David J Terrell

These are times, like those times before, when life changes make us weary of the situation. That produces ill feelings like mistrust, anger, frustration, resentment, and many other feelings that separate us from our peers and from the rest of society. This situation is causing even more and deeper ill feelings.

So, What can we do about it? First of all, we need to feel part of a common humanity. Becoming aware that we all are part of this societal body. That if we (individuals) do well, then everyone should do well. There is no well-being of the individual. Take for example, someone living in wealth surrounded by poverty, his/her own safety will be at risk due to the unhealthy surroundings created by poverty. There is an undeniable connection between all of us, and, of course, between us and our environment.

Once we acknowledge how interconnected we are and how interdependent we are on one another, then we move to the second step. Creating trust. There is no way any society as any organization can function properly without trust. The trust created through transparency, the rule of law, and the democratic participation in the institution of the law.

In particular, we can mention how organizations fail due to the lack of trust among constituents. There is no way an organization can function even if its mission is well founded, inspired, and in synchrony with the times and place where the organization is. We have seen many examples of these failing organizations. Being for-profit or nonprofit, it really doesn’t matter!

Once trust is established, or re-established, then we can move on, move forward to make it a better place. This is a matter of survival. If it is not done, deeper -revolutionary- changes will occur.

I have no doubt that as a society we will do this, even though (also) I have no doubt that some organizations will fail surviving. A case in point is the current Republican Party that is morphing into a cult.

The holidays allows time to think. In most cases our thinking is in confirmation of our beliefs. One of the best bumper stickers I have seen stated: “Don’t Believe What You Think”. I is clear to me that this statement is warning us about our biasses and misconceptions, which we have many!

With his book “Think Again” Adam Grant helps us to understand our biasses and misconceptions, and how we can remediate the situation.

Grant even goes as far as share about life of death situations, where firefighters lost or saved their life based on thinking differently. This is a complicated subject because we start with a framework of thinking, our mindset, that has been structured for many years and based on people and circumstances that are familiar. Thus, very difficult to analyze. The difficulty of thinking differently comes from evolutionary psychology, where we have use the stubbornness of our ideas as a way to survive. But it has also been counterproductive. Think about companies that have not survived. Examples. like the BlackBerry, Kodak abound which leaders were unwilling to change because they were sure they knew all about the company and unable to see that the reality of the environment had changed. After all these leaders were the ones that lifted these companies to the high level of success they attained. Yes, but that happened under past circumstances, now things were different. These companies failed because they weren’t able to innovate and adapt.

These last days of 2023 are for me, days to reflect and find my blindspots. Where am I thinking wrong? Which ideas, deep in my ego, are wrong, and need to be replaced?

It is hard work to be done by yourself alone. There are techniques that help you see your ideas through a critical lens. Get help from those you trust. Quakers have what is called “clearness committees” https://www.fgcquaker.org/fgcresources/practical/practices/clearness-committees/ which is a tool used by Quakers to find, as the name implies, clearness in their thoughts. The main reason you, probably, need outside help is that your mind is already set. Your ideas are already yours! This is where someone else can ask you something like “have you thought of ……?” Which, of course, you might have not thought of. Now you have a new idea! If this new idea is better than the one you had before then you go ahead and replace it, innovate, adapt.

Successful leaders have learned this. Steve Jobs, for example, was opposed to the idea of the iPhone! Until he was for it. Convinced by people who had his trust and were able to speak freely, people who weren’t “yes sir” employees. This is what successful leaders do!

These last days of the year are overwhelming to our inbox, all fundraisers are busy sending emails telling us that the time is running out before we get extra impact on our donations. I have been busy deleting all these emails. So, I am not too optimistic about you having time to read it but I hope that one day you will. Meanwhile my thoughts are about wishing you all a great new year, I hope that 2024 will bring you good health, peace and prosperity.

What the world needs is good leadership.

Good leadership? What do we understand by “good leadership”? The many books on administration would define it as a managerial activity that produces gains in terms of the objectives of the enterprise. Leadership is reduced into managing. As I understand it, management and leadership are different. Stephen M. R. Covey (in his book Trust & Inspire) makes a great point about the difference based on the idea that management is about physical resources and leadership is about people. (Understanding that people are not physical resources.)

At present, the world is in crisis and many countries are turning to right wing personalities to lead their lives. Recent elections in Argentina and The Netherlands two populist won elections based on the message that they are the ones that can manage the country. Superficially, people voted for them in the hope that they will solve their country’s problems. The message of these populist is pushing the idea that their government will command and control the situation. Not aware that when dealing with human activities the paradigm if command and control is ineffective. In today’s culture a more open paradigm based on human values is what is needed.

Society is becoming more diverse. Diverse in many ways, chronological, ethnic, sociological, etc. Leadership need to be an emerging force that brings all these diverse factors into consideration and play. The best example I have in my mind now is how Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) was able to transform a company with more than one hundred thousand employees to regain it place in the market and the world. For sure this success was not accomplished by command and control, it has to be through tapping to the deepest of human values, inspiration. Where everyone was free to collaborate in the effort to innovate and transform what was a decaying company. A company that many business analysts have said that its time has passed! Now Microsoft’s value is in the trillions of dollars.

Is good leadership important at small scale? Family? Yes, of course! More so there because in this highly interconnected world the small and the large are part of the same field. Flourishing family members are flourishing members of society. Therefore educating good leaders in every aspect of our society is crucial for the wellbeing of all.

“Trust & Inspire” by Stephen M. R. Covey is a book that everyone has to read. Do not miss it!

There are many overlapping principles between different philosophies and traditions. Being a good citizen appear as one of those ideas that spreads across ideologies and cultures. The difference might be in the detail of what it means to be a good citizen. Similarly is the idea that actions are more important than intentions. If we want to be good we need to act accordingly in order to be consistent.

Easy to say but difficult to accomplish. Many of us have good ideas about how to solve a problem, how to improve a dire situation but lack the skills to act accordingly. It is known that there are leaders who are explicitly open to advanced ideas about leadership but in practice lack the human touch to communicate with their subordinates what the path should be. Stoicism is one philosophy that helps to put in practice what we preach.

For more that 2000 years Stoic philosophers like Seneca have been giving advice about consistency. Starting with oneself, being critical of one’s feelings and thoughts. Reflecting on the reality of life and on the permanence of change. The only constant in life is change. Even Jesus of Nazareth told his disciples that one is known by one’s actions and that we should avoid “praying in public” to show one’s righteousness just like the hypocrites do. Good actions are, normally, unseen. The way that these good actions are known is by the effects that they cause. It is always that we know of goodness by what is produced. Peace of mind is the product of having been acting virtuously.

For me, it is during my evening meditations that I do an assessment of my daily tasks and evaluate my actions based on what I am supposed to achieve. All in the framework that I am just another member of society, just another human being.