“A close friend of mine, a senior manager for a large London publishing company and the epitome of steadiness and understatement, suddenly, around thirty-five, found himself plunged into a complete abyss over the path his life had taken. He looked around one day and wondered how he could carefully construct, over so many years, a daily life he could barely endure.”
–David Whyte, The Heart Aroused : Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America
It’s a cumulative thing, this losing of the soul.
It may start with something as simple as keeping silent when you disagree with your boss’s opinion.
If you’re a manager contributing to loss of soul
– It may have dawned on you that as you rose up through the ranks, those friends and associates you used to lunch and chat with all the time are no longer part of your “friendships”. In fact, your friendships are now with those who are on similar rungs of the corporate ladder and have status the same as yours or greater — never lower.
– You no longer share personal information with those lower on the ladder.
– All or most of the information you know about your employees would fit nicely in a spreadsheet.
– You cannot tolerate anyone knowing that there is something you do not know or do not have the answer for. Ignorance in any business topic must not be admitted to. Therefore, you have drifted into becoming very guarded in your conversations. Others quickly recognize this, and so a loss of trust occurs. Without trust, your direct reports won’t feel they can raise any issues with you, so now the loss of trust is accompanied by deception and avoidance of hot topics. Because of the working relationship the above generates, you suspect — and are undoubtedly correct — that the team is talking about you negatively behind your back. But at least they know who’s in charge.
– You cannot remember the last time you were able to laugh at yourself or admit to any shortcomings.
Experiencing Loss of Soul
In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost
-- Dante Alighieri
Losing the soul in the workplace is almost like a bereavement. There is a disconnection, a lack of engagement. The days seem longer, the accomplishments diminished, talents feel unappreciated or unused. An emptiness settles in. There is a general feeling of unease, being on guard, being less open. Where the emotional high of workday anticipation carried you along to work on wings, you begin to feel a heavy heart and feet of clay.
The challenge in modern corporate America is to hold on to the values we are taught in our personal lives – creativity, compassion, duty, sharing, and yes – understanding. In order to be whole, we cannot separate our humanity from our working lives.
Recovering the Soul
If you are in management and you have been in the same workplace for a long period of time, it may not be possible to recover the soul without moving on and moving out. Your persona has been established there and it will be difficult to change it, but it can be done — with patience and resolve. Initially, those who have worked with you simply won’t believe that the change in you is anything but temporary. As time goes on and day settles upon day, this should come to pass. As long as it’s an honest resolve and deeper understanding, it can be done.
Take a good look around you. Do you see individuals, people with objectives, losses, striving, creativity? Or do you just see bodies performing tasks? Do you believe that most people want to give their best effort? What are your beliefs and when was the last time you looked at them? When was the last time you looked at members of your team as something more than job titles?
There is a wonderful dialogue in Amy Tan’s book, The Joy Luck Club, where June protests to her mother:
... no matter
what you hope for...
I'll never be more
than what I am.
And you never see that!
And her mother responds:
I see you. I see you.
We must all see each other.
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One of the things managers frequently do is assume that because they are managers, they have all the answers. Frequently, they don’t. Even sadder is that they assume they do, based on the single fact that they are managers. Yet, it should be apparent that those who have the most critical information about a process are the very people who go through the process daily and bump their heads against its inadequacies. Why on earth would you want to change or replace a process if you don’t know why it should be changed in the first place? How would you know that the process that is replacing the original is not worse?
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