"Think about what it means to be a person. What aspects of the human experience a most important to you?… At the top of your list, we’re willing to bet, would be values, aspirations, and elements that are noble- family, relationships, community, even joy and love. Our lives without these aspects would seem stark. Most of us seek a fully integrated experience, in which what we do every day is infused with, and guided by, these noble aspirations. Note is that these aspirations are, at least in part, linguistic. Love, community, and relationships don’t exist in the world independent of language. Only human beings, with their linguistic nature, can live a principal-centred existence. Our approach, from the three laws, is to consider the entire human experience as arising in language. We assert that this way of approaching what it means to be human gives a pathway to fully integrating our lives with their aspirations. It also gives us insights that are the basis of creating the next version of the organisation. A person whose word is divided or split lacks wholeness and completeness. An enduring sense of satisfaction requires living with integrity- honouring our word, as we saw in the preceding chapter. Integrity- speaking consistently in all situations, keeping our word when possible, saying when we went be able to keep it and in dealing with the consequences- makes us whole, complete, and powerful. Most of us use language in a way that is fragmented. We seek to be liked, on to win approval, or avoid situations that occurs to us as dominating, and so we speak in a way that will bring us acceptance or recognition or safety in that moment. In another moment, with another group, we speak differently and create a lack of consistency and ultimately of power. We don’t speak honestly, we hold back, we give our word and don’t keep it. The result is a lack of integrity and a loss of power. Most of us don’t consider the effects of a lack of integrity in our lives. As we saw in chapter four, the list includes a loss of satisfaction, freedom, and self-expression. Consider also that a person lacking integrity lacks a single, integrated self. This idea is not new. The compilers of the Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy note the following: “Integrity is primarily a formal relation one has to oneself.” The same article mentions “integrity as self-integration.” In fact, this theme runs through the philosophical discourse on integrity- relating integrity to being a whole incomplete as a person. On the positive side, honouring our word is also the route to creating whole and complete social and working relationships, and provides an actionable pathway to earning the trust of others. It allows who we really are to come forward and to become a presence in the world. We call such a person Self-led. [this is not a new idea. Similar threads run through the works of major philosophers and psychologists, especially in the 20th century. Of these, Carl Jung spoke most clearly on the subject; Jung described “coming to selfhood” or “self-realization” as the final step in one’s development. According to Jolan Jacobi, in the psychology of C. G. Jung (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1942) 127, this process results in “an entirely different attitude toward, and view of, life- in other words a ‘transformation’ in the fullest sense of the word.”] Self, with a capital “S,” represents a full integration of all the parts of a person, including those driven by principles, values, nobility- the highest aspirations. Integrity allows a person’s Self to emerge and holds it in place. It’s key to remember that Self arises in language, through conversations. Once we have an integrity-based relationship with our word, we can use conversations to build lives around this Self, resulting in greater effectiveness, purpose, capability, and satisfaction. A person who is Self-led occurs as honourable, focus, confident without arrogance, wise, consistent, thoughtful, and dedicated. From different points of view, a Self-led person would be described as enlightened, integrated, or evolved." [Zaffron, Logan, The 3 Laws of Performance.]
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 03:26:22 +0000
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