The Leadership Challenge:
What is Really Driving Our
Business, Family & Communities?
by Shirley Ryan
A true story: A child is lost in the woods and he is frightened, cold
and hungry. He sees his rescuers, but he is afraid, because he has
heard on the news or from his parents that children are sometimes stolen
by bad people. Will he trust enough to let himself be rescued or will
he opt to stay lost and possibly die from exposure, rather than chance
being stolen by strangers? The outcome is that he was driven by the
elements to finally let himself be rescued. But at what cost to all
involved? Who or what is really running our families, businesses and
communities?
Does that sound like a rhetorical question? Actually, I would like to
take a stab at it. I recognize that we are getting into deep waters here,
and that it's a big subject. But let's try to break it down a bit. Stay
with me, I do have a point and I will layer it in. Last week we talked
about how meditation through leadership is beginning to find its way into
Corporate America. And, we looked at how organizations seem to have a
soul or a lack of one. As we look over the next few weeks at leadership
in business, family and our community, I wanted to ask you to take a look
at how our belief systems affect the way these situations play out in
each of these environments.
Contrary to the quote I used from Spiritual Leadership, by Richard Bellingham
and Julie Meek, I want to make it clear that I don't think any company
or leader lacks soul. I believe we all have a soul, but whether we bring
it into our consciousness at work is another question. We may not allow
access to it or our depth of self, during business hours. We all might
agree that allowing our soul to blossom in the family system is a good
thing. But, does allowing access to your soul actually help or hinder
the work environment? What about your community environment? Would you
say that daily operations reflect the outcomes you want? Do your work
plans, communications in meetings play out the way you want them to? Expect
them to? Do you feel they could play out better?
Many times our lives feel like a game that we are a part of, even though
we don't seem to have or recognize all of the pieces, all of the time.
Metaphorically speaking, would you like to have all of the pieces, so
you can play more effectively? Of course you would. Everyone wants to
take advantage of all of their resources and to be more successful at
living. So, let's take a look at how to increase your skills at the game
of life by adding the pieces and reconstructing the patterns that increase
your chances of continual success.
How might this play out? We can illustrate this
by brainstorming with the "what if" game. Now in order to play, you have to suspend
judgment, right? Are you willing to do this? OK, so what if you could
tap all of the power that you truly have at your fingertips? What if you
were only using a fraction of your brain and power, as Einstein postulated?
What if you actually did meditate in the Board Room? Even farther out,
what if you let your Higher Power into the Board Room? A Higher Power,
you mean the G--word…in business? Pretty risky stuff, huh?
Research shows that 95% of North Americans believe
in a Higher Power, but leadership feels the need to keep it private
in order to "not
offend" their customers. Sounds a bit like compartmentalized thinking
to me. We only think of spiritual things on Sunday? Or at dinner time
when feeling grateful for the food we eat-if the kids are at the table
to model the way? What if everyone knew that 95% of North Americans believe
in a Higher Power? Would we let go of the notion that we can't say things
that affirm a belief in a spiritual realm. Interestingly enough, the
biggest problem we have with others and spirituality is when we begin
to talk of religious doctrine. So, what if we go beyond religious doctrine?
What if we were to keep our language at a generic
level? Some do anyway: A Higher Power, the Universe, is an example
of keeping it generic. In this way, we might be more apt to stay out
of areas that affect another person's belief system. Are we getting "New Age-like here?"
Not really, just generic. So, in generic terms, what exactly does that
mean to have your Higher Power in the Board Room? If that means you would
have all of your resources available to you, wouldn't you want it to
happen? Does that mean that we pray before meetings, like Cher (the singer)
and her team used to do before concerts? This really means different
things to different people. When we discussed meditation, we said that
each person meditated differently based on their personal style. For
some, it is another word for prayer, and for others meditation is an
instrument for focusing and centering. Wouldn't focusing and centering
be an advantage to any situation? Would business and community be ready
to use all of the resources available to them if it meant that they would
get more and keep more? The answer is, yes, we are ready for this kind
of evolution. We are a people starving for spiritual depth in a Universe
filled with spiritual abundance. In fact, there is abundance everywhere,
and yet we feel deprived…
Last night I saw a commercial for a program about
sports and children. A mother was challenging her daughter: The kid
wanted to be out playing somewhere and she was saying, "Come on now, where's your competitive
spirit?" While another father was telling his tearful child it's
all about focus! She was lamenting while wiping away tears of frustration,
"I don't know why I get so emotional." She was about 10 years
old, does she have to have that kind of pressure at that age. Isn't it
enough that we are driven adults? There is something terribly wrong with
this picture. Meditation, focusing, prayer, etc. is a way to get more
to your center, not to win at any cost.
What would happen if we collaborated towards a
win-win scenario? What would the process look like? What is the advantage?
Does everyone have to win all of the time? Since there can be only
one winner, does that make the rest losers? Let me ask you this. What
if you could catapult yourself to your future self? There you could
ask yourself anything at all. What do you want to know about yourself
at the end of your life? How will you be remembered? Will your journey
be worth the trip? How much baggage will you hang onto during the trip?
When will you be willing to let go of some of it? Will we always be
driven by shear competition? Ponder these for a moment while I tell
you a story…
This spring my granddaughter's class won a high school state championship
in an advanced civics program, and the opportunity to go to the national
finals in Washington, D.C.. In this program the kids were given the opportunity
to participate in hearings, challenged by retired Supreme Court judges,
attorneys, professors, political journalists and other leaders in political
arenas. They had to know all about our history, our constitution, and
the laws tied to it, and much more. In addition, they also had to tie
it to past and current events and the 51 articles. Of all of the participants
nationwide, these kid were one group of 1200 kids selected to participate.
When they won the nationals they were invited to compete on the Hill!
I was completely impressed! I was awestruck. Because, these kids were
awesome--not just mine, but all of them!
Then, I watched helplessly as the final selection
created an underlying pall of discontent, because there was only one
first place. This is out of 1200 kids that went to D.C. and then out
of these kids, 10 golden classes made it to the Hill. Were they impressed
that they participated nationwide? How many high schools are there
nationwide, anyway? A bunch will do it for our purposes here. But even
my granddaughter's class seemed bummed when they got only 4th place
out of the thousands of kids that competed in this prestigious competition.
What is wrong with this picture? What are we feeding our kids anyway?
Our families? Our companies? Our communities? When will we wake up
to the fact that competition breeds fear, pain and suffering, a spiraling
down to the depths of despair…unless we are
the one and only winners!
What lessons can we learn here? Is competition wrong? Are we operating
from a basis of fear and scarcity? Fear is an important tool, because
it tells us to get out of the way when we might be in trouble, but in
our daily life, most of the time it just drags us down. Fear is the lowest
energy in the realm of the bodies' energy systems. In order to be successful,
we need to stay out of fear and operate from the knowledge that we are
meant to do well whenever we follow our own true passion.
The only person we can really compete with is ourselves.
When we start competing with others whether that is in our businesses,
or within our community, we get into trouble. There will always be
a better widget maker, a more skilled person, more effective community,
or a more dynamic family. Getting better than we were yesterday is
the only thing we have to offer humanity. But, my being more doesn't
make you less, it only makes me more. Staying the same and working
harder doesn't get us far on our journey. We are on a journey, not
moving towards a destination…We are all
working towards one main goal, to expand our consciousness' and collective
vision towards an ever evolving higher self.
If we work on a better self, we have an opportunity
to truly contribute to humanity. We don't have to have big contributions.
Simply looking at how we can make things work for everyone is a winning
response; it is a right attitude, an enlightened attitude. We can collaborate
together to make every daily event a true victory in living. True collaboration
is to operate from the position that we are in this universe together.
We can do this in business or in a family…we are a community of
one people, making small wins that we offer to the whole. We are united
by our common humanity reaching out to bring together one spirit of
winning for all.
Shirley Ryan was
led to create the book Searching for
the Waters of Antiquity a meditation tool, and a unique integration
of her extensive career experience and her skills of painting and
meditation. She is also the founder and
president of Working Together, a business specializing in managing
life’s changes in Mind, Body & Spirit through the coaching
process. She has worked as a professional life coach since
1994.
