A Way To Ease The Current Stress

A recent interview with Parker Palmer on PBS's Bill Moyers' Journal got me thinking about how the way we view the current state of the world might be worthy of further examination. 

What I experience from talking to clients, colleagues and friends is that the long-anticipated cultural shift is well underway and has been for some time.  In many ways, it's a good thing AND it's scary as all get-out.  The media is really focusing attention on governmental intervention. Will it work?  Is it enough?  Who likes it?  Who doesn't?  On and on, ad nauseum.

The current crisis didn't start with the failure of banks last Fall anymore than the CO2 emitted  today is responsible for the hole in the Ozone layer.  The hole is already there.  The CO2 that created it was emitted a long time ago.  The process that started it began in the 1940s.  Our current economic and cultural shift didn't start when banks began to  fail.  When former Secretary Poulson decided to let Lehman Brothers fail,  he created a tipping point.  A change that was already underway became visible, impossible to ignore and began to accelerate.  There will  be no going back to way things have been in the sense that huge shifts tend to create transformational change - change that is lasting  -- And paradoxically, the pattern of cycles of change continue.  Eventually, we will return to a more prosperous world and probably right on schedule.

It seems worthwhile, in light of the scale of this change, to do what we can to buy some time to get some new things going to replace the old -- to ease the pain a little where we can, even if the change is inevitable.  It's a little like giving a person in hospice morphine.  They are going to die, but with some morphine, perhaps a little more comfortably.

In my work with organizations, what I notice is that most organizations and projects fail because of people -- people who choose either short-term gain or long-term gain instead of both.  For publicly-held businesses, our regulatory system actually mandates short-term gain.  This creates tremendous momentum for our culture and even the world, given our influence -- to numb out on issues that create long-term damage.  

It is possible, even if our regulatory environment and even in these funky times to choose both short- and long-term gain,  but it's harder.  First, it requires us to let go of the notion that there is only one way to do something.  It's not the way we think in our culture.  We are more about right or wrong.  We treat most situations like there is only one way to handle it, and that way if the right way, the best way, and by the way, it's "my way."  It's simply not true.  In fact, there are nearly always many ways to address any issue or situation.  (Note, I said, 'nearly always. There are exceptions to everything).

There is an interesting book, called The Fourth Turning in which the authors, Strauss and Howe demonstrate how going back to the 14 century, every four generations (4 x20 -= 80 years) there is a large scale crisis.  They also demonstrate how the 20 year cycle in which you are born predictably determines how each generation feeds into the next 20 year cycle and the inevitable patterns of crisis and prosperity and cultural growth.  Therefore, amidst all the gnashing of teeth about right and wrong, you might consider this -- the context will be different but so far, the pattern has been quite reliable and is likely to continue.  

Being part of a pattern doesn't imply that we should give up an active role in growth and development of a better way of doing and being, because both good and bad things come out of every generational cycle and situation.  It just provides an opportunity to see how we might seize the opportunities of this time.  

Seizing the opportunities of this time is one way to express your personal creativity and leadership.  It is a concrete alternative to thinking about how we can be part of the current government interventions or whether those interventions are the "right ones."  Thinking about this time as both a crisis AND an opportunity opens up many possibilities a little more. 

Click here to watch the video of  Moyers' interview with Parker Palmer or read  the transcript.