Making the Choice to Change
This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, “The Human Solution: How the Feminine Face of Business and Human-Based Systems Will Save the World”
Okay, so what now? We have seen the intrinsic problems in our “business as usual” model and we need to make some changes. But will we? Are we capable of it?
We have the choice to stay the same and play the same losing games, or try something different and risk great reward. Let’s say you are convinced but you are also wondering what you are supposed to do next, and what you will be called on to give up.
First of all, why risk it?
When my 50th birthday rolled around, I asked myself if 30 unsuccessful years of trying to build success by using the time-honored mode of trying harder was worth continuing. “The system I am using — the system of push harder, go for the goal and don’t give up — hasn’t worked, so is 30 years enough? Can I try something completely different? Can I afford not to?”
That is a risk. It challenged my comfort levels and it did not make intrinsic sense to my endlessly striving mind. I had taken risks throughout my life, but they were, so to speak, “comfortable” risks, risks that I recognized and that I was willing to try. None of them challenged my personal, emotional settings. This one absolutely did.
I had to let go, to learn to receive a new direction, new inspirations, an entirely new mode of living — one in which I took time for myself to rejuvenate. For a worker bee, this was major, but it led to a new direction which led to this book which has led me to a new direction in life.
The unexpected is always worth seeking.
What kinds of risks do the worker and the boss take?
The employee takes his/her biggest risk in courting the disapproval of the boss.
The boss risks everything his/her business every single day by operating, and solving problems by, a 150-year-old — and increasingly data-driven-only — system.
The risks for both are large. The answer to both sides of that problem are those of communication, collaboration, and courting the unexpected, unknown answer.
Once again, the answers are human, regenerative and cultural.
Business has been legally deemed a person. But let’s get real here: if business actually were a person, s/he would be in a mental ward, tied down to the bed and screaming. But let’s go with this for a moment and pretend that your business is in fact a human being. Now, when it starts its life it is in learning mode, looking to others for guidance on how to grow up big and strong. It then begins to develop, and like any actual human being who has no training manual for how to respond to and work with life, it uses the lessons from its earliest years to manage its “teens” and “adulthood”. These lessons may not be completely successful, but they get on with things. And then comes middle age. Again, like any actual human being, the certainty begins to crack, the doubts begin to surface, a desire for the new surfaces; worse, tactics and strategies and coping mechanisms begin to fail. The middle-ager holds on to the old answers, trying to get through the same way s/he always has. And it isn’t working.
Now, if s/he had taken the opportunity to ask one highly potent question, a new direction could have been uncovered and taken, yielding various types of success, longevity and deep satisfaction.
I invite you to consider this question: If you are absolutely sure that your top-down 150-year-old system is The Way To Go, and that all answers are possible, and that all you need is determination, good employees, and “a break”, how long have you been waiting for all of the puzzle pieces to fall into place? How many parts of the system have you had to redefine time and again? How many times have you had to spackle your system?
Are you certain that your certainty is a good place to rest? Are you open to looking at and weighing other options? If you are, you are halfway to sustainability and success.
Great certainty lets us take risks so comfortable they are hardly risky. On the opposite side of things, great breakdown and impending disaster make us take risks that are balanced on the famous razor’s edge. Seeing disaster coming before it takes you down is visionary. Being courageous enough to try a new direction because the old one is dying: Priceless.
All of us are in the middle of an enormous breakdown of what we have forever considered to be our norms. Our systems are breaking down — financial systems, business systems, planetary systems. Our mode of emotionally surviving separately and detached from one another except for our nearest family and friends is creating greater and greater levels of depression, financial and emotional poverty, anxiety and loneliness. And most critically of all, our planetary resources are dwindling and the survival of the planet itself is in doubt.
Kind of a big deal, wouldn’t you say?
You might be surprised to learn just how large a role the following elements have to play in the transformation of your success, and the health of our entire planet: balanced internal/external motivation, emotional health, personal development and creativity. In the business arena, the area the most pregnant with financial viability, answers, and sustainability has been largely ignored, worked around and allocated to Human Resources to deal with! Keep them happy and the business will be fine, right? Absolutely utterly wrong. Not wrong in that you need to address what it is that happiness is for the people helping you create your empire, but wrong in addressing those needs as you would the need of a rabid dog for a juicy piece of meat!
Businesses taking the risk
The human element is actively needed in our businesses. We need to nurture it, learn how to deal with, learn how to invite it into the room and the processes we work with every day.
One of the leaders of sustainable business models is Carol Sanford, founder of The Regenerative Business Development Community. Carol has worked with businesses committed to attempting the untried: Google, DuPont, Intel, P&G, and Seventh Generation.
Carol takes what she calls a “Socratic and contrarian approach”, backs it with research, case stories and testimonials, and “Carol challenges and educates leaders to reimagine everything they currently know about strategic thinking, leadership, management, and work design. In the end, she guides people to find their individual and organizational ‘promise beyond able-ness,’ embedding enormous possibilities into an organization.”
That her efforts have been taking place over 40 years of her professional life gives me tremendous hope.
Those businesses which are trying to approach things differently are asking:
(1) What kind of risk should I take to make a real difference in this business?
(2) Why should I take this risk now?
(3) How do we make this change?
(4) What has to change in us for this change to happen?
You may have already guessed that there is no one-size-fits-all instruction book for how to change your business. There are, instead, principles and modes of operation by which you can measure your efforts very quickly indeed. What I am speaking about may be tough at first for those who have had years of successful experience in stair-stepping up the corporate ladder; the kind of professional who appreciates the instructional booklets. For this kind of professional, a greater purpose must be so compelling, so provoking, the walking through will be a labor of love.
And that is easier, when you know what your business is truly about. At its emotional core.
Until 10/31, Pre-Order my book, “The Human Solution: How the Feminine Face of Business and Human-Based Systems Will Save the World” here: www.Publishizer.com/The-Human-Solution. BONUSES AVAILABLE FOR BUSINESSES
About Lori Kirstein
Lori Kirstein is an innovative Business Coach and Educator in Business Humanism. She is the author of “Mother Love: Embracing the Wound, Tempering the Steel”, and “The Human Solution: How the Feminine Face of Business and Human-Based Systems Will Save the World”. She has worked with women entrepreneurs and women in business to change and grow their impact through additive and humanistic approaches to solutions, creativity and change. Learn more about Lori and her work here. Contact her at support@GoodbyeGoodGirl.com.
