Robot minded people; Shadow factors in leadership II; African Soul Talk I (materialism)

As a rule I would not be tempted to watch a movie with the name ‘I, Robot’. Last night however I watched the movie on MNet to the end, wondering if our global society is becoming more and more technocratic with more and more robot-minded people and less and less creative, spontaneous and authentic people – or was the balance through the ages always more or less the same … with most people happy to conform, often sacrificing their personal views and feelings? In a Seasoned Campaigner newsletter I read something that highlights this issue in the context of the leader/follower dynamic:

‘Leaders in the organisation must select the right action and then mobilise others to implement it effectively. Successful decisions are, therefore, a function of both decision quality and effective implementation. A leader’s ability to navigate through the personality clashes, political and social pressures embedded in the decision process will determine the nature of the outcome. Few managers and team leaders have mastered these dynamics. Consider the dialogues that happen continuously: open-mindedness, healthy conflict and ideological debate are often conspicuously absent during the decision-making process. People feel uncomfortable dissenting. Groups converge quickly on a single solution. Critical assumptions are left untested, with creative alternatives never surfacing. Leaders hear “yes” too often, or hear nothing (a mask covering people’s inner reaction of “no”). These organisations don’t just make poor choices – they run the risk of leaving unethical choices unchallenged!
Have you ever censored your views during meetings, nodding approval while privately harbouring serious doubts? If so, you are not alone! People often feel uncomfortable dissenting in the presence of a powerful executive. They defer to technical experts or industry veterans. Entire industries blindly accept obsolete assumptions about customers, markets and competitors. Homogeneous groups nurture pressures for conformity! The greatest danger however is that most people are simply not comfortable with any form of confrontation.’

I’d be interested to know if the above is also your experience and how a leader can create an environment that would encourage more honest and challenging participation.

Development

As promised, here is the next part of Parker Palmer’s Shadow factors:

I am quite sure that many of us, as I can confess that I do, battle with this one: the belief that the ultimate responsibility for everything rests with me. Palmer calls it functional atheism. Of course that won’t reflect our conviction but it does function as an unconscious belief that leads to a lot of bad things for us. We believe we have to work harder to set things right as nobody else will. We stress about the things that we have not been able to manage yet. We suppress our feelings because we feel too responsible to cope with all the immediate challenges as we see them. Sometimes we loose sight of the needs of our relationships and the importance of revisiting our priorities in life. We become uncomfortable with silence and feel responsible to fill the silence with something that we see worthwhile. Apparently a group of people nowadays can only tolerate 15 seconds of silence.
Is there any cure? Only if we are prepared to take the inner journey by starting to admit this unconscious belief that we are living out. To discover the fact that we are only part of a bigger whole and that we can find meaning and fulfillment in doing only that which we are called and able to do, frees us from this shadow.

African Renaissance

I don’t know if you read the dialogue between Dumani Mandela (a grandson of Nelason Mandela) and Warren Goldstein (Chief Rabbi of South Africa) published under the title African Soul Talk. I found it very stimulating and relevant. This quote deals with the tension between materialistic and spiritualistic values and African leadership as experienced by Dumani. He writes:

‘When I left school I was so ambitious to get money because I assumed financial stability is what I should strive for. In the last year I have been to every type of business meeting to try and make that fast buck. But the funny thing is that though I am making more money than most people my age in South Africa, it has taken a spiritual toll upon me as a person. I can't even smile sincerely anymore without feeling a certain internal sadness because money and material success are always on my mind. I notice this in all of the conversations I have. Someone can be having a conversation with me and I will be in some far-off land thinking about ways to make more money. All my friends and I have this competition about who can get there first, and the sick thing is that none of us know what the goal is, but we continue with the rat race. It's like I am chasing this never-ending dream in which I have to always have more and what I have is not enough. I have decided what I must do now is re-educate myself on what it means to be more human. Money on its own is not bad, but the thought that we must have so much of it to be successful, is wrong.

I think also that our education system has to be more humanistic - it must teach us how to be more human and loving, along with focusing more on South Africa. This is why I became so defensive when you mentioned America to me because, what people should understand is that Capitalism is a very good system with which to amass financial wealth, but in no way is it a measure for developing as human beings because we humans have brought into it the manipulation of power for personal gain or advantage, and the acquisition of material things for the sake of it. The tragedy then becomes that we use this way of thinking and acting in our daily human interactions and try to always engage in a power play. I know because I am suffering from that disease. In my daily interactions, even though it is unconscious at times, I have practiced it so much that it has become habit to engage in a way that I have power over people. This is both on the conscious and subconscious level.

But let me not go off on a tangent. But leaders must always fight and without a doubt as you said, not for fame or material gain, but for the sake of assisting others. It is very difficult, in my opinion, to put yourself in the shoes of others, because as a leader one must lead by doing and acting in a way that always benefits the higher vision of humanity. Money is a necessary evil, but it must not corrupt the soul and our sense of humanity; Our lives, I believe, must be dedicated to the greater good, to the human spirit. This is the tragic story of most African leaders, that they have been so easily corrupted by money and power and have so easily forgotten the principles that they stood for in the beginning. This is the African phenomenon. This is coupled, of course, ,not only with poor leadership but also with corruption, which manifests itself in the global financial system of which these leaders are a part.

Our example of Nelson Mandela is good. He is the most humanitarian person I know. Well maybe I am biased because he is my grandfather, but I am also proud and I should voice that. He has stood for the principles of servant leadership and he has not forgotten these.’

I hope you will enjoy a really good third month of the year 2006!

Best regards