A635.1.3.RB - 21st Century Enlightenment
Matthew Taylor’s talk is titled the
21st Century Enlightenment because – simply put – it is a talk about
looking forward to the foreseeable future. He mentions the initial “enlightenment”
period but only as a means to show where we came from in an effort to explain
where it is he thinks we should be going. He’s talking about time and change;
understanding who we are as humans and what we could be. He’s hoping that now,
in the 2nd decade (almost the third) of the 21st Century,
is the time to shake off the dust of what we’ve come to think of as our pursuit
of happiness and of progress and think of it differently.
Taylor is absolutely right to say
that “to live differently, you have to think differently.” (Taylor, 2010) He mentions that we are very bad at predicting
what will make us happy and even worse at describing what made us happy in the
past. (Taylor, 2010) We make these predictions and assumptions based on thinking
that is relatively unchanged for the last fifty or sixty years. Post WWII was
all about getting everyone back on their feet, living in the suburbs with a
yard, a wife, and 2.5 children. Women went back to being housewives and men
went off to conquer the working world. That mindset is still there – it’s under
every “honey” and “sweetheart” heard around the watercooler. It’s quieter and less
aggressive for the most part but it is still lurking, that old thinking, behind
closed boardrooms and bedrooms. We all have to think differently; get rid of
archaic and outdated ideals when it comes to what we need to feel satisfied and
happy. We have to almost free-float for a while to figure out what it is that
we truly should value in the upcoming decades. This 21st Century hasn’t
been very enlightening thus far.
I would also agree that we need to
individually examine what we think is right and wrong and why we think that
way. Do individuals who are against same-sex marriages fundamentally believe
that two men or two women don’t have the right to love each other and mix their
lives together legally and/or in the sight of God? Or did they just grow up in
an intolerant household or neighborhood where effeminate boys were called “queers”
and no one wants to be one of those. Different is bad. Strange is different and
therefore bad. Do any of us really know where our fundamental belief system
comes from? Have we really given it much thought? And if we’re all just getting
by on a belief system that we were given
instead of one we invested thought and intellect to – is it really our values that we’re upholding? I have
a friend who has converted to Judaism because she was trying to find faith and understanding
in this world. I happen to know that she grew up in a staunchly religious
household. The religion she was raised in valued men over women. Women weren’t
allowed to preach or wear their hair short, they had to wear dresses to church
and it was stifling to her as she got older. She went on to get bio-chemistry
degrees, teaching degrees, and was an ER RN for many years. As she grew into an
intellectual, she found her personal values no longer matched those of her
church. She wanted change so she had to think
differently about what gave her comfort. She had to let go of old and
deeply ingrained ideals and free-float for a while in order to be able to find
where she felt her soul find solace. She had to be brave and get uncomfortable
to find her true core values. Change is hard in the same way that it’s hard to
finish a marathon. Yes, it requires significant effort. But the fact that it
requires effort doesn’t negate the fact that most people who commit to a change
initiative will eventually succeed. (Tasler, 2017)
Fundamental disagreements move an
organization forward. Change helps an organization move toward the future. It’s
painful, its work, and it is rarely popular to shake up the status quo. But
change is essential for an organization. It is vital to think differently just
when you think you have every little thing figured out. Organizations stay
fresh by shaking things up. Sometimes it doesn’t go well and they have to start
again, but once they are on the path to change, all it takes is the right
momentum, leadership, and collaboration of teams to make things you never
thought possible happen. Organizations exist in a changing environment and, therefore,
must have the capacity to adapt. (Brown, 2011) At one of the organizations I
worked for, they started removing all of the trash cans, you know, the ugly
brownish-gray metal things, for these tiny metal/mesh containers that sit on
the desk top and are not much bigger than a pencil holder. We all laughed at
this – how ridiculous! Shenanigans! Then we realized that this was our new
reality. People started hoarding the few metal trashcans left – locking them up
so the custodial staff wouldn’t confiscate them on the off-shift. People were
not cool with this. Fast forward a couple of years later and the norm is that
everyone has these little trash “cups” on their desks and dumps/sorts them out
every day into recycle bins. I’m not sure how much money this has saved the
company over time but it has established a new expectation and new norms have
risen up with this new policy. (Woe is he who leaves banana peels in his trash
cup-thing overnight!) This change was something that really didn’t impact
anyone’s value systems – it was merely about ISO compliance and saving money. This
is a silly example but it came to mind because at the time it was a major
issue.
Entropy is a principle of physics
according to which everything that is organized will break down or run down
unless it is maintained. (Brown, 2011) Change is what we use to combat entropy.
We shake things up so they stay relevant and fresh. In a marriage, when things
are stale, a couple will take a vacation or change their routine in an effort
to avoid entropy. The same goes for organizations. I will say though that in my
last organization, they took this battle against entropy to new and frustrating
lengths. Change came so fast and furious that it took on an ambiguous and
confusing life of its own. Management didn’t even know what the expectations
were at one point and none of us could grasp one concept before a new and more
complex concept was thrown at us in a haphazard way. The worst part is that our
job performance reviews were measured on our success or failures with these
concepts and how we complied with them. How can you comply with something you
don’t understand? You ask questions, you collaborate with people who seem like
they might have it figured out, and you keep trying to do what is asked of you.
Unless no one has it figured out and the changes break down the already fragile
ecosystem of the team until no one talks to anyone else, morale is at an all-time
low, and labor loss is at an all-time high. As leaders…we need to be aware that
our team members are not entering change situations with a blank slate. Two
decades of hearing about mythical failure rates has planted the seeds of bias
against success in our minds. And every time we say “change is hard” we water
those seeds. (Tasler, 2017)
My point is that change and
thinking differently is absolutely how we find the enlightenment going forward.
But we have to be thoughtful about how we think and how we go about this change
and not just rush headlong into change just for the sake of changing. The idea
is to THINK differently before we DO differently to make sure we’ll be doing
the right thing. We have to look at ideas and new concepts from all
perspectives, not just our personal vault of opinions and judgements. [W]e
could remind ourselves and our teams that we have been learning new skills and
adapting to new environments literally since the day we squirmed out of the
womb. Adaptation is the rule of human existence, not the exception. (Tasler,
2017) It’s a scary proposition to look over that cliff and trust that your
chute will open. But if you don’t take that leap, you’ll never know. And if you do take that leap – enlightenment is
possible.
References:
Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to
organizational development (Eighth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Tasler, N. (2017). Stop using the excuse “Organizational
Change Is Hard”. Harvard Business Review. HBR.org. https://hbr.org/2017/07/stop-using-the-excuse-organizational-change-is-hard
Taylor, M. (2010). RSA ANIMATE: 21st century enlightenment. The
RSA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo
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