emotional dimension.
This is all about how you feel emotionally day to day and also how you make others feel by the things you say and do.
In terms of personal development we have found that this dimension can be the most challenging for people and in some cases it's just plain avoided.
Daniel Goleman has written extensively on the subject of emotional intelligence and his work is definitely worth looking at, and even re-visiting if you're already familiar with it.
So, in this post I'd like to look at the Positive psychology movement. The central philosophy of positive psychology is to help people to become happier rather than trying to help depressed people get back to where they were before depression set in. The followers and practitioners of positive psychology say their findings demonstrate that happy people live longer, have more friends, are more productive and generally stay in better health for longer. They also suggest that positive and optimistic thinking more often leads to positive outcomes.
The thinking behind positive psychology was developed by psychologist Martin Seligman, of the University of Pennsylvania. He began to change his view of and approach to traditional therapies because he believed psychologists tended to focus solely on identifying and managing dysfunction and depression rather than offering techniques to create happiness and contentment.
He felt that if he took a depressed patient and removed all the negatives from their lives most of them would be in neutral and perhaps feel empty rather than happy. He felt psychologists needed to offer more so, he began his own research by focussing on identifying the elements that constitute a happy life. Looking at the behaviour and personal qualities of people who claimed to be happy.
The principle behind positive psychology are not new. The idea that if we remain optimistic and enthusiastic about life we'll achieve success was first, commercially proposed by Norman Vincent Peale. However a resurgence of this type of thinking is a welcome change. It seems obvious enough that if we keep a positive attitude to life we will have energy available to pick up on opportunities we may have missed in a neutral or depressed psychological state.
So how do we do it?
According to positive psychology optimism is an emotional attitude that can be learned and developed. The remedy is simple, we just focus on the things we have talent for, whatever that may be, from creative pursuits like art and music, to sport, literature, cooking or communicating. Identifying and acknowledging our personal strengths and those of others rather than pointing out our failings and what we are less able to do. Keeping front of mind our past and current successes rather than the disasters and failures. Looking back at the past for a reference, but not staring.
The traditional, psychic archeology of psychoanalysis is no longer a favoured route for today's psychotherapists who work with the more modern methods and principles of brief, cognitive and behavioural therapies. From the PP point of view continually reliving painful and difficult memories just re-energises and strengthens them by keeping the neural pathways to these thoughts and ideas open and in our consciousness.
One of the foundational techniques of PP is to wake up in the morning and write down all the things that are good in your life. This can help to set the emotional tone and psychological temperature for the day. Simple things (if they are true for you and represent your experience) can be seen as gifts when we consider what it might be like to experience the opposite of statements like:
I am pain free.
I have more than enough energy resources to face the day.
I have a warm comfortable place to sleep.
I am not under the threat of violence.
I have people in my life who care.
I have enough food to eat.
Over time this habit of positive affirmation helps to reframe our mindset and can make us more resilient to the trials and tribulations of life. In fact, studies by Ernest Rossi suggests that self suggestion can create a self fulfilling prophecy at the level of the neural pathways in our brains and DNA and over time a thought can become an unconscious, psycho-physical behaviour.
So, perhaps, instead of living each day in the haze of free floating anxiety at the thought of global economic collapse, nuclear war and other stories of doom and gloom, we could be experiencing an underlying sense of happiness and realising a renewed optimism.
The practitioners of Positive Psychology suggest that happiness may be found in one or a mix of three routes:
The Pleasant life
This life is about instant gratification, acquiring money, status and superficial pleasures. Though pleasant while it lasts this happiness is unsustainable because we humans can quickly tire of people, places and things without a deeper purpose.
The Good life
Is about learning growing and energising our talents and our strengths, focussing our energy on bonding and building relationships with others. Creating social networks, joining special interest communities in order to learn and share our values, ideas, talents and experiences with like minded others.
The Meaningful life
This life is about using our talents, strengths and abilities to help others and enhance their lives in ways that are meaningful for them. The focus is directed less on ourselves and more on other people.
It is suggested that a combination of all three is ideal but the last two are most desirable.
It is important to know that positive psychology is not meant to be an alternative to traditional therapy but rather an additional, complimentary path to follow.
We can begin to tap into emotional energy using some of the exercises and processes grounded in PP that focus on our mental strengths and positive emotions. Feeling well emotionally leads to thinking well intellectually and a desire for full engagement in all our activities, both social and professional.
And, an added bonus is that the emotion of 'desire for positive engagement' can raise our energy levels in all 4 dimensions.
Being Human at Work
Watch this truly inspiring video by Gary Hamel on the future of being human at work.
What Matters Now?
Due to the increasing volume of books usurping me from my living space I made a pledge in January not to buy anymore hardbacks this year. Instead I was going to stick to downloading ebooks onto a Kindle.
But my will weakened at the airport recently and I bought Gary Hamel's new, 'hardback' book 'What Matters Now'.
The trouble started when I was walking around WH Smiths and noticed the bright orange cover with the bold white text. The headline was almost audible. WHAT MATTERS NOW! I had enjoyed reading Gary Hamel's previous offering-The Future of Management- so was curious to read the back cover. I then read the inside flap, picked out a couple of chapters and was hooked.
Cut to shot - Me speedily heading towards the checkout, clutching a heavy hardback book that would eventually contribute to reducing my living space to a small section in the bottom shelf of a large overloaded book case.
I bought the book because I was struck by the fact that the values, ideas and beliefs he espouses are almost in perfect alignment with the intentions, motivation and mission behind our company 4D Human Being. As he is considered to be ranked the #1 most influential business thinker today it gave me a sense of comfort and even more certainty about what we have been trying to do with our work. And that feeling alone was worth the price of the book.
From the Inside Flap
"This is not a book about one thing.It′s not a 300–page dissertation on leadership, teams, or motivation.Instead, it′s a multi–faceted agendafor building organizations that can win in world of relentless change, ferocious competition, andunstoppable innovation."
What Matters Now is Gary Hamel′s impassioned plea to rethink the fundamental assumptions we have about management, the meaning of work, and organizational life. He asks, "What are the fundamental, make–or–break issues that will determine whether your organization thrives or dives in the years ahead?" The answer is found in five paramount issues: values, innovation, adaptability, passion, and ideology.
Values: With trust in large organizations at an all time low, there is an urgent need to rebuild the ethical foundations of capitalism. What′s required is nothing less than a moral renaissance in business.
Innovation: Innovation is the only defense against margin–crushing competition, and the only way to outgrow a dismal economy. In too many companies, innovation is still a buzzword, rather than the responsibility of every single individual. This must change.
Adaptability: In a world of accelerating change, every company must build an evolutionary advantage. The forces of inertia must be vanquished. The ultimate prize: an organization that is as nimble as change itself.
Passion: In business as in life, the difference between "insipid" and "inspired" is passion. With mediocrity fast becoming a competitive liability, success depends on finding new ways to rouse the human spirit at work.
Ideology: Today, businesses need more than better practices; they need better principles. Bureaucracy and control have had their day. It′s time for a new ideology based on freedom and self–determination.
If you can, grab a copy, grasp a coffee, grope around for some spare time and have a read.
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