Book 293 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: Manufacturing Instability!

Book – An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey (Part 3 of 4)

Book Description:

Deliberately Developmental Organizations. A DDO is organized around the simple but radical conviction that organizations will best prosper when they are more deeply aligned with people’s strongest motive, which is to grow. This means going beyond consigning “people development” to high-potential programs, executive coaching, or once-a-year off-sites. It means fashioning an organizational culture in which support of people’s development is woven into the daily fabric of working life and the company’s regular operations, daily routines, and conversations.

An Everyone Culture dives deep into the worlds of three leading companies that embody this breakthrough approach. It reveals the design principles, concrete practices, and underlying science at the heart of DDOs—from their disciplined approach to giving feedback, to how they use meetings, to the distinctive way that managers and leaders define their roles. The authors then show readers how to build this developmental culture in their own organizations. This book demonstrates a whole new way of being at work. It suggests that the culture you create is your strategy—and that the key to success is developing everyone.

Reflection:

As humans, we crave order, consistency, and predictability. We will go to great lengths and invent remarkable systems in this quest to bring stability to our personal lives and the communities in which we live.

Whenever I think of the word “stability” these days, I can’t get the image of Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World out of my mind. Community, Identity, Stability…that was the motto that was embraced by the citizens in this brave new world in which they did everything they could to take the variability out of life in order to maintain order and maximize happiness.

Shocker, it didn’t work!

After reading An Everyone Culture, I’m starting to think maybe the key to engaged and happy life may actually be a controlled version of forced in-stability.

I’ve read so many books on this journey that refers to how “happy” people are during times of crises when the full range of your humanity gets unleashed by factors out of your control. Think times of war like we learned about in Humankind, Tribes, Wine and War, The Geography of Bliss, and so many other books.

Humans thrive in unstable environments. In-stability brings out the best in all of us when we are forced to adapt, grow, and evolve.

When I think back to the happiest times in my own life, chaos is the common theme. Whether it was starting a new company, taking on a new job at work that I had no idea what to do, getting fired from a job, learning a new skill or hobby, starting or ending a romantic relationship, moving to a new city or home, getting married, traveling to new places I’ve never seen, starting a new business, welcoming children into this world, and even spending 6 months of my life in the NICU during a pandemic.

These were all massively unstable times periods in my life. While in the moment almost none of these events were “fun”, upon reflection I look back with warm feelings as I can see myself growing and know that these are the times in my whole self was engaged in life and I caught a glimpse of who I really am at my core.

On the flip side, the times in my life that I’ve been the most personally unhappy were when everything on the surface seemed to be going great. Stable job and career, stable home, stable marriage, stable finances, etc. The more stable my life was, the less happy I was personally which is crazy to think. When I started having panic attacks was at the point of my tenure at a company where I had a great boss, great team, making great money, and on top of my game in terms of job performance. But I wanted more than that, and I felt trapped in the life I had created. I knew it was time to push myself for more, but I didn’t want to give up what I had worked so hard to build.

I fought myself, and myself delivered the knock out blow to wake me up. Boom…Panic Attacks! The ultimate human response to force in-stability!

It took me the better part of 3 years, a ton of self-reflection, reading and learning about panic attacks, trial and error problem solving of triggers and how to deal with it in the moment, and even a career change to push past the instability those self-inflicted panic attacks generated. I hated everything about the test that was this time of my life in the moment, but upon reflection, I learned so much about myself and it set me on a course that led me to where I am today.

Looking back at this time of my life, and other similar challenging times like this in my life, the answer is obvious to me know why my head is filled with thoughts of joy, happiness, and warmth even though the literal reality was not.The instability forced me to change and brought my values to life through action.

With the example of the panic attacks, I had to express all of my values to overcome them. I had to be honest with self about what was causing them, I was humbled by the thought that I didn’t understand everything, I had to learn why they were happening and tactics to overcome, I had to relax and have fun, I had to challenge myself to push through the triggers time and time again until I cracked the code, and I had to fight for balance to make sure this didn’t happen again.

Here's the key point though, you don’t have to wait for terrible and unforeseen circumstances to force your hand to bring out the best in you. You can manufacture the same feeling by living your values each and every day, but it is up to you and the community you surround yourself with to make that idea a reality.

Living a life of values is an abstract system of self-enforced instability to keep you on your toes, which just may be the key to happiness.

The DDO’s in this book preach instability…hell, they make you change jobs as soon as you get good at the one you are doing. That sounds shitty in theory, but I think they are onto something, and we should be applying this to our own lives.

Something to think about!

Question: When were the times in your life you felt most engaged in this world? Were those times of stability or instability?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - An Everyone Culture