A cloud takes the shape of a turtle. Existentialism at it’s best. Copyright Gaganbir
As a creator and path breaker of assimilating change, there have been times when I have been muddled with the essence of the existence of organisations. Often, this has been an extension of my recognisable self driven assimilated multitude of behaviours I have built. Some inherent, whilst other experiences being handed over in the least defeating way that I have carried in a tidy little memory bag.
Being a fatal optimistic, I do tend to like least defeating purposes as there is always learning and I have preferred my pessimism to be a creator!
We all struggle with seeing the bigger picture! This is a fact, recognised and played back by every contributor to the world stage as well as by all those who struggled to find the missing picture. I would have liked to use the word, “myopic” but I felt at times, it really does not capture well the build of human thinking and it again gives a grave concern to pessimism rather than the blissful opportunities.
In the last few months, organisations had to test their absorption of adaptability and agility.
Change defined by a pandemic order is creating constraints which necessarily is breaking the outer edges of the reason for existence, rather than the core of existence. The above is a debatable statement, as I am asked often on, “ How? Why, the outer edges? What is the meaning of this?”
As always, this meant I had to deep dive into The ThinkStack™ framework to understand the confluence of need, consciousness and how existence wrapped itself around it. This being purely driven due to all the change that our experiential side will struggle to keep up with.
This subject is so very different and vast that this is a vain attempt to explain in a few paras on the confluence of existentialism and rationalism (a bit of conflict there). But, to understand how agility gets impacted, it is necessary to do a little dive into understanding the ethos of existentialism and our rationalist voyeurism of situations.
Existentialism is a philosophical science, and that itself has barred it from entering the mainstream of business. It’s vast, it’s deep, and it does not offer scientific antidotes to problems that can be targeted by the rationalist side of human beings and the “deemed acceptance” of a culture flux that is naturally occurring. I know my statements are not entirely accurate if I looked at the philosophical construct, but I had to take a strong bias if I had to attempt to explain this remotely.
Organisations over time, absorb the living experiences of its leaders and the interactions between all the people that live within it.
It’s like the evolution curve of a living organism. Every extrinsic impact causes leaders and the associated people to create a pathway much like creating a neural network that deems it to build a survival instinct so that it could swarm over the impact for resolution. An effect can be through competition, government regulations, political scenarios or even pandemics. The entire living organisation become like a reactive living body that responds to change. So even when an individual instigates the change, the absorption of this change is governed by the flux more than the change itself. The flux creates inertia irrespective of the type and intent of the change.
The above gives you limited insight into why change happens in pockets even when there is a complete agreement to make the change happen. The time taken is directly proportional to the inertia presented by the flux. The flux often creates a state of deemed acceptance of its existence.
Ever hear people in an organisation say, “This is how it is.” You get the jest of deemed acceptance. It’s strong enough to make its presence felt but invisible enough to know the intent of its depth.
Therein, lies the problem as well as the opportunity and brings me to answer the questions of “Why the outer edges?”
The answer is simple enough when it is deeply connected with understanding the explanation of “How”. If an organisation has a rigid flux of “deemed acceptance” then the inertia it produces is directly proportional to it. So even when there are dire circumstances, this external change infusing force is greatly limited in its impact and prevents the organisation from adapting readily. The “opportunity” impact of change is fettered by the inertia preventing any good change to rapidly advance to the core of the neural flux of the organisation. This is one of the main reasons why we see change is limited to the outside edges.
Organisations, inherently struggle with agility because there is a failure to understand the core of their existence because survivability is not necessarily living. It can be “pure intent to adapt”, but with a consequence that is not tailored to the outcome.
In a nutshell, the impact of change is so limited that at times it’s limited to the people who are part of it and that does not create a shift in the flux.
Agility is not an impossible task.
Having led agile implementations and agility (which has nothing to do with agile) there is a one constant that is often missed, that can be attempted to be described through the infallible questions of metaphysics.
“What is the purpose of your existence”? It’s a simple, infallible question that often leads to a branded vision statement and sometimes pillars that are left as self-evolved pathways to an individual to resign his fate to the organisation. Interesting, negative flavour, isn’t it?
It’s purposeful because organisations need to understand their “current living flux” and the inertia it produces to actually ascertain if they are connected to their purpose of existence. This is the simplest explanation of why a rationalist antidote never works because it is formed from an experience that is created by failing biases, mostly. Rationalist antidotes help to outlay an action but are severely limited when there is a significant impact of change.
You see, there is an immense opportunity at the moment. For one, this pandemic has enforced a lot of rethinking, and I regularly read as to how organisations are striving to use their rationalism to define new pathways. While, it may help determine possible survivability, in no ways will it help strike the paradigm shift that could be possible?
For once, there is a possibility available where vision statements can be torn, and organisations strive actually to work out the three core questions of their existence.
1. Why do you exist?
2. What is it to “to exist” in this existence?
3. What is there in this existence?
As you can see simple questions, often have complex answers because the mind works in interconnected pathways and not hierarchical, straight-lined colourful presentations and structures.
Agility needs an understanding of your existential state, its interconnection with your rationality and the buildout of all the core elements that stitch these planes together. There is a crying need also to understand the emotional and the decision-making planes because that gives change momentum and depth.
Re-define the construct of your existentialism or better still, “create new” because the old worked for the old order and not creating a ‘new’ only changes the outer edges. You don’t want that. A new opportunity just arrived and seeking the answers to the questions can help define the ‘new’.