In Relationship
I am a citizen of the corporate badlands—that uncomfortable space on the outer edges of the business world. I was driven here by nonsense, by dismay, by a clash of ideals. For rather too many years I subjected myself to the power games, the rife individualism, the internal competition, the fear, the mad rush to Get Things Done, and the punishments when it all failed. So I moved away from corporate central, and took up residence on the fringes, the place where, just possibly, revolution will begin.
Today, once removed, I work for those who work for corporations, seeding, I hope, ideas of a better tomorrow. I am not sure what that looks like but I believe it will emphasise hope over despair, faith over doubt, kindness over fear, engagement over divorce and fellowship over loneliness. Our better tomorrow will have little to do with process, procedure or methodology and almost everything to do with better relationships—because that's where our corporate system is broken. And that's where we so rarely focus: on one another and the space in between.
The more I engage with people working in the business world, good people, caring people, the more I become aware of just how toxic and oppressive our corporate culture has become. I've never met a poisonous individual, but I often meet poisoned ones, people who personify the culture they dwell in; poison seeps in, even through thick skin. And this poison is cunning, it tells us: this is just the way things are. People like me, change agents, consultants, coaches, we try to improve things through focus on better ways of working: Agile, Lean, GTD, and so on, but the focus, the 'sell' if you like, is always on better productivity, faster delivery, greater profit. And there are unintended, but perhaps inevitable consequences: a soulless workplace, disengaged workers, fractured relationships.
We kid ourselves if we think of our workplaces as secular. The corporate world is where religion shows up at its most flagrant: a cult of worship and oppression. Profit is its god, the shareholders its high priests, and the executives its bishops and deacons. And we the workers, well too often we are the human sacrifices. Meanwhile we are all kept as busy as possible with meaningless goals and internal squabbles, struggling to follow the commandments of More and Better with no time to step back and reflect and no room to question and confront. The corporate religion requires absolute obedience, absolute belief in its righteousness.
Over the past few years I've come to believe that my responsibility as a facilitator on the corporate margins is to ignore the desire for greater productivity and market success, and guide the focus instead towards the small space that lies between two people. It's not the individual that is the smallest unit in the corporate system, or indeed any social system. The smallest unit, the atom perhaps, is the relationship between any two people. It is on this that we can build a healthy body, a sharp mind, a well-functioning, integrated whole. A relationship is to a social system as a synapse is to the brain: a junction between two nerve cells, consisting of a minute gap across which impulses pass by diffusion of a neurotransmitter.
If we consider the entire human population as a holistic subsystem of planet earth—not an unreasonable idea, nor one that stretches the imagination very far—then when just one connection is broken the whole system is at risk. So in working to heal one relationship, we'll eliminate the poison in that particular interaction, and prevent propagation of negativity. We'll see kindness replace rightness, listening replace talking, humour replace indignation, and other replace self.
"Listen for the similarities, not the differences" — Alcoholics Anonymous
That's the antidote: compassion. And one compassionate interaction may spark another. In my once-removed-from-corporate-life position I can't fix anything. Maybe I never could anyway. But I have found my meaning in helping others to see that although this is just the way things are it doesn't mean it's how things must always be. Hope lies on the periphery, and we need to open our eyes a little wider to see it.
If we stop doing things, even for just a few moments every day, cease flying high seeking ideas, or diving low seeking solutions (important as those activities are to the world) we may learn to better walk this earth as brothers, as sisters, as kinfolk.
Related post: Waking Up.
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September News
This newsletter is a week late because the first week of October was spent with my family in London, our late and only summer holiday. We explored the London of my early childhood, Holland Park, Kensington Gardens, and wandered the beaches of the River Thames, seeking treasure. It's fondly known as mudlarking, a romantic reframe of the tragic occupation of London's very poorest in the 18th and 19th centuries. We also visited the fashion exhibit at the V&A, where the girls drew pictures of their favorite outfits, and spent an afternoon at the Olafur Eliasson In Real Life exhibition at the Tate Modern, a big, interactive experience ideal for children.
In September Rayna spent an intensive study week in Bristol while I stayed home alone with Asrai and Zoë engaging with our homeschool/unschool community. It's rare that I have that time alone with my daughters. I get to appreciate what an absolutely full-time job it is to be a stay-home parent, especially when your partner (in this case me) is away so much.
Other September activity included a few workshops, including the pilot of Navigating Complexity, which has been refined and tuned as a result of the participants' feedback. I'll offer it again in January. I've also been working on another new workshop Scripture at Work: Mark, an enquiry into how the first gospel can offer us both inspiration and practical advice for challenging the corporate status quo. I admit to some trepidation around this offer.
And so, October is well and truly here. Autumn is my favourite month, for colour, smell, beech nuts and conkers. It's the season of decay, signalling the winter season of stillness. Annually, life reminds us how to live, and yet sometimes we forget. I'm looking forward to wearing more clothes—especially scarves and fingerless gloves.
"The end of the summer is not the end of the world. Here's to October..." — A.A. Milne
And here's to my October newsletter arriving on time. Thanks for reading this one. Enjoy the falling leaves, and the gathering days.
Tobias
6th October 2019, 10.00 pm