If the number of pages read would be translated into some frequent reader loyalty program, I would have some decent mileage on my account. As an officially declared bookworm and a loyal customer Amazon recommended to me a book ‘It doesn’t have to be crazy at work’ a few weeks ago. Did not purchase it until I saw it recommended by my group coach Kristen Hadeed. She said she read it in one sitting so I bought it. And read it in a single sitting too.
Written by the founders of Basecamp, the book builds its foundations on a key idea that a company is a product and offers numerous experiences of trials, errors and iterations navigating through the ‘crazy’. With the exception of the fact that at the Basecamp they have actually used all these experiences as insights and acted upon to transform their company, the rest of the book is pretty much about what the vast majority of corporate employees can strongly associate with.
Sprinting chasing short-term targets. Busy being busy. FOMO and constant distraction. Availability around the clock. Never ending meeting requests. Meeting ending with an alignment to have another meeting. Fanatic love and tireless fight to protect the famous ‘we have always done it this way’. We are family! BS as a cherry on the cake.
It is pointless to ask if it does sound familiar to you. I know it does. Too familiar.
We usually laugh about it. We make sarcastic jokes. We swear how there is no way we would ever do it that way as it is just so obvious that it does not make any sense. And we continue to go with the flow, led by inertia which we silently curse.
‘After all, you know, it’s the system. You can’t fight the system.’
Is this really the truth or are we letting ourselves be entertained by a pleasurable self-talk produced by our minds? Storytelling proficiency in a service of inventing the most compelling alibi to transfer the responsibility on the system?
Sounds solid. Except that it does not hold.
We may announce systems responsible for it all. We may brag about policies and procedures, habits, behaviors and culture. But, same as the kid with the traces of the chocolate on its face, we can’t get away from our accountability.
The bigger the company, the higher the complexity. If we talk about corporations, it could be easily translated into an illustration that could remind us of the Solar system. Many forces in the forms of policies and procedures, objectives and strategies are commanded from the above. Cascaded to an organizational and departmental level to be implemented. C'est la corporate vie.
Take it or leave it.
Or – change it?
The truth is that every single individual, within corporate or any other setting, represents this red ‘Me’ circle. We may seem too tiny to change the big systems. Why bother, right?
Not sure how many scholars, revolutionaries and inventors throughout our history would react to this statement.
I am not playing an innocent lamb here. I am the one who fell into this trap many times over the past two decades of my corporate careers. And I still occasionally find myself visiting these black holes of inertia excuses. Luckily, there are so many books, talks, workshops and webinars that prompt you back to your accountable reality.
‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’
Mahatma Gandhi
If we would wait for others to ignite the changes we hope for, things would never change. Not at work, not in societies, nor at home.
If we dare to ask different questions, take other perspectives, try new ways of thinking and (inter)acting, we may actually be able to make the difference that we all hope to make throughout our lives. We should not get discouraged by our subjective misperception of how irrelevant our tiny actions are in the general context.
Not every snowball creates an avalanche.
Yet each avalanche is always just a tiny ball of snow at the beginning.
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