Why We Must Now Bring Our Souls to Work

“You can tell what’s informed the society by the size of the building that’s the tallest building in the place. When you approach a medieval town, the cathedral is the tallest thing in the place. When you approach a 17th century city, it’s the political palace that’s the tallest thing in the place. And when you approach a modern city, it’s office buildings . . .”

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

About a dozen years ago when I was working for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and giving lectures and seminars on Campbell’s hero journey, I was approached by a corporate executive who wanted to know if I would create a weekend seminar for about 250 of his employees. Upon questioning him about his motive for such a program he replied “It would be fantastic to have employees who felt heroic in their day-to-day work. It could make a huge difference to our productivity!”

Looking him straight in the eye I replied in all seriousness, “Sir, if I did a good job with this material, half of those 250 employees would turn in their notice at the end of the weekend and the other half would wish they had the guts to do so!”

He stared at me, open mouthed, uncomprehending.

I explained, “As you heard from my talk today, the characteristics of a hero are an independence of mind and spirit, a courageous heart, and a deep desire to risk everything in order to bring back a boon to humanity. Is your corporation organized in such a way that it could actually benefit from having 250 fully actualized, deeply authentic and self-motivated heroes?”

The corporate executive closed his mouth and was silent for a long time. Then he looked up sadly and shook his head, “No, you’re right. If you really unleashed this vision on my employees I probably wouldn’t have a company on Monday.”

This conversation and its outcome have haunted me for many years. I believe I was honest and accurate in my assessment of the situation, but that certainly hasn’t stopped dozens of other consultants and authors from encouraging people to take the “follow your bliss” and “hero’s journey” metaphors into the workplace.

My deep suspicion is that in order to give corporate executives what they want – more committed, motivated and productive employees - a great deal of twisting of the true intent of Campbell’s work has been going on. The vast majority of work places could not handle cubicles full of heroes, nor would any self-respecting hero remain in one.

Rather than paying lip service to an idea that cannot reach fruition and still be true to itself, I turned away from the notion that Campbell’s insights into the universal pattern which he called the hero’s journey could actually be relevant in the corporate setting.

But over time I have slowly begun to change my view of what corporations could be and in fact should be.

I am still convinced that the enormous popularity of Campbell’s work, and of all the Star Wars films, of The Matrix movies, the Lord of the Rings, and all of the comic book hero movies can all be traced to the fact that this yearning to live out the heroic quest is hardwired into the human psyche. In some way, large or small, everyone yearns to put their own foot up on the road and seek out that quest that will give one the sense of having truly lived, of having taken hold of one’s capabilities and tested them to the utmost, of having realized one’s potential and tasted of real freedom, adventure, love, achievement.

More and more, however, those energies are being invested into one’s work life, rather than religion or relationships or community service or travel or politics or the arts. Most modern Americans are attempting to actualize themselves – in Maslow’s sense of self-actualization - in the workplace and so that is where the vision needs to be seeded and take root.

The problem is that the corporation still retains the structure and culture that it had when it was first born back in the 15th century, a structure derived from the previous European age of the medieval fiefdom. If the corporation is to be the carrier of the heroic vision – and I believe that it must be willing to become this carrier – then it needs to be remade in accordance with a new cultural vision.

Here are the three great paradigms that need to change if we are to bring out the best of what humans can do with what they’ve got, in a word, if are to let humans be their heroic selves.

The Paradigms that Must Shift: And How to Shift Them

#1: CIVILITY

The shift from work as war to work as game

The metaphors that make the work place a battlefield; executives the generals and lieutenants, and employees the foot soldiers fending off attacks from other corporations, must give way. The new culture must adopt the metaphor of the infinite game, where the goal is to keep everyone in play, recognizing that any player may find him or herself in a different team or position at any point during the game.

Civility is the key quality of this new paradigm, for just as great sports figures understand that this year‘s teammates might be next year’s opposition, so we are living in a time where corporate loyalties cannot hold because of the swiftness and complexity of hiring and firing and the rise of the independent contractor. Only a culture of deep civility and the recognition that we are all in this game together, can turn the corporation into kind of playing field that will allow a genuine engagement by human beings on a heroic path.

The culture of continuous Courtesy understands that ultimately all actualized human beings become Magister Ludi - The Game Master, the ultimate magician who manifests with ease because one has mastered the self and can move freely between the two worlds, between the implicate and the explicate domains, the world of wave/ideas and the world of particle/form. Then both the corporations and the players will move in and out of different forms without the angst, the villainy, the despair, and the huge gains and losses of fortune, for the spirit will have shifted from short term to long term; from the idea of winning for myself, to the idea of keeping the most people in play for the best, most satisfying game.

When the corporation becomes the playground rather than the battlefield and adopts the stance that a game well played is the best possible outcome then work becomes play and the players are happy to work because they find in the work the fulfillment of their own great ambitions and yearnings for meaning, for contribution, for the enjoyment of life itself.

When work becomes play then the biggest paycheck is not the greatest reward, but the possibility of teaming up with the most interesting players inside the most challenging games is what is sought. The hoarding of mere wealth becomes a ludicrous move simply because it does not forward the action. No one wants to make a million dollars and retire because it doesn’t sound like any fun.

#2: TRANSPARENCY

The shift from medievalism to meritocracy

When work becomes play and the purpose of the game is to benefit the most players, then any strategy other than that of employing the best players for each position makes no sense. Ancient hierarchies based on family or race or ethnicity or language or religion are left behind. The whole idea of there being “a boss” is left behind and teams composed of players and coaches and referees take over.

We have had decades of research telling us that the number one misery-inducing factor of work life for Americans has a single name: “the Bad Boss.” Until we are willing to take a stand and declare that the bad boss must be eradicated like the dangerous virus that it is, we will never have a corporate culture which can truly provide a space for human beings to self-actualize and bring everything they have to the table.

The only reason that bad bosses continue to survive and thrive is that the corporate culture still operates from a worldview that is out of the middle ages. On the one hand there is the aristocracy who arrive at headquarters in tinted-window limousines to be whisked in private elevators to penthouse offices, exactly the way nobility were swept along in carriages with velvet curtains at the windows and ensconced in their stone fortresses far from the madding crowd. Meanwhile, the peasants are thrown together at the bottom and try to sort out what’s going on from afar, hoping they won’t be caught in the crosshairs of some feuding warlords, or end up as chattel in some royal redistribution.

In the last century we have lurched between the fantastical notion that we could all become upper class and live the life of the nouveau riche, and then back into the rise of the proletariat and the strengthening of the unions, and then another swing back towards fantasy where ordinary workers hoped that by becoming consultants and independent contractors they could avoid the humiliation and degradation of being low person on the totem pole, ground under the heels of high and mighty executives.

But there is a better way; what might be called the middle path between the two extremes, a possibility envisioned a century ago by the extraordinary thinker and activist, Jane Addams, who put her finger on a principle of great importance in her analysis of the problem at the heart of the great Pullman train strike in Chicago. She had a vision for a level of self-awareness, mediation and honest communication which could bring about a synthesis that was beyond the mere compromise of most owner/union controversies. Instead of assuming that there would always be powerful owners at the top and less powerful workers at the bottom, she saw the possibility of moving away from this patriarchal structure toward a shared governance.

In place of the alienation felt so often by workers left out of decision-making, and the aloof and guarded monopolizing of decision-making by the elite administrators, the new corporate structure must bend its knee to a form of meritocracy where bad bosses are called to account for their sins of commission and omission, and are taught the necessary skills to turn them into coaches, allies, and genuine supporters of those with whom they work. Workers are coached to greater autonomy and accountability and given the authority to go with it. This is the only way to open up the organizational structure in such a way that it becomes self-reflective, self-correcting, and self-renewing.

#3: MATURITY

The move from competence to character

In a deeply organic sense this third paradigm follows naturally from the second paradigm, for the minute you cease having one group that dominates - and is thus granted all of the will power and authority - and one group that is dominated - and is thus deprived of free will and the motivation to be accountable – then it becomes imperative for everyone of every rank to gain maturity in emotional intelligence, communication skills, self-mastery and self-efficacy.

The well-known Google study (Project Oxygen) that followed the results of hiring the most technically competent people and setting them free to work showed that without good management these highly skilled technicians were incapable of running a good company. When the focus shifted to managers, it turned out that the most important skills were the so-called “soft skills“ - (a dreadful phrase that must be phased out as soon as possible!) – like the ability to coach others, make others feel empowered, express interest and concern about employees as people, communicate well, be a good listener, mentor someone towards career development, articulate a clear vision for the team, and (finally) have the technical skills to be a good advisor. The technical skill was the least important.

There is nothing “soft“ about learning how to regulate your own emotions, become aware of your own prejudices and ineptitudes, articulate difficult concepts, finesse delicate interpersonal situations, mediate complicated conflicts, select just the right people to make terrific teams, know when to challenge, when to encourage, when to chastise, and when to keep your mouth shut…and all the other “people skills” that translate into corporations that succeed. But that is really what maturity is all about. It is a form of self-mastery which, when translated to the corporation, eliminates bad bosses and lays the groundwork for great teams.

~ ~ ~

Coming to grips with the need to honor the mind/emotion/will triumvirate is the great challenge of our day. Just as you do not put new wine into old bottles, so the old corporate structure must be torn down and a new one created, so that the dynamic possibilities of Homo Sapien 3.0 are not short-circuited inside the decaying form of the old corporate culture.

Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?

– Joseph Campbell

When these three paradigms are successfully shifted in corporate cultures that have as their highest values civility, transparency, and maturity, the result will be vibrant organizations of genuine quality and authenticity; corporations that are not merely global citizens but global leaders providing continuous innovation for the public good. They will then move from the quarterly report to the quality report and emerge into their new dominion as culture bearers of the new global economy, the new global community.

I believe the time is now ripe for these deep changes to begin. Americans have the individual strength and the capacity of character to lean into these values and create the new corporate cultures that must replace the old. In our lifetimes we have seen the fall of religion as a centering agent for the body politic, and now we are seeing the fall of government from its position as the centering and vision-holding agency for our culture. What remains to us is the world of commerce, business, the entrepreneurial spirit fashioning new forms of teamwork that can move quickly to bring new products and services to a rapidly changing world. No other type of organization is agile enough to keep up with the pace of life as it now runs and dances into the 21st-century.

Now is time to answer the call to adventure for the peril is very real and the promise only as good as the caliber of our character.

Affairs are now soul size.

The enterprise

Is exploration into God.

Where are you waiting for? It takes

So many thousand years to wake,

But will you wake for pity’s sake!

Christopher Fry, from A Sleep of Prisoners

——-

R.D. Armstrong, March 2018