How not to Become Corrupted by Organizations
Part I of the series: The Purpose, Effects and Results of Coaching
Organizations vs. Individual
It is hard to underestimate the power that organizations have over our lives. And the most powerful organizations we are allowing to corrupt us are our workplaces.
The problem in most larger companies is not only the dominance of old white men, but the dominance of (underlying) values that imply taking any shortcut to somehow, strangely, win a game is by any means appropriate behavior.
It’s usually not even frowned upon, it’s just called “having a career”.
We live in times which clearly demand not only human values and connection from us but also a form of planetary consciousness. It is not only ourselves and our families, our towns or countries, but the totality of humanity that needs to become included within our circle of care. If we can’t accomplish this on a larger scale, future generations will make us their symbols of failure in preventing the obvious.
Values and Openings
As the overwhelming rise of our need for comfort, choice and endless consuming seems to have robbed us of deeper values formerly provided by religions, there is a wide gaping hole today within most of us that rears its ugly head in our common failure to articulate who we really are accountable to in our lives.
“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” C.S. Lewis
As Alice Miller writes:
“I understand a healthy self-feeling to mean the unquestioned certainty that the feelings and needs one experiences are a part of one’s self. This certainty is not something one can gain upon reflection, it is there like one’s own pulse, which one does not notice as long as it functions normally.”
When things get tough, all of us have the tendency to move to the shallow end of the water. We downplay our doubts, postpone to the next day, which becomes weeks, then months. We keep on distracting us in the evenings to not feel our innermost longings.
Considering that we’ve never truly learned how to listen to ourselves, there’s no one to blame for our widespread inability to do so.
How can we help human beings to become more open and compassionate?
The tricky part in doing so is that while we are so similar in our core, we are so very different in what makes us tick. We cannot directly teach another person to become more reflected, we can only point, direct or show.
If the person across from us is closed, rigid, brittle inside, as many people in our business world are today, it is possible to guide them to find an opening within themselves, which hopefully sparks a flame of insight that can be kindled.
That’s what the purpose of Coaching is to me.
And while there are many positive effects in working on goals and challenges, the hidden gem, on a deeply human level, is the amount of individual insight that can be generated from subtle openings, when they are perceived, known, and taken to heart.
Thanks for reading. Part II coming soon. Be well.
Fabian
Thank you for articulating this, Fabian. It's important.
"Considering that we’ve never truly learned how to listen to ourselves, there’s no one to blame for our widespread inability to do so."
I believe this plays out particularly in startups these days, the majority of young people having this big gaping hole of meaning which they demand be filled by their employers. It's noone's fault, but probably the wrong place to look. Certainly the ability to listen to ourselves (inwards as opposed to outward) would go a long way as a better alternative. That's partly why I also believe coaching to be so important.
I look forward to more articles on this series. :-)