by Mike Morrison
Fellow Colleague,
In the current series of e-notes, we are exploring the current reality within our work cultures. For many of us…
This is not working.
The center is not holding.
We need to rethink our way forward.
The forces of fragmentation are winning. The result is that our cultures are not developing a strong center with enough gravitational pull to keep the organization “whole.” As a result, we live at the outer edges of our organization – pushing on well-intentioned programs to save the day.
Without connection to a unifying center, we play the smaller game. We live at the porous edge of organizational life – where vulnerability and anxiety rein.
It’s the same with our kids. In our desire to make them successful, we lose our capacity to love them at their center (and to make them whole). We push them to the edges – pushing them into activities that will build their “college resume” or some idealized view of what their life should look like. They reject this wholeheartedly (especially as teenagers in the middle of the most difficult transition in life – adolescence.) But we keep pushing – and the damage is ultimately done.
They lose access to their unifying center – seeking to please us and to fit into a world that is defined more by the media and popular culture than by real meaning. As a result, the world is filled with people living at their edge – looking for meaning where there is none. So, here’s the deal:
A culture will never find its center… until we as individuals in the culture… find ours.
See you on the path,
Mike