Is Insecurity guiding your life too?
Is Insecurity guiding your life too?
I was in a discussion last week with some of very well regarded industry leaders. The subject of discussion was achieving greatness in groups.
Most discussions on groups, and this one no different almost always and implicitly leads to the notion of ‘least common denominator’ and finding ways to round off the rough edges.
The magic though lies elsewhere.
Examine carefully the leaders of the Indian cricket team in the recent past. The turnaround that started under Sourav Ganguly, the magic lay in Sourav allowing other players to be themselves. The magic for example lay in allowing a Sehwag to be more Sehwag than he himself knew he could be. He didn’t attempt to round off Sehwag’s rough edges or for any of the other youngsters.
The ESSENCE of a fabulous group is allowing individuals to be bigger and more individuals than they ever could be before.
The principle of the Cricket team applies equally to say an accounting department or a sales department in our organizations. The only difference is that leaders here make sure that people are not free to do their absolute best. Think carefully about these words and ask yourself a very basic question about people who are with you as a manager or a leader - “is he or she free to do his or her absolute best, not as you would judge it but as they would”
One of the finest managers I have been associated with defined his job to me as being the architect of possibilities for people. One of the best things about being the coach of a cricket team is that you are very luck that you cant to anybody’s job. It is absolutely impossible for Gary Kirsten to walk out on the field between high-pressure cricket matches and do anything.
He is lucky because the problem in our departments is we promote the best person, he or she knows she is the best and when the going gets really tough, when everything is on the brink of a breakdown, we step in and help out. And why not otherwise my performance will become a question mark!
The coach of the cricket team or the manager of the soccer team or the master of the orchestra, none of them have the option to step in on the field and bat, or play center forward or to pick up the violin and start playing. They have no other choice but to be the architect of possibilities for the people. The one’s who learn it are the one’s found in great teams. What else is there in management and leadership if not this?
Why is it that some people are able to conceive of themselves as architect of possibilities while others, a vast majority of others fall into the trap of fixing problems, controlling, making people follow the rules or simply rounding off their edges? What is the difference? Why do most of us get fixated on correcting or improving the other person? My research and my thinking has led me to the difference being just one word – Insecurity.
By the way ‘insecurity’ is not a bad word. Insecurity basically means you are trying to protect yourself from a possible reality. ‘The desire for self preservation’ is for decades documented as the number-one motive for any given purpose. In other words it is the prime motivating factor for human beings.
When we run into a situation with our teams, or with individuals who have managed to run into rough weather – there are mails flowing everywhere, bosses are marked, the boss’s boss is copied – emotions are running high – you can almost smell tension – that something’s got to give. The natural response, thus becomes, to step in and do something. Why do we do that? Again two probable reasons – one that you don’t want you team to fail and two that obviously it would be nice to be the problem solver in a crisis, after all we have all been taught that all good leaders are great ‘crisis people’. For BOTH these actions, the motivation is self-preservation.
Evidently and understandably one in such a situation is not thinking of creating possibilities for people to help them discover their individuality and become better than ever before. Lets play along a little and see if you actually did the latter what may have happened – one possibility is that the individual would have failed and so you were justified in what you did. The other possibility is that the individual may have succeeded and you might have been marginalized in all the ‘praise’ mails. Both the cases lead to further insecurity. Now that the solution that we actually go with which is to step in and do the needful – what happens there. Problem solved. You got noticed. What did you learn? Next time there is a problem, step in again. Further praise. Thus a reinforcement in the subconscious mind that operating with the motive of self-preservation is the way.
You see in any situation or any action that you take above, one point is clear – Insecurity will bread insecurity. Ever heard of this – as you sow so shall you reap. Well its very true from operating with insecurity.
The difference between a cricket coach and you in such situations is that he doesn’t have a choice and you do. My guess is that the difference between people who learn to be the architect of possibilities and those who focus on rounding off the edges is that the architects operate from the second most motivating factor for human beings, unlike the rounder who operate from the first. Somewhere, either the architects learned to control or convert their motive of ‘operating from insecurity’ into the second motive, or simply realized that the second one anyways satisfies the first.
The second most prime-motivating factor for human beings, by the way, is the emotion of love.
Needless to say that if we were to operate from the emotion of love for the other person (team or individual) – what would our solutions be? Would it be to develop them and help them overcome defeat and become better individuals or would it be to step in and be the hero for ten minutes?
Its easier to focus on fixing a problem as there is something to do, to solve, to get hands dirty, than to imagine a great reality, extending support and letting go. There is nothing to do. Thus even when we try it, in the absence of something to do, we must do something else – which will inevitably fixing another problem. It’s a TRAP. You will fall for it every single time.
Insecurity is a result of imaging a worse off reality than a better off reality. Effects of insecurity will always bread further insecurity. One look at the parliament’s handling of the women reservation bill, one look at the few individuals and their possible motives behind attacking the chair of the speaker makes it very clear to me that its out of insecurity. What comes out of that insecurity? - Withdrawal of support to the government. What does the government do next? – They act out of insecurity created for them defer the voting on the bill. Insecurity breads insecurity.
Please realize that the only security you ever need is knowing that you are better today, that you have more skills as on 9th March 2010 than you had on 9th March 2009. If you do, you have no reason to be insecure. Unfortunately for most of us, the only additional skill we have today over the last year is one more year of experience added on to the resume. That is not skill. That is the most useless of all statistics. The scientifically proven reason for us not focusing enough on acquiring additional skills, of adding value to our own selves, of adding depth to our own selves year on year is that we don’t operate out of the emotion of love even for our own selves. We operate out of self preservation which then makes do so much that it leaves no time for anything else!
The discussions with the industry leaders and with them with certain teams about what I have written here got us these reactions: “but I cant do anything’, “it’s the culture issue, what can I do”, “I don’t have the authority to make changes and start rating people on these aspects than the normal managerial one’s.”….
There is nothing more self defeating, self demeaning, self doubting, self discouraging, self degrading, self humiliating than to say ‘I Cant do anything’. What are you trying to say? That you are no good. That you cannot bring out your own individuality. That you understand it but are so feeble and helpless.
If you do find these words in you, please remember it only exemplifies the point in this article that you have never operated from the emotion of love for your own self as you would rather demean yourself than to grow into a better and a more powerful human being.
The greatest leaders of our world, the Gandhi and the Mandela, none of them had any authority. They led without it. None of them said ‘I can’t do it.’ They just did. The only thing they had in common was dreams, passion, integrity and some serious jail time. Even that didn’t bread insecurity, nor did it lead them to any self-preservation. They knew how to convert it to the emotion of love for the masses. Their way was very simple – just let go and be what you want to be, the rest will happen. In fact their ways were so simple that no one else bothered to try. Yet they are the architects of possibilities for the human being. Look what they manifested for us.
What will you manifest? Forget everybody else. Even if you were to operate from the motive of self preservation or insecurity, its only logical to adopt the emotion of love for your own self at least. Isn’t it?
Yours,
Chetan Walia
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