I ran across this article from another list and thought that it would be
interesting to some as self-actualization is being discussed on this thread.
This is perhaps a little different viewpoint but very interesting points are
made. Hope you enjoy it. (Just email Joel if the list sounds interesting,
tell him you heard about it on LO!)
mike
--- Forwarded Message ---
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 11:45:34 +1000
From: Marika Bouchon <mbouchon@ozemail.com.au>
To: ONN/Joel Metzger <ONNJoel@libertynet.org>
Subject: Barbara Shipka & Leadership
Hi, Joel
You sent me last week an excerpt from Barbara Shipka's book "Leadership in
a challenging world". It was great to read my own thoughts in discussion
of the 'new paradigm' that people try to reach too fast, and in the
discussion of the 'feminine' (not feminist) principle.
1. Would you please make sure she knows about the World Business Academy
(which works in the same direction as her)?
2. I would like to confirm her ideas through my experience and make a
suggestion, drawn from my experience and from the ideas I developed (I'm
now preparing articles).
I agree with Barbara that the quantum leap of evolution that our society
has to take cannot be a simple jump to the final destination. The
organizational disappointment quotations she gave represent exactly what
may happen to an individual in the same situation of feeling pressed to
change. In the book I am preparing, I make a very strong parallel between
a crisis for change in an organization or in our society and the same type
of crisis in an individual's life, which may lead to what Grof(1989) has
called a 'spiritual emergency'. I see our society as undergoing such an
emergency.
In my experience, the disappointment comes from the fact that despite our
desire to 'do the right thing' and try the new paradigm, we are still
stuck in fears and unconscious motives. We can affirm, visualize, work in
the spirit of the new paradigm, learn to give-give-give and
share-share-share... but it eventually comes back in disappointment and
the feeling of 'it doesn't work', 'it didn't work' as long as we still
have our fears. Why? Mostly because the reason why, in the first place,
we tried the new methods, had a hidden agenda.
It may be that we hope to 'make our life work better' (ex: 'give and you
shall receive a hundredfold'), or improve business for our organization or
improve conditions at work in it. This is underlined by an unconscious
assumption: it is not right as it is, we have a situation to solve, here,
or worse: we can't survive in the present conditions. Despite the positive
appearances, we are still only 'coping', we stay in survival mode, run by
the fear of destruction, one way or another. This is called, in
psychology, an existential crisis. Action alone cannot solve it. The new
paradigm does NOT function if we are run by survival mode. The new
paradigm functions if we feel safe, if our actions are based on love and
trust. This looks like an unsolvable paradox, in an organization just as
for an individual, yet there is a way out, 'up', to the state called
'self-actualization'. An organization cannot jump into the new state
without its members reaching that state as well. And that, takes a little
bit of ground work, on both levels. Another possibility, at best, is that
we choose new paradigm behaviors because we want to abide by our higher
values, selflessly, disregarding our actual needs. This is a very
insidious misunderstanding of the new paradigm and the related spiritual
literature. What we are doing here is 'suppressing' our needs, thinking
that, in the long run, surely life will look after us, good citizen
(individual or corporate). We expect reward. This is a bit blunt, but
that is what it underlines the whole change. In this case, the reward is
not hoped directly from business, but from some kind of 'higher' instance,
life, the universe, or God. This comes still comes down to a childish
attitude: 'if I am a good boy, the teacher will see it and will reward
me'... Only the teacher doesn't seem to see it. Unfortunately, it doesn't
work that way. Why is that? Simply because in suppressing our needs, we
suppressed our awareness of the fear. IT is however still there, and still
runs the show, albeit in a covert manner. Many people in mid-life crisis
can attest to that. They go to seminars, read mountains of books, accept
the encouragements, do the best they can... and nothing improves. Usually,
in fact, it even gets worse, until they have tried everything they can do,
and come down with the conclusion: it is the way I am that doesn't work.
Then, the real action starts. Then the ground work can be done: facing our
fears. In stopping to look outside for solutions, consultants, teachings
etc., we finally come to see the bottom line, INSIDE. As we do, we find
the horrors of our human nature, we drown in our worst fears of being all
alone in this... we find Self. We finally realize that 'organic' does not
mean a way of acting, but means that 'I am other' Then authenticity
appears, reliability, trust, accepting vulnerability. Then sharing
responsibility with others is based on a trans-personal identification of
needs (my needs = the needs of the whole, because I am essence of the
whole). Then the real power is available, that was hidden in fears and the
worst in our human nature: we find we have real choice. The overall
feeling of security gained -an existential security- is the source of real
collaboration. This process is what leads to self-actualizaton. The
wonderful, 'synchronistic' results are not something to aim at through
goals: they come as a natural consequence of the new way of being (If Self
is all others and everything, and I am Self, then it follows very
logically that I -I- originate everything). The sense of community
highlighted by the synergistic new paradigm does not come so much from how
we act as from how we ARE. When that state is reached, there comes the
'quantum leap', with an entire new worldview, a completely reviewed sense
of self as individual and self as a 'societal being'. And the visible
results soon follow. The time leading up to that quantum leap is of
paramount importance: the ground work of adaptation MUST be done, or the
system dissipates when the final stage of crisis sets in. The pressure of
crisis must be processed, not simply averted. Avoiding the crisis robs the
person of a chance to evolve in this quantum leap. Barbara is right: "You
cannot leap over the white space and successfully arrive on the right."
In last analysis, it is a chance at self-actualization that we all face,
individually and globally. Either we do the ground work of Being, face our
fears, and succeed in this evolution, or we keep trying to change only the
way we act, and we will all end up 'dissipating'. This is a scary process
for Westerners, all raised as we are to 'do-do-do', to 'go and get it',
even if we now do it with affirmations and visualizations and group work.
Our challenge is to ease off on the ACT, and accept to sit down and BE,
along the 'feminine/yin' principle Barbara discussed. It is not to throw
ourselves into more action, albeit different and based on feminine values
of relationship. (This is what she meant by: "when the feminine becomes
overt, it then probably becomes more masculine than feminine": action is a
yang principle). The world crisis, the increasingly unbearable business
competition, the individual financial pressures all have one underlying
benefit: they are forcing us, after we have "tried everything" (yang
Doing), to sit down and go within to face our fears (yin Being), because
there is no other explanation to the drama: no matter what we do, it goes
wrong, it is the way we are that needs to change. Once we change that way
of being to a self-knowledgeable, trustful, loving way of being, all the
other aspects of the new paradigm come into place, supporting our new way
of being. This is self-actualization. It is within reach for all of us.
The life of a self-actualized person functions well and is full of love
and trust in the future. Personal needs are met THROUGH meeting the
community's needs: there is no more opposition, no more need to 'do the
right thing' or 'sacrifice' anything'. The person acts simply to satisfy
Self, which is both the personal self and the universal, communal self. I
have called this way of life 'business flow' (Bouchon, 1996) because in
such people's lives, everything seems to 'flow', they themselves 'go with
the flow', and they experience the exciting pleasure of the 'flow
experience' (a term coined by Csikszentmihaly, 1992).
One suggestion I would like to make to Barbara [apologies, I haven't read
her book yet] is that 'leadership' is powerless in this crisis. The only
leadership that will work, in my view, is that of example. We cannot force
anyone to sit down and face their fears. Encouraging them to change the
way they act just will not be enough. But put one self-actualized person,
whose needs seem so well met, who needs no defense, in front of
struggling, fear-driven people and they almost automatically think: "I
want to live that way too! There's no way I want to keep struggling when I
am told I could be living such a wonderful, exciting and fulfilling
life!". And they are on their way to a new manner of being. It happened to
me.
--- End of Forwarded Message ---
--"Mike Jay" <Quarterback@msn.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>