Ethically Challenged

 Each day we make judgements based on a set of ethical values.  Our friends, colleagues, those we elect or support in positions of power and authority do the same.  However, no matter how well we know, like or trust them – their value judgements will differ slightly or considerably from our own. 

Sometimes we can live with the results.  Others may haunt us for the rest of our lives.

In the end these must be personal judgements though influenced by personal values, cultural and religeous beliefs and societal needs.

You would have thought that over the millenia, regardless of the different pace of civilisation and moral sophistication, we humans as a race would have been approaching an ethical norm.  Diversity, free will, creativity and socio/economic/environmental/philosophical influences aside…..

Why is it that we can experience such a range of feelings in reaction to the moral and ethical diversity of fellow humans.

I feel sick about

Leadership should be ethics based

I feel curious about

I feeel angry about

I feel frustrated about

I feel ambivalent about

I feel nothing about

Are we progressing to a higher moral and ethical plane. 

What can we do to exert the moral ascendency that our humanity, ability to think, to imagine, to design and to collectively achieve should demand of us?  

Can we create our future and shared destiny with a sense of common rightness.

The internet and social media may just provide an answer to these questions.  I have just read a blog questioning the ethics of the Thai media to publish the death photo of David Caradine.  It was the comments and philosophical exchanges that caught my attention.  Points of view from people of different cultures, with different beliefs and values putting their case in a non destructive or aggressive way.  A sharing and learning experience that rarely occurs outside of academia.

May be, just may be we can earn the the rights and responsibilities mankind has grasped and that fulfil our highest understanding of what is humanity. 

Dare to be human  play your part in creating a shared ethical ethos that we are proud of.

Too Lean, too mean and no dream

The criticism often levelled at Lean and 6 sigma business initiatives is that they stifle creativity, original thought and innovation.

Yet in the midst of an economic crisis it would seem folly to argue that these tried and tested business regimes are fit for purpose.

I would contend that in business, as in life in general, it is fool hardy to always be looking to solve the problems of yester year instead of seeking the best way to address the challenges of the future.

Greed may have been a key constituent of the problem that has brought us to this point.  A reflex response to cut out the fat, the excess and the non performing, should not be confused with unchecked cost reduction, down sizing and a blind hurtling down the path of never ending efficiency.

When you squeeze every last drop out  of the people who remain they have very little ability or appetite to think beyond the restrictions of process and the constant overhanging pressures of performance targets.  What room then for the sources of competitive advantage that might just haul a business out of the pit of recession.

People need to believe that they are more than just automatons.  They need to be treated as humans and given the space to do what humans do best which is to evolve, find new solutions, be creative and think the unthinkable – to dream.

Certainly greed has been a key factor in creating this economic crisis but I believe that stifling our individualism and spirit, chasing the last cent of profit, was a contributing process.

So as we look forward to how we will best pull through these difficult times, I urge business leaders to rediscover trust in people,  in their resourcefulness and creativity.  Yes spend money on marketing but also look to understand and make provision for personal development.

Without people business is a hollow shell with no purpose.

Burst the Bubbles

Bubbles as barriers

Each of us has a personal communication style in the way we interact with the outside world.  We also filter what we hear ourselves saying and what others say to us.  This push and pull of langauage and meaning, exchange of ideas, desires and demands takes place through a semi permeable membrane where personality, upbringing, beliefs, values and personal preferences create a complex interchange.

The effect of this is that we live in bubbles of communication of different shades.  When we come across someone in a bubble of the same or similar colour we tend to understand not just what they say to us but all the non verbal communication that takes place, the emotional, group and task inferences that make what someone says have meaning aligned to what they want us to understand. 

When we interact with someone in a different shade of bubble the messages contained in our communication exchange get confused, there is mis understanding, distrust, a sense of threat, non appreciation a lack of mutual respect.

I find that the key to a more harmonious and productive exchange is deeper, harder listening, in combination with a more open learning and non judgemental mindset.  This is hard, really hard and even professional listeners those who seek to counsell on change based on true hearing can struggle.  Sitting in a room with people who are talking but not hearing, hearing but not understanding, socialising but on their own smacks at futility that none of us can afford and demeans the highly developed species we claim to be.

Listen to political debate, a sales negotiation, an exchange between life partners, a parent talking with a child.  Try and listen to yourself.

Then look to burst the bubble.  The difference in outcome is amazing.

Think green and sustainable

How can we balance the needs of our business and family today, with what might happen to our planet tomorrow, when we can only play a small part with a tiny effect, if any, on the outcome?

Why should we do anything when nobody else seems to?

We all actually know the answer to these questions.  So why do we still not fully engage in trying to make the best future we can.

I fear that the answer is that it would be hard.  Hard on our pockets, hard to stand up and be noticed, hard to accept that others may do nothing and profit at our expense, hard on us physically, hard to accept mentally the enormity of our challenge.

With each passing day that challenge grows.  It is already not just a problem for our grand children.  When we speak to our children is it too hard to admit that the real challenges they will face are a result of us not being prepared to face our own hardships and accepting that they should shoulder a burden magnified.

With each passing day we face the reality that we shall soon face explaining to ourselves that we did not have the courage to face our own hardships in order to save ourselves. 

When did we, people in the developed economies, stop being able to do hard?