Radiant Child to a Feeble Adult

“What a distressing contrast itis between the radiant mentality of a child and the feeble mentality of theaverage adult.”

These words of Sigmund Freud havecome to life in almost all of my interactions with groups of people of the lastfew months, which fortunately in the recent past have been plenty.

There is nothing more exciting onthe face of this earth than curious little four year old who is absolutelyfascinated by anything and everything at which point we (almost as if todestroy it) send him or her to school.

People say education systemdoesn’t work. I say it works fabulously. We send marvelous four years olds toschool and manage to consistently roll out a uniform standardized product.Unfortunately though, a product who has learned so many books and so many formsof deductive logic, formed fabricated goals and dreams that he or she hasforgotten that her radiant mentality as a four year old was her very simple, noholds barred – common sense.

If we look at the research, itpoints to a shockingly large percentage of successful entrepreneurial companiesthat were started by people who hardly went through school. Am not suggestingthey aren’t educated, they are, perhaps much more than you and me but not in abrick box.

The school reform movementcouldn’t be more wrong; they are standardizing the very system that churns outfeeble mentality at a time when we perhaps need experimentation.

My guess though is if we put themost eloquent of experts in the field in a room to strategize and come out witha system for education that will be ideal for our children; they would probablycome up with certain additions and deletions to the existing education system.Nowhere will anyone attempt to retain and build upon the curiosity, thecreativity, the multiple intelligences of a four year old. Not to blame them inany way because I am certain they would if they retained it for themselves.

My objective in writing thisarticle is not to reform the education system. I am no expert. My objective isto point out certain cases of feeble mentality of us adults that led me to thewords of Freud.

I am noting below three recentcases. As different as they may sound at first read, we’ll discover thesimilarity of  ‘helplessness’ alittle later.

First; in a recent reformexercise in an organization, about forty-five years in existence, we werefacing problems of growth. Problem of growth becoming a stumbling block tofurther growth.  That does happenin every organization and am not getting into the reasons for that particularproblem yet. However after many deliberations, the conclusion was to put basicfundamentals in place – beginning with a value system. So with senior managers,all of them with experience upwards of twenty years we began to understand the organization.During the session, the discussions got stuck on debate of this one valuesystem – honesty and integrity. It became clear to me that this was the veryreason (absence of it) for their struggles. At a theoretical level it may seema no brainer but at a practical level one needs to think about ethical businesspractices, of sales without bribes (of any kind), of forgoing certain currentbusiness and so on. 40% of this organization’s revenue comes from thegovernment so one can imagine and understand the resistance!

What to me is deeply disturbingabout this and similar instances is the struggle one has to go through toconvince people to be truthful. What kind of a world have we created where beinghonest is almost considered a hindrance to be successful?

This is not an isolated case – Ican guarantee that 80% (that’s way too conservative) of your reading this willnot be able to even get your boardroom to have a discussion on this. There is avery simple reason for this.  Thereason is that any (ANY, YOURS INCLUDED) organization who participates inoutflow or bribes for getting businesses, their employees definitely practiceor benefit from an inflow of similar kind. So how will they promote a policy onintegrity?

I have seen organizations thatwear this mask of honesty and then practice these ways through their dealersand distributors and middlemen or agencies. I can prove within two days withhundred percent certainties that even then internal corruption exists. 

Now given that the motive behindall this is purely monetary, the second case is even more intriguing.

In recent workshops salesstrategies for a client I am working very closely with and deeply attached to,we were trying to influence a plan that is in sync with personal goals ofpeople who will implement them. Naturally, we began to understand people’spersonal goals. Most of these goals, to be fulfilled by accumulation of wealth.No surprises there. So we encouraged people to write their goals and one of thegoals that we stressed upon was for them to double their incomes within 12months. This is backed by the organization that in effect has a very simpleplan (not known to these people yet) for these people to achieve this. It isstretched but only needs one to work for 6-8 hours a day. The only trouble isthat is about three times the work an executive does in a 12-hour day.

Here is the thing – at firstinstance people do not even attempt to write a goal that will double theirincome in twelve months and every twelve months for three years.  Obviously because they don’t believe itcan be done.

My question is that do youbelieve you can do it in your organization? The reality would be in 100% of thecases a big ‘NO’. The truth though is it is doable and I know people who do itand do it very simply.

Now before I write the thirdcase, a general point. That any of us working in any company rely upon our goodand services to be sold in the market. Now when we sell these in the market, weprobably educate our buyer on the benefits in it for them. The question is thatif the buyer is unable to fully experience these benefits do we still get paid?Yes we do. But why? Probably because we did our end of the job.

That’s how all businesseswork.  In an attempt to shift thisparadigm in a service company we were deliberating a strategy to change thegame by actually focusing on the end benefit to the buyer, guarantying it andif and when failing, forgoing the entire fee. Obviously if it comes to that itwill be a huge setback in terms of losses. So again a big debate within thebusiness group and we don’t have a clear picture yet.

At a personal level, I cannotunderstand that if you trust yourself and your work – why not? As far as I seeit, you are simply putting value on your word. Yet no one does it – at least nowithout an asterisk that says ‘conditions apply’.

Lets go back to our first case –honesty. The worst thing one can say about an organization or its leadership isthat when they chose to be honest, they will collapse. The truth is far away.There are plenty of examples of companies who did adopt these and that forcedthem to come with solutions, so creatively enriched that it propelled them tosuccesses that would never have been attained otherwise. Yet, there is ahelplessness to choose the path. Why?

Two reasons come to mindimmediately – One we don’t trust that we will be able to come up with such asolution, two ‘mediocrity’ doesn’t hurt because at a personal level there issome growth in earnings etc happening anyway. Might be dismal but it is.

The same reasons apply in thesecond case of adopting the goal to double your income. You see, we were taughtthat wealth is generated step-by-step. Our teachers said, our parents believedit, ancestors preached it. Again the world over centuries conditioned itself tomediocrity and taught it as science and a way of moral life.

But science is not in realitydesigned to deliver step-by-step. For example if you are thinking of buying amobile phone right now, you can be completely assured that a year down theline, the same money will deliver you a much more advanced phone, not just alittle better, much better. Science, in reality contradicts the step-by-step approach. No scientificexperiment has ever aimed at a ‘step-by-step’ improvement, always has and willat a major result. Only you and I have designed ourselves in that manner.

The third case exemplifies thiseven further. The idea of shifting the game to doing what no body does. Thesolution may or may not be right. That solely depends on belief. Am moretalking of the mind-set – why not grow (or out grow) within the acceptedindustry norm of mediocrity, why not do 10% better than the industry than tothink of something disruptive? What is so disruptive about putting ‘value’ onyour word, I don’t know.  I am surewe will eventually do it within this organization but what about yours? Is itcomprehendible?

I comprehend this though – we asadults have become feeble, weak, ineffective, incapacitated to do the rightthing – for us individually, for us collectively as an organization anddefinitely for us, a community at large. We are very happy lo live in what israther acceptable.  And as evidentwhat is rather acceptable is rather mediocre.  The radiant mentality of yours when you were a four year oldhas been successfully institutionalized into quiet helplessness.

You might say you are successfuland doing well and thus not helpless at all. I agree with you that you aredoing wonderfully well. The only test though of not being helpless is a simplequestion. Answer it for yourself – Are you doing the right thing or are youdoing what may be acceptable?

Our education systemunfortunately teaches us to do the acceptable, to learn the acceptable and toconfirm to the acceptable. The curiosity, the creativity and the endlessquestioning of the vibrant child is punishedwith hands in the air and legs on the chair…

No bigger sad moment will ever occurin a person’s life, as this is the beginning to the end of solution finding.That is the beginning to conformity. That is the beginning to unlearningradiance and learning acceptance.

I urge you to ask yourself andponder over one basic thought. You knew the right way. Search your heart andyou will know that you knew it. Yet you learned the acceptable way. What willit take for you to go back o the right way. It will be very acceptable if youdon’t. Probably as such the obvious choice for you! I guess thus that Freudterms it distressing.

One last thing before I end this.A man named Kevin Roberts runs a 1.7 billion dollar company, the second largestin New Zealand. He recently went public with his philosophy. Here it is:  1- Ready fire aim. 2- if it ain’t broke,break it. 3- Hire crazies. 4- Ask dumb questions. 5- Pursue failure. 6-Lead,follow or get out of the way. 7- Spread confusion. 8- Ditch your office. 9-Read odd stuff. 10- Avoid moderation.

I am not suggesting that this isthe right philosophy for you or for me. But I know this for sure incrementalizmis your worst enemy. It is acceptable and life goes on with it. Though some daythis reality will dawn upon you that you will be forgotten moments after youleave your company. That day you will know you did the acceptable. 

Yours,

Chetan Walia.