November 2001
Innovation Tips
ideas to help you foster collaborative
innovation
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The Soul Aroused
In
the middle of the road of my life
I
awoke in a dark wood
Where
the true way was wholly lost.
Dante
Too
many have lost their way in corporate America. Surveys have shown that up to
80% of workers are dissatisfied with their jobs. The most dangerous time in a
mans life is at nine oclock on Monday morning when a heart attack is most
likely to occur. The other very dangerous time is just after retirement from
work, when most fatal illnesses occur. One death is caused by the strain of
carrying the faade of a soulless life, the other by the stress of losing that
faade.
What
is soul? Soul is beyond definition. It cannot be touched, but can be felt; it
cannot be seen, but is self-evident to inner vision; it cannot be heard, yet we
are ever prodded by its still, small voice. It is like the tiny mustard seed:
It can grow so large that birds of the air build their nests in its branches,
or it can remain indiscernibly small if the seed falls on barren soil. The
shaping of soul is the ultimate human endeavor.
We
cannot tangibly grasp soul, but we can feel the palpable anxiety and vacant pit
in our stomachs that a life without soul engenders. As Joseph Campbell noted,
if we do not come to know the deeper mythic resonances that make up our lives,
those mythic resonances will simply rise up and take us.
Those
mythic resonances call each of us to unique lives. They are at the heart of our
unique identities and purposes in life. Our educational system, institutions,
and corporate America often suggest that we should all think and look alike.
But such dogma will kill the soul within us all. Diversity is the essence of soul.
The organization that usurps our unique purpose and destiny suffocates the
soul. Those who artificially conform to other peoples standards or to the
organizations purpose at the expense of their own are like Oscar Wildes
ironic acquaintance, who has no enemies but is intensely disliked by all his
friends.
We too often allow our dreams and desires to be constricted and
replaced by the purposes of the organizations we serve; we refrain from
breathing into them the passion and vitality that is ours to give. Then we wonder why those organizations seem to have such a
stranglehold on our lives. Tomorrow, we say. Ill make a change tomorrow, but in the meantime, Ill make
do. Then ten years go by and we find ourselves awakening in a dark wood where
the true way is wholly lost.
What
if organizations could be the places where our individual passions find
expression, where the soul can live and breathe? What if they could be highly
innovative places where the inherent creativity of peoples lives steps outside
their prescribed job descriptions, where the full capability of the unique
individual is brought to bear for the benefit of the whole?
What
would it be like if the complexity and vitality of an organization were born of
the passion, vision, and imagination of its members, instead of constricted by
a mechanistic organizational chart?
What if we developed new metaphors for organizations that started with
soul and individual passion, rather than trying to stuff that passion into a
prescribed job description?
What
would it be like if we could create organizations where the soul was aroused,
rather than stifled? To have organizations where 100% of the people love their
work, this is precisely what we must create. The soul will not have it any
other way.
Further
reading: The Heart ArousedPoetry and the Preservation of the Soul in
Corporate America by
David Whyte. His book, which prompted this article, is a deeply insightful
account of the need for soul in corporate America.
__________________________________________
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