Ego, an asset or impediment for boosting performance?

We all have an ego. “Ego” is part of a psychologist’s ecosystem of meta archetypes including “self” and “persona” in the conscious world and “shadow” and “animus –a” in the unconscious one. Even service design professionals aim to construct artificial personas to model our behaviour by reflecting our egos. 

Ego can be a disastrous influence when manifest in psychopathic CEO’s and those aspiring to dominate fellow citizens. More widely, it can be an impediment to gaining engagement and collaboration in joint endeavours in business activity. 

In order to illuminate the influence of egos on business success, a useful first question is: “Will the real business model please stand up?”

To help with that, we learn that there is power in informal networks and that they are a crucible for co-creativity which can be cultivated (Charles Ehin, “Hidden Assets,” Springer, 2005.) 

It is also self-evident that collaboration is essential when innovation counts, or the task ahead is to overcome seemingly intractable challenges or complex situations. There arises a need to orchestrate or choreograph whole business ecosystems, a typical example of which is portrayed below.

Consequently it follows that to be really useful, business models as conventionally described, need reformulating to merge both formal processes and informal networks. We can do that simply by building a business model around role plays (which captures the essentials, stripping away what is initially superfluous). The business model may appear identical in two organisations yet would be expected to behave very differently in practice as the ego of participants in the role plays emerge, inducing collective behaviour (and culture?) unique to each.

We also know from the literature on meditation that we can “let go” of our egos. Accordingly, a key second question emerges: “Can we transform and boost performance and break through barriers by leaving behind our egos?”

Maybe the next step after having relinquished egos and and personas is to call for guidance upon some “essence” or “Divine” entity that captures in an agnostic way participants’ individual inner beliefs, devoid of religious dogma, in whatever role they adopt to play (with a first priority given to the Holy Spirit.) The diagram below shows the interrelationships between relevant entities at this point. Refer also to previous posts nos 2 and 5 listed below for further related insights.

Has this been tried? To make the attempt a special language needs to be deployed for formulating business ecosystems and refining business models. It is called VES (Value Exchange System) devised by Meggitt Bird and can be compared with elements in the ITILv3 glossary in the IT services domain. It will propel you even more effectively into the exciting and stimulating world of the value network space. (Christensen and Raynor, “The Innovator’s Solution,” HBRP, 2003.)

The example below shows the value exchanges in one of the first purely entrepreneur incubators in the UK founded in 2003, the 3Cs Community, which is still thriving. The community becomes ever more effective as egos are left behind and a spirit of connecting, collaborating and mutual support envelops the participants leading to success and growth of the participants on a “Pay it Forward” mantra.

This concludes my posts, with prior publications entitled:

1.The myth of collectively held core values

2.Beliefs: a Pandora’s Box of repeating elements

3.“New Agers” through the ages

4.The Trinity challenge

5.How is creativity at work boosted by Christian beliefs?

None are rigorous in content, but skim over a selection of related topics that appeal to the intellect and feelings of Metisa. I leave it to others, namely David Meggitt and Christie Sarri to weave the strands into an integrated whole. 

Why not start the conversation?!

Metisa

How is creativity at work boosted by Christian beliefs?

Is it notable that key contenders for the leadership of the UK Conservative Party (and hence becoming Prime Minister of the UK post Brexit) had public profiles with strong Christian leanings?

If not, then it should be.

We saw in the blog entitled “Beliefs: a Pandora’s Box of repeating elements?” that many faiths had something to say about creativity (for refresher, see here... http://mb-metisa.blogspot.co.uk/) Indeed, the Christian tradition displays a particularly powerful connection with creativity. And that is a good sign for the leadership of change both in the UK and in the UK’s sponsoring of the reformulation of a new Europe post Brexit.

Sadly, however, the mainstream Christian churches in the UK are ill-equipped to educate their flocks in the underpinning merits of a tradition to support creativity at work, despite their progressive stance in other spheres. Worse, the Greek Orthodox Church as founding members of Christianity are more focused on "broadcasting" than listening to new ideas from their congregations even in the glorious island of Crete, the subject of St Paul's Letter to Titus in the New Testament of the Bible.

To illustrate, consider the theological Package A below which illustrates one extreme of the Church’s thinking today

PACKAGE A

The present world is basically hostile to human beings and detrimental to    their well-being or salvation. God, whose Kingdom is not of this world, calls people to forsake the world and to seek their salvation in the life above. God's sole agent of salvation is Jesus Christ, who comes from above to redeem his own and returns to prepare a place for them in their "proper" home. As Holy Spirit God is active in the Church, which is the company of those who have responded to the call above and are preparing themselves for their heavenly destiny. Their mission is to rescue others out of the world. To have faith is to believe in the promise of heavenly fulfilment and to answer the call to it by joining the Church and separating oneself (as far possible) from the world and its contaminating influences.

There is little that relates to “work” in Package A. In contrast, another view which has more or less co-existed throughout the Church’s history is shown in Package B following in which three phrases, highlighted, relate to “work.”

PACKAGE B

The present world though imperfect does provide a setting in which human beings find a measure of fulfilment or salvation. God, whose kingdom is on earth as well as (though not yet as completely as) it is in heaven, is active in the world bringing about human salvation. Jesus Christ redeems his fellow human beings so that they may be his co-agents in establishing God's kingdom on earth. The Church comprises those who have recognised, and seek to respond to, the activity of God's Spirit in the world. Their mission is to be fellow-workers with God in transforming the world. To have faith is to see the hand of God in worldly events and to join with others who "see” (not just Christians) in ever-deepening involvement in the world and its concerns

Putting the two packages side by side, we can see how their differences play out more clearly.

PACKAGE A

PACKAGE B

The present world is basically hostile to human beings and detrimental to their well-being or salvation. God, whose Kingdom is not of this world, calls people to forsake the world and to seek their salvation in the life above. God's sole agent of salvation is Jesus Christ, who comes from above to redeem his own and returns to prepare a place for them in their "proper" home. As Holy Spirit God is active in the Church, which is the company of those who have responded to the call above and are preparing themselves for their heavenly destiny. Their mission is to rescue others out of the world. To have faith is to believe in the promise of heavenly fulfilment and to answer the call to it by joining the Church and separating oneself (as far possible) from the world and its contaminating influences.

The present world though imperfect does provide a setting in which human beings find a measure of fulfilment or salvation. God, whose kingdom is on earth as well as (though not yet as completely as) it is in heaven, is active in the world bringing about human salvation. Jesus Christ redeems his fellow human beings so that they may be his co-agents in establishing God's kingdom on earth. The Church comprises those who have recognised, and seek to respond to, the activity of God's Spirit in the world. Their mission is to be fellow-workers with God in transforming the world. To have faith is to see the hand of God in worldly events and to join with others who "see” (not just Christians) in ever-deepening involvement in the world and its concerns

Sadly, the Christian Church’s thinking has been dominated by ideas reflected in Package A. This greatly inhibits the scope for collaboration between religions. An opportunity to frame an empowering “strategic intent” is missed. An opportunity to defuse evil in some fundamentalists in other religions is goes unexplored.

It is salutary to reflect that 2,000 years ago a young Jew, Jesus the Nazarene, - one whom the Greeks named "Christos" for his pains - inspired the transformation in meaning of ancient scriptures by subsequent writers some 50 years and more after his death into a New Testament History attests to his existence, although current opinion is clearly divided on the issue of His resurrection and "reappearances" and the subsequent formulation of the concept of the Trinity (referred to in the blog also here http://mb-metisa.blogspot.co.uk/ entitled “The Trinity Challenge”)

was fraught with difficulties.

But the force powering the writers of those documents now in the New Testament is clearly evident. A question arises:  can this force (freely) be harnessed still in creating a new world order - even post Brexit?

Where to begin? An excellent start for theologians, and practitioners on the ground alike, is to study an unpublished work by David Welbourn, a retired Industrial Chaplain called "Second Creation" from which the above tables and some text were extracted. The forward to the work by the former Bishop of Oxford, and Professor at Gresham College, London, now Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth, contains the words," One of the many tragedies of our church is that it can become one more leisure pursuit among many, rather than a crucible of creative transformation both in our own lives and in the life of our world…. He gives us all valuable tools with which to enter afresh that most difficult of mission fields... our daily work.”

Anyone embroiled in the daily grind and challenge of “work” who seeks purpose and inspiration and prepared to forego social networking activities for a few hours (apart from reading this!) can benefit from scanning “Second Creation.”

For your copy of "Second Creation," see here

Composed by Metisa .... www.metisa.net

Published on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-can-creativity-work-boosted-christian-beliefs-david-meggitt?trk=prof-post

The Trinity challenge

We saw in the article here that the concept of a man also being a god has an ancient heritage.

However, the current ease with which Islam can be accepted when compared with the apparent complexity of the Christian Trinity poses a challenge for the latter when competing for believers. Can a man, Jesus the Nazarene, be both human and Divine? And what is the Holy Spirit?

Christians, therefore, have some rather special relationships to consider and understand.

Some history: in the 2nd century AD, the first major Christian theologian, Tertullian, a Carthaginian who thought and wrote in Latin, coined the term Trinitas. He had some pretty deep disagreements with an important school of thought at the time - Monarchianism. Usefully for us, they had developed a model of, or approach to understanding, "God" as "modalist." This saw the names of Father, Son and Holy Spirit  as corresponding merely to different aspects or modes of the same divine being, playing transitory parts in succession, like an actor on the Classical stage donning a theatrical mask to denote a tragic or comic role or "Persona." (MacCulloch, D. A History of Christianity. London, 2009).

Fast forward to the theologians of the 19th and 20th centuries and we discover a real attempt to interpret classical trinitarian doctine, to get beneath its surface grammar and penetrate its deepest intention. It is now affirmed that God is Triune, the reality of shared love and life rather than in terms of domineering power. (Migliore, Daniel.L Faith seeking understanding - an introduction to Christian Theology, 2nd edn. USA. 2004).

So, how can we represent this Triune concept and enable it to function in our lives?

One way is to turn to a business representation of organisation that features role-plays. We call it a "Value Exchange System" which in some lowly way could introduce us to the limitless love and unfathionable behaviour of God through the idea of relationships and contributions between role plays.

Turning to our diagram below, We can with theological credibility depict three "role plays" shown in our circles with a direct connection to ourselves as a person. But the mix of God as three roles (to our limited understanding, of the mystery of God) is not sequential but a dynamic mix or dance of interplays between aspects of God and each person who allows it. The contributions to our lives can be identified and assessed.

There has to be some "mechanism" for this transfer, and we can utilise the discoveries and theories from physics and other sciences to glimpse how this may occur. This is represented as an inner cloud.

Infusing this, though, is the activity of the "Maker," represented as an overarching outer cloud.

To make things even more complicated, there is no universally held view by Christians of the significance of these three role plays. Depending upon which duo is emphasised more than the others, (Creator/Redeemer; Redeemer/Strengthener; Strengthener/Creator), we can have a different strand of the Christian tradition.

Could Islam cope with that?

Composed by Metisa .... www.metisa.net

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“New Agers” through the ages

As we have seen here beliefs incorporate repeating elements. And so it is with so-called “New Agers” – a term that gained recognition in the 1970’s. But if we assume one definition that describes New Agers as people who adopt features of the ancient worldview and interlace them with science and knowledge insights current at a particular time to describe their perception of reality, a rich heritage from ancient times unfolds.

A question frequently asked is “if the writers of the Bible or the Qu’ran knew what we now know, would the texts have been inspired differently?” The answer, of course, is that we don’t know.

But let’s delve back a little and start with the very first epic poem written (in c 2100 BC) that describes the prowess of Gilgamesh, the fifth ruler in the city of Uruk in Sumeria in c 2600 BC. As a conduit through which the city’s gods spoke, he would himself after death become a godlike figure to whom prayers and sacrifices were likely offered.

For a taste of 19th/20th century AD New Agers, fast forward to the Existentialists who accepted the lack of order and disorientation in an apparently meaningless world, and proposed that each individual (not society nor religion) is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it authentically.

Following is a kaleidoscope of current new age topics:

• Life force particles and “the law of attraction” activated by positive and negative vibrational energy
• Hearing voices (quite normal, but can also be a sign of schizophrenia)
• Channelling from extra-terrestrial beings and some associated charlatan cults
• “The secret” and a multi-universe existence with power to shape a future you desire
• Being “in the present moment,” the practice of meditation (or, narrower, “mindfulness”) and the “power of now”
• For those desperate to reorient their relationships with others, breakthrough experiences using, for example, hypnotic sessions with NLP or a “quantum collapse process” (refer to this role based diagram that uniquely illustrates the dynamics of the process described in tabular form by the author)

• The concept of “pain bodies” affecting persecuted nations that persist over generations
• Scientific evidence showing that beliefs can affect the behaviour of body cells
• There is no separate Divine; we are all Divine and integral with the universe through energies.

In critiquing New Agers, it is beneficial to view developments through a specific lens that carries both evidential and experiential weight. Accordingly, your link to reflections from a Christian perspective delivered is here.

In it the author, David Welbourn, comments that New Agers are very keen on the idea that a single cosmic energy is permeating us all.

He adds that New Agers invariably adopt a pick and mix approach to their beliefs, testing out a succession of options to identify some mix for the present moment that offers hope.








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Beliefs: a Pandora’s Box of repeating elements?

Are organizations or movements driven by ideological beliefs usefully described as psychic prisons? (1). How beneficial or otherwise are religious beliefs in a work context?

Beliefs are shaped by what we know or perceive from evidence and experience. But how true are they? The chained inhabitants in Plato’s allegorical cave saw only the shadows of real life that cast them. What can we really rely on?

Knowledge now extends to a more intricate understanding of the mechanisms by which the Universe exists physically. Observations at the astronomical and particle extremes can validate ever evolving mathematical constructs.  (Although we may need a particle accelerator with a diameter as great as the orbit of planet Pluto in order to develop the energy to probe matter’s secrets thoroughly.)

Yet, such advances fail to address questions about life’s purpose and the manifestation in people’s lives of extra-terrestrial or “spiritual” experience. So a continuing respect for beliefs shaped over millennia and based on observation is called for.

And what a rich heritage that is. For example, consider the following repeating elements (2):-

Creation myths

Hesiod’s account in The Theogony provided in the 8th century BC the earliest coherent account of how (for the classical Greeks and Romans) the cosmos, the gods, and mortals evolved out of an enormous shapeless darkness he called Chaos. In Japanese mythology, a similar spontaneous evolution from chaos represented this time the universe as a fluid, seething mass in the shape of a giant egg.

God – Kings

The ultimate evolution of Ancient Egypt’s belief system was the principle of divine kingship. Pharaohs were thought to be descended from the gods and so linked with land, people, and universal deities that there was no separate word to denote religion. There was also procreation between a God (Khaum) and a human (Queen Mutemwiya, mother of Pharaoh Amentcotep III.) The Christian story of the virgin birth describes another supernatural event and the emergence of Jesus the Nazarene to be the Son of God, followed centuries later by the belief in the Divine right of kings.

Beginning of evil

The Judeo-Christian story of Eve eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge (an act forbidden by God) can be contrasted with the foolish and alluring Pandora who stupidly opened a pot (Pandora’s Box) against Zeus’ orders, out of which flew the miseries that afflict humanity, with only hope remaining inside it.

The flood

The story of a destructive flood that leaves the earth ready for repopulation is one of the most common myths in cultures around the globe.

With such a diversity of human beliefs and experience to call upon, should tolerance of each other be more widespread? Is it not presumptuous of any one faith tradition to claim exclusive agency over the others or, in the extreme, exert evil in the world and relish public justification for evil actions?

As to the former, it is argued (3) that the Bible contains little that is original and is based on recurring motifs and themes from earlier times including a recycling of a “Jesus archetype” and  thus no claim to exclusive agency (although this will be qualified strongly in a subsequent post.) And although Islam claims priority over other Abrahamic derivatives because it is the most recent manifestation of a monotheistic God’s message, the human challenge to “collect” The Qur’an from several versions existing during the Caliphate of ‘Uthman (4) is reminiscent of the much longer period to complete the Christian scriptures.

So, if Pandora’s Box is a process that, once activated, will unleash many unmanageable problems, fuelled by the ills of mankind, how can Hope which in mythology remains in the Box be manifest?

To conclude, let us consider positive action and focus on creativity and innovation in thought and action. The following table presents from a selection of belief systems, ancient and modern, pertinent encapsulations of the creativity theme.

How do we build on this? 

Table 1

Should we?

Abbreviated references.

(1) Morgan, “Images of organization,” Sage, 1997.
(2) Extracts from Littleton, “Mythology,” Duncan Baird, 2002.
(3) BBC broadcast (March 2016). (https://www.dropbox.com/s/0mm71zidy0gv4qp/Mythology_Bible.mp3?dl=0 )
(4) Esack, “The Qur’an,” Oneworld, 2012.

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The myth of collectively held "core values."

How painful is it for employees to endure the spectacle of publicly paraded "our values" text on their corporate web sites? Perhaps an internal questionnaire would provide sufficient evidence to challenge the validity of the assertion in the heading or to endorse it.

Usefully, core value statements of a company prescribe its attitude, behaviour and character. Further, beliefs rooted in ideology or cultural values are quite "sticky" - they resist disconfirming evidence and persist in affecting judgements and choice, regardless or not whether they are true (1)

"Value systems" became the rage in the early 1980's and found a place within the construct of the "Vision of the firm." The significance of corporate culture in Japanese management became recognised as a driver of performance. We also had the McKinsey 7-S Framework. This included "Shared values" or "Superordinate goals" as a central, soft variable for analysing performance. To fit the Framework, these values had to be shared by most people in an organization.

But the cracks showed even then. A distinction was made between corporate culture and climate, where the latter really measures the fit between the prevailing culture and individual values of the employee. (Figure 1). If the employees had adopted the values of the prevailing culture, the climate was "good." If they had not, the climate was "poor," and motivation and presumably performance suffered. (2)

Figure 1

However, the idea that appropriate values would drive appropriate behaviour and reduce the need for other types of managerial control on employees can be fraught with difficulty in certain organizational situations. (3) For example, the "Values into action" change management technique uses a question-based meeting process to trigger individual as opposed to collective action. (4)

Consequently, a return to basics is overdue when addressing "values." An interesting application of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) examined the success factors driving entrepreneurship and evolved the cascade diagram reformatted in Figure 2. Beliefs and values are intertwined which leads to the conclusion that the former should feature prominently in the world of work, with the taboos imposed by well-meaning but misguided law makers suspended to encourage conversation and learning. This is the subject of further contributions to come.

Figure 2

Abbreviated references:

(1) Pfeffer and Sutton, "Hard facts, dangerous half-truths and total nonesense," HBS, 2006.
(2) Hax and Majluf, "Strategic management - an integrative perspective," Prentice Hall, 1984.
(3) Balogun and Hope Hailey, "Exploring strategic change," Prentice Hall, 2004.
(4) Holman, Devane, Cady, "The change handbook," Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006.

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