Consciousness was the subject of the last podcast I co-created in The Fireside Sessions to be launched in the spring. We talked about the way humanity has evolved, and that the direction could be better... if only we were truthful with ourselves.
Making a difference in this world necessitates a desire to change. If you don't want to change, or see change happen around you, that resistance can only set up a negative cycle - there is no other direction for it to take. Positivity carries three distinct signatures that set it apart from negativity;
Spontaneity
Motivation
Creativity
The SMC template allows for a breakthrough to happen in a company's mind set, because it manifests change of its own accord. People are steering instead of trying to control, and the universe works better that way. No coincidence that the laws of physics make their way into my programme deliveries - it's a matter of course that they belong there.
Think of the negative electron, and how it behaves. Bonded by gravitational force (among other things), it leaps up and down in a strictly confined space that gives it just so much freedom, but no more. All an electron wants to do is reach ground state, to sit there in the middle positively doing nothing, no energy required. But because electrons can only occupy positions in the shell valence for so long before it's someone else's turn, they have to jump up and down levels by taking in and ejecting photons (light, in other words).
Here's the science, for those who want to know;
What makes a shell valence hang together;
Why electrons cannot occupy identical spaces (Pauli Exclusion);
How electrons move about between valence levels;
If you read these three short papers, you'll notice that although they are relating to the same thing (what electrons do in atoms), they don't seem to cross-reference one another very much. Where does it say, in the first two, that electrons move up and down the levels of the shell valence? Yet this capability is key to the energy system contained within an atom, and if it were taught to five-year-olds the world would be a very different place.
In an organisation, it could be said that the structure is very like an atom in slow motion. People come and go, rise up and leave to be replaced by others on the rise, while all along the ones who are rising and leaving are thinking that the lower part of the hierarchy is gravitating towards couch-potato status. Cross-referencing is reserved for meetings among the elite who say the right words and lose heart as soon as they leave the elephants behind in the room. Strip away the financial differences and you have people in all kinds of states of happiness, depression, challenge, fear and joy. Just as science blinds itself by refusing to collaborate on key applications, so companies can stagnate by refusing to evolve from what they are to what they could become.
Spontaneity is something you might not associate with the workplace, and why not? Because, perhaps, it requires a bit of scopey imagination. Fear (of all kinds of things) can get in the way of practicality. Anyway, who's going to do a risk assessment for something spontaneous?
Motivation can find itself confined to posters on walls. In most workplaces I have visited, the heart is there but the mind refuses to allow it to be honestly and truthfully put into action. Leading with your head is said to be the only way, but where has it got us today? Wiser words suggest listening to both, and if your heart isn't in it, don't go there.
Here's a piece of ancient history to remind us that yes, this world is a new one;
And one from more recent times explaining organisational inertia;
Having the heart to consider basic human needs for quality of life seems to be too much of a leap of faith for most, it's fair to say, in the engineering sector. There is huge resistance to going any further than a toe in the water with team-building days. When you consider the billions in lost revenue year after year brought about by inertia, the staggering truth is that turning a corner in bringing motivation to life could easily rocket any SME to heights of productivity that everyone is invested in reaching.
The first step is to establish clear goals and alignment across the organization. This means defining a unified vision and ensuring that every team understands how their efforts contribute to the broader strategy.
This article (quoted above) was published on 24th January (two days ago) so nobody can say that it's not extremely current, this trend towards thinking businesses out of inertia into engagement...
and talking of miscommunication / conflicting priorities, we could scatter adjectives, verbs and nouns all among the pigeons of cultural politics that coo and shift from the rafters. Enter the Archangels of Higher Achievement;
Creativity. There is no getting away from it, you have to be creative in solving problems effectively. You cannot possibly get through the constant flow of entropy successfully without coming up with some good ideas. How about getting some heads together across the culture, from CEO to shop floor? But no, the demon Inertia will rule the roost here because we don't like talking to riff-raff, do we?
My programme strategically breaks this ridiculous bias and delivers cost-effective solutions created and actualised by the people who thought them up. It's no good me (or anyone else) telling a company how to run itself, it has to find its own way. Help and support is, of course, useful for those preparing to instigate such circumstances.
Finally, spare a thought for the fact that you can't do all this from in-house, because there is bias in those rafters and to overcome bias, you have to change the equation to one that makes more sense. People love spontaneity, they look forward to breaks from routine, they learn better when they can directly experience results fairly instantly and they remember people who help them onto sustainably positive pathways. In the long run, the benefits you bring to your company's quality of life will be remembered for happening on your watch, not mine.
Contact me for a chat. kathy@worldlinetraining.com
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