We are, each of us, a unit, a whole. We can, for the purposes of specific analysis, take a part of that unit, but when we act we do it from that whole, from that unit and, in turn, that unit forms a transcendent unit with the context (Universe).
We are mind, body and spirit. To facilitate understanding, we can say that we are a body, a rational part (conscious), an irrational part (unconscious) and an essence.
We interact with ourselves and with the Universe (context, market, etc.). As the harmony of this interaction deepens, we approach uniqueness.
We tend to "be one", us and the periphery.
When we get sick, the body is talking to us. If we can interpret the message properly, we can heal ourselves, otherwise we will only be attacking the symptoms. The difference in vision (and action) of allotropic medicine with homeopathic and anthroposophical is notable.
From the Administration we try to sketch certain (rational) theories about the functioning of a whole that we call organization, company, entity, group, etc. The first thing we need to achieve is to visualize that "entity" as "something alive" and as a unit.
We cannot understand our body by its parts. Nor can we understand an organization from its different departments. Doing this can lead us to have a cluster of divisions that "work well" and a whole lacking in harmony. Something like a soccer team made up of eleven stars, but that does not work as a team or a team with an excellent defense but its midfield and front line fail to score a goal or the rainbow.
For many years I have felt that there is an enormous similarity between the process of individualization of a person and its consequent actions or social behavior and the process required by an organization to achieve a high level of competitiveness. In individuation, the human being "removes" the burden of his own by approaching himself (expanding his consciousness). An organization, like an individual, requires an endless process of self-knowledge.
Since our education is based on exacerbated rationalization, we attach great importance to our logical thinking. We explain everything, nothing is inexplicable to us. We find it very difficult to face “the inexplicable”. At most, in certain circumstances, we appeal to the phrase "this is not coincidence, it is causality." The cause, at least refers us to an effect, which allows us to "close the circuit" intellectual.
Although it is very common in us, in organizations it is much clearer: we look for the form and not the content (life). Words help us to shape ideas that come from a non-integrating, non-totalizing vision. We idealize ideas. We are fans of ideas (political parties, soccer clubs, philosophical, religious ideologies, etc.). We grew up in the idolatry of ideas. We park on our ideas or those of others who adopt them as ours. No other idea can "add" anything to this adopted idea.
The form is the result of a life that is adapting, hence the forms end up being ephemeral over time, and only help us maintain a certain order to channel to the full potential the internal life of an organization or human group. The forms become a roof, a container. The power is relegated. In a cart loaded with melons, when the cart is started, the melons accommodate themselves.
Nothing is constant, only change, Heraclitus argued. If we cling to the form, we pack life, we don't let it flow, we don't feed it, we don't live fully. Without life there is no creativity, without creativity there is no evolution, without evolution we stagnate.
If we talk about life, we talk about death, they complement each other. If there were no death there would be no life and vice versa. Our life (as a phenomenon) is the result of an infinite series of "life-death-life" processes. If we don't die, we can't be born again. By sticking to the life (interwoven ideas) we lead, we refuse transformation.
The Universe is a clear example of this wonderful process, although somewhat complicated to understand and much more to understand it (vibrate, feel it). Each night is a death and each dawn is a birth. A Mapuche legend maintains that the bird does not sing because it dawns, but so that it dawns.
Cuando una empresa tiene un producto que no vende, es bastante común que se apele a incrementar la promoción del mismo, ya sea con más publicidad o con descuentos especiales. No es común que se piense en nuevos productos o que se analice la posibilidad de discontinuar al producto no vendido. Se busca la vida desde la forma. Generalmente este “recorrido” lleva a mal resultado. Cuando participamos en una reunión del tipo «torbellino de ideas» nos olvidamos de las formas, buscamos la vida y ésta nos remite a la armonía del grupo. Hay buen humor, nos divierte.
Organizations often fall into states of chronic "disharmony", hence attempts to "improve performance" are only lukewarm attempts, only impulse. It is possible to get used to being wrong. If this happens to us human beings, it may well happen to the organizations we lead and / or of which we are part. After all, what are Organizations but the grouping of human beings who pursue certain similar objectives.
The "business world" moves to the rhythm of business fashion. The waves come and go. It ends up being very little. Little is believed in what is done to achieve better results. There is little compromise. There is no conviction. There is much talk, little is done. There is an excessive idolatry towards "yoismo". Daffodils abound and little is done to build a sense of belonging. It does not work for us. As we start from our egos, the competition of egos begins and this takes us away from the possibility of reaching the "we".
Each of us must focus on himself, on his power, but this is achieved only if we count on the other as a mirror of our integrity, with our light and with our darkness. Only from there, each of us will be able to empower the group in which they participate. To focus on us is to be willing to enter the life-death-life circuit. It is opening ourselves to the new, it is letting ourselves flow, it is seeking our own harmony, with ourselves and with the context. It is abandoning the words that justify what we have been doing. It is entering a terrain of more intuition, of more creativity, of more feeling, of more connection with ourselves, through others.
This is what it costs us to visualize (assume) as individuals and in organizations. We continue to search for certainties in magic recipes from enlightened gurus who "dictate" what to do.
The surprising thing is that despite the falls, more of the same continues to be attempted. We lack self-critical behavior. We are afraid of death, since it is seen as the end of something and not as the beginning of something. It is not seen as a transformative, evolutionary fact. We consider it the end.
Maintaining the status quo is normal, even though it does not bear fruit. Energy is used to do more of the same, it is wasted, it is consumed, it is not transformed, despite frequently mentioning the word synergy.
The "strange" thing about what we are now "talking about" is that it sounds natural to us, as something that we all have incorporated into us as our own knowledge. As something that has always been in us and yet we are unable to take it into action.
Being able to understand this circuit not only helps us to find our center, but, and most importantly, it facilitates our relationship with others. It allows us to listen and listen to others. It allows us to focus energy on what we do, avoiding dispersions, focusing our attention. We stop wanting to understand everything, we abandon the tendency to want to explain everything that happens to us. Generally things do not happen to us, neither for what we believe.
We all know that our life has a limit. We know that we are born, we grow and we die. However, organizations act as if they were eternal. Organizations seek to achieve the ancestral dream of immortality. In a "supposedly" calculating world, you end up believing in chimeras.
I propose that you go out for a walk around the city today. Look at the trees. Look at its fruits and the seeds they contain. Watch the birds. Nature prepares for its new life-death-life cycle. In spring, everything will come back to life, but for this to happen, what is happening must happen right now.
Using this line of thought, analyze what happens in your organizations.
This has been written in Buenos Aires, at the end of August.
