Usually at the start of a Positive Productivity programme, people are questioning the actions and motives of other people. They're busily identifying the flaws and foibles present in their compatriots which lead to the problems we are there to address. For a while, it's politic to let this run its course, for it illuminates more effectively than any Powerpoint possibly could just how damaging and demotivating these trains of thought can be.
Then, when everyone has finished scratching their heads at the futility of pointing fingers and we're getting into the bedrock of what's really happening at the heart of the company, someone will turn to someone else and say, "I didn't know you thought that way too." And at that point, everyone shares in the beneficial feeling of wanting the same improvements, recognising they're not alone, and beginning to wonder what they can do - personally - to help steer the ship out of these dark, gloomy waters into the sunlight everyone is gasping for.
As I've said in other despatches, we're not taught the art of productive self-management when we're young. Instead we're taught that if we behave a certain way or do certain things, we will get rewarded by those we're apparently doing those things for. Teachers and parents might fondly believe that their incentives for good performance will help us achieve higher grades and better living standards, but what they are really doing is putting carrots in front of children to teach them how to please people. A child who knows nothing about self-management is not going to identify with this method as being self-fulfilling, it simply grows up trying to put carrots in front of other people to get what it wants, perpetuating the problem. Nevertheless, this is the way things are at the moment, in education, academia and even industry... the norm is to offer rewards to get people to step up to plates. Which doesn't work, and despite knowing that it doesn't work, the world continues on this treadmill of mistaken identities.
To really get ahead of the exponential curve you're going to have to think a cut above the baseline of normality. Imagine for a moment that you grew up with an understanding of self-management, knowing in your twenties that there was no white charger coming to rescue you, ever, and everything you would achieve was totally down to your own action and resolve. You were aware of the importance of caring for your reality as a singular being, and that the community around you could then benefit from what you brought to it as a consequence. Instead we tend to think, until we learn otherwise, that the community will somehow look after our interests while we look after ourselves.
You'll see a community looking after everyone's interests only when it's driven towards a recognisably mutual cause such as a disaster or a war. This is a sad consequence of the education system as above, but it's an unnatural response. In the natural world, a gregarious species will adopt ways of looking after the collective without having to apply conscious consideration.
Natural, reflexive co-operation is what WorldLine imparts, very successfully, over the course of a three-month programme, which is why it achieves sustainable transformations. But you don't need a programme to realise the value of self-perception in your working environment. The power of self-governance stretches way beyond the workplace, into family life and social situations, enabling you to live in the moment with due consideration of positive benefits and aspects of life that lend themselves to appreciation. If the presently commonplace system worked, society would not be running around in a confused, demoralised state frantically looking for someone to blame. But you're in a position to switch from that system any time you like, especially if you're governing a collective of people reliant on good leadership in order to facilitate positive change.
So think hard about your template of self-management, whether the methods you're used to using have worked, and what you could do to change things if you feel they need changing. It's down to you, at the end of the day, to create that new version of reality. As a leader, you're in a position to help a lot of other people create a new reality, too.
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