|
As change, global competition and innovation increase, we feel increasingly stretched. Although we have been reengineered, job redesigned and performance improved, we hear the repeated call to do more with less. So we work harder, longer and more effectively only to be asked yet again to up our game. Surely it must stop.
Well don't hold your breath. The uncomfortable truth is that it is only going to get worse and we can complain, do the same old thing or do something completely different. A definition of insanity is doing what we have always done and expecting a different outcome. In order to start exploring new options we are going to need to increase our maturity by taking responsibility for our behaviour and its impact.
In his fascinating book In over our heads the mental demands of modern life Robert Kegan tells the story of parents sitting up in bed at 2am fretting because their 14 year old son has neither come home nor let them know where he is. "Why," they ask, "can't he be more considerate. Doesn't he know how worried we are?" The answer, according to Kegan, is "No," he doesn't know how worried they are because he is incapable of being more considerate. He doesn't yet have the emotional and intellectual maturity to take his parents' needs into account. His behaviour is a reflection of his current state of maturity.
The 14 year old will see the reaction of his parents when he returns home as unreasonable, because he can't understand that their response is a function of his behaviour. Once he is capable of understanding this then he can take steps (a whole raft of them as it turns out) to protect his parents (and therefore himself).
Those of us who are complaining about change and the demands it makes on us are in the same boat as the 14 year old. If we were to raise our level of maturity we would see solutions to our current problems that are currently beyond our capacity to envisage.
The process of attaining these levels of maturity is less than comfortable (who said life was meant to be easy?) and involves:
taking responsibility for our own situation and our part in creating it
seeing ourselves as the solution
reflecting on how we think, feel, act and the responses we gain from those around us; when we do this we will notice that there are patterns
admitting that our unconscious beliefs, intentions and behaviours are our responsibility and fully within our control to change
searching for, finding and using techniques, experts and courses that help us make conscious our patterns and ensure that they are maximising our performance, relationships, happiness and wellbeing
This of course is entirely voluntary - as is feeling stretched, stressed, overworked and unable to do more with less.
|
