Are people really apathetic? Are people selfish, stupid & lazy? How do we engage people and not continually feed cynicism?
Dave Meslin: The antidote to apathy Video on TED.com Highlights & paraphrases from Mr. Meslin:
...people have trouble seeing themselves as leaders because a heroic effort is a collective effort, number one. Number two, it's imperfect. It's not glamorous and it doesn't suddenly start and suddenly end, it's an ongoing process you're whole life. Most importantly, it's voluntary... And as long as we believe leadership and the hero's journey is a journey of one "chosen one" with a few followers, we're missing the most important characteristic of leadership, which is that it comes from within. It's about following your own dreams, uninvited and then working with others to make those dreams come true." Mr. Meslin talks about how "we live in this environment where are these obstacles are put in our way.
As we're discovering, these obstacles are a result of our dominant way of thinking, which we're now understanding is the way our brains are wired.
In my studies of Intrinsic thinking, and the Intrinsic Coaching® methodology, I've come to understand another name for this problem...this "fault" that our brain and though-process has. It's a dominant thought process called S>E>I (C.Marshall, 2006). That is Systemic thinking >Extrinsic thinking>Intrinsic thinking.
This is too much to explore in one blog post...suffice it to say that S>E>I thinking is what makes you sometimes feel like a "nothing" or "just another cog in the wheel" when you work for a major organizatios, or what makes you feel like you've just been sucker punched when someone is talking AT you instead of with you.
This S>EI thinking is good for things, but not good for people.
In my experience, the work Ms. Marshall and the countless others who are learning I>E>S (the opposite of the dominant way of thinking) is revolutionizing the way we live, lead our lives, accomplish health and business outcomes and speaks to what Mr. Meslin is making the case for -- people are amazing!
We all want to be live our lives fully alive and what we're fed from the world of dominating systemic thinking is gunk that gets in our way, demands that we're perfect, and that we have everything planned out, or it's not worth even attempting.
Get real...
Since when have any of our lives gone "as planned"?
It's like reading a parenting book, and then planning to use it on our children, if only our children would just behave as the book says the would...DOESN'T WORK! Or like reading a self-help book and feeling all nice, but then turning into our lives, and realizing for the umpteenth time it's just added more of the "well you could do this... or you should do that..." kind of thinking into our brains, and doesn't help us get out of the muck.
More obstacles & barriers, as Mr. Meslin says!
Can we change all this?
Yes we can change all these things - open up city hall, reform our electoral system, democratize our public places. As Mr. Meslin says, we do this by redefining apathy as a complex web of cultural barriers that reinforces disengagement, clearly identifying the obstacles & work together to dismantle the obstacles. Then, he says, anything is possible.
I'd like to add one more piece.
We also do this by learning how to understand the processes of our own thinking, each of us. So that when we do work together we don't continue to create more of the same, oppressive systems.
Think about what happens to big non-profits that initally were formed to do good, but also end up squeezing people, and burning them out...
When we can do that along with Mr. Meslin's ideas, not only is anything possible, but we will be able to unleash each person's unlimited potential to achieve the outcomes that are truly important to us!
