More about Power

Yesterday, I wrote about power in the workplace, and specifically about how our attitudes about power shape our use of it. But power is a neutral force. It can be used for good or ill.

Many of us, especially those of us who are trying to be "good," are afraid that power is bad, perhaps because we have seen it used so badly. But what about managers who use power to protect and promote their employees? What about foundations or even politicians that use their power to bring about social justice? What about lawyers who use their power to free the wrongly accused?

Because of our attitudes and projections, most of us draw a line on exercising power. If we move much beyond that threshold, we can become very unconfortable. Even afraid.

It can be useful to explore this discomfort. What happens when you cross your threshold? What are the consequences that you fear? That someone will be upset, or will not like you? That you will be fired?

Or that you will succeed, and will be revealed as outstanding and original?

We all know people who will not do anything the slightest bit controversial without asking permission first, even if they are sure it is ultimately a good thing. They want to have cover if things go wrong. But that can also mean that someone else will get the credit if things go right. And more importantly, that their other good ideas may never find the light of day.

Is there a small thing you can try today without asking permission first? If you do it, will you be punished for going "over the line," or will you be praised for "showing initiative?" Are you sure? And how do you feel about that?

What happens if you continue to experiment with that threshold? With using power instead of giving it away?

We all have a lot more power than we think. But like anything, our power, and our comfort with it, can only grow with use.

Jeff

(Thanks to a reader for asking about power, and specifically, the giving away of power, at work. I hope this has been helpful, and if you have a topic you would like to see The Corporate Zendo, please let me know!)

Exercising Power

When we are on a spiritual path, we often wrestle with the notion of power. Especially our personal power.

On the one hand, power is what helps us get things done. In fact, it can be difficult to get things done without power. Power means strength, or the use of strength. Power can equate to success, especially at work.

At the same time, we can have negative perceptions about power. Maybe we associate power with selfishness, or bullying. Maybe we believe in a higher power, but not in our own power. Maybe we are afraid of the success that the use of power could bring, or feel that we don't deserve personal success.

As a concept, power is neither good nor bad. Instead, much of how we feel about power is really about the hopes and fears that we project onto it.

Exploring how we feel about power can be very helpful as we think about when we use it, or choose not to.

Jeff

On Being American

When I am in a decent frame of mind, I am amused by the political rhetoric in this country. But other times, I am saddened, or appalled.

I just saw Newt Gingrich's new book, "To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine."

I don't want to just pick on Republicans, because Democrats are just as bad. In fact, some of the reviews on Amazon, presumably posted by Democrats, helpfully point out that they consider Newt to be "pure evil."

Both sides, apparently, are convinced that they represent the "true, mainstream" America, and that the other side represents "the values of Nazi Germany."

Both sides, apparently, are convinced that it is helpful to their causes to call the other side stupid and evil.

Both sides, apparently, believe that apocolyptic fear is an effective persuasive device.

And both sides spend their years in office trying to "undo the damage" caused by the other side. Before they overreach and lose. And this cycling between rhetorical extremes happens over and over again.

Only when we stop rewarding this behavior will it stop. Only when we ask for informed, well-reasoned debate (and incremental progress) will we get it. And only when we are willing to spend time thinking about the issues rather than the sound bites, and to vote based on our own reasoned views rather than what we are told, will we get the democracy that our founding fathers envisioned, rather than the one we apparently deserve.

Jeff

Systems, People, and Freedom

I saw a speaker in Las Vegas, Gary Hamel, who talked about new systems of management in which people are given more control. In which there is less and less top down authority and more and more individual autonomy. In which people are free to spontaneously adapt to the rapidly changing world around them, rather than following the strictures of the annual corporate plan. He cited examples of this evolution, and of the companies that are using some of these methods.

It sounds great. And it could be that these new methods are what's next in corporate management. But it begs a question. Are people really ready for that kind of responsibility and authority?

No doubt some are, and they have already prospered. But most of us still just want to be told what to do. I see people every day (including me) who hesitate to make the final decision. Who want someone else, at a higher pay grade, to define the rules. If they have a great new idea, they want someone else to approve it.

In short, it feels like we want the upside of this new freedom, but not the downside. The recent collapse of the credit market comes to mind. The bankers made billions as the markets boomed, but insisted on a bailout when things headed south.

Until we are willing to take responsibility for the consequences of our decisions, both good and bad, we are not ready for freedom. Nor do we really have it.

Jeff

What Stays in Vegas

Last week I spent three days in Las Vegas at a conference.

Las Vegas is a monument to human excess. Everything there feels oversized and artificial.

When we are in Vegas we dive face first into the path of excess. We see close up that there is always something bigger or better to be obtained or consumed. Why be content with a three carat diamond when the next store has a five carat one? If you have tried the $500 bottle of wine, you simply must try the $1000 one.

There is good in this. Most of the time, we live a life of ever-increasing wants and needs. We want a better education, or job, or house or car. But that path unfolds slowly, and it takes us much longer to learn that our most authentic satisfactions are in the doing and being rather than the getting.

In Vegas, the futility of the "if only" path slaps us in the face. It is so obvious that there is always something "better," and that if we live our lives thinking that the next thing will be the one that finally satisfies us, we are foolish indeed.

I used to frown on going to Vegas, but I sincerely enjoyed myself this time. I found myself enjoying Vegas because of the excess, because it is so over the top.

And I enjoyed coming home, too.

Jeff

Two Deaths

When I look in my heart I see two very strong, very distinct, and very contradictory drives.

I believe that I have something unique to say to the world.

And yet I am afraid that in saying that thing, I will be laughed at or rejected, or maybe worst of all, ignored.

Our life, it seems, is played out on this edge. We are afraid of the very things we feel driven to do. We want to stand up and declare our passions and beliefs. To let people know what we feel most deeply.

We each know that in our hearts is a unique expression that will come out, that must, in fact come out, that will be our very death if it does not come out, and yet we are scared, terrified even, of that moment when it does. We convince ourselves that we have to be prepared for it. We can look for another degree, or more money in the bank, or more credibility, before we let ourselves do what we want to do, or what we feel we are meant to do. We do everything we can to delay that moment. Because that moment is in fact a death of another sort. It is a death of our own limitations.

That moment when we stand naked in front of the world, when we are no longer hiding behind our careers or our companies or our pay stubs. When no slogan or vision statement will save us. When it is just one person saying "this is what I believe."

That moment that both must and must not happen. It feels daunting. Like it is a culmination of everything we are working for. Like it is the final exam of a lifetime process.

But what if that moment is not the ending, but the beginning? What if that moment is right now? What if each day we can find a new, more personal truth to share? What are our limitations then?

Jeff

Paradox

"If it's not paradoxical, it's not true." --Shunryu Suzuki

Whatever this path is, I can find myself in strange places.

I can talk one moment of what I feel driven to do. The job that I take, the experience that I have, the creative energy that comes. Whatever it is that I am sharing with the world. It feels very much like a unique identity, a unique expression.

And in the next moment, I can see that finding that identity, that "actor" is not possible. There is simply energy arising, and it is not possible to name that energy "Jeff" or anything else. It just happens.

I spend so much time on the first aspect. And when I get caught up in it, I can think that there is something that I "should" be doing, or that I am "meant" to do.

Yet it is in those other moments when the purest expressions arise. I don't know where they come from. But when they simply arise out of the silence, rather than because "I" want them to, there is a purity that no sense of "I" can muster.

That is only one of the paradoxes we face. We are at our best, it seems, when we aren't there at all.

Jeff