Frenetic business activity. The world of work is increasingly characterized by uncertainty. It’s like being thrown into a rough sea amid pounding waves. Rapid and continual waves of change, a less stable workforce, diversity in different guises, fast technological development, more and more legislation requiring compliance, social and environmental concerns, less depth in our personal and working relationships, greater complexity. Globalisation, regionalization and the internet mean that information, ideas, perspectives and products cross disappearing boundaries, faster and faster. We live in a work-world of frenetic activity. How can we stay afloat?
For businesses it’s akin to being Hercules grappling with the many-headed beast. Each time one head is cut off, one challenge overcome, others appear.
Mindfulness is the practice of being always centred in the present moment, being able to observe what is happening to ourselves internally, around us, and in our interactions with others. When we are properly mindful, we are neither distracted nor are we overly focused on any one thing to the detriment of other things. We become tuned in and begin to transcend our conditionings, paradigms, fears, defense mechanisms, and we are able to see and open up to new possibilities, able to listen to and engage with others more attentively and deeply. This helps us to be in the space between the waves and ride them one by one as they come.
“Many illnesses, one prescription: You have tried not to be
angry, you have decided so many times, but still it happens.
You have tried not to be greedy, to be patient with difficult
patients, family, customers, to control your impulse spending,
to balance your living, care for your health, manage your time
and stress, be assertive but again and again you fall into the
trap. You have tried all sorts of things to change yourself, but
nothing seems ever to happen. You remain the same.
And here I am saying that there is a simple key – awareness.
You cannot believe it. How can awareness, just awareness,
help when nothing else has been of help? Keys are always
very small; keys are not big things. A small key can open a big
lock.
For all of these things the medicine will remain the same:
wake up! It is not going to be different: the prescription is
going to be the same. You can call it awareness, you can call it
witnessing or observing, being mindful, you can call it
remembering, you can call it meditation – these are different
names for the same medicine”. Osho 2
When we are mindful we see things freshly, unencumbered by past baggage or future concerns. We can take a step back and reframe problems and challenges.
Imagination
Richard Tarnas3 points out a relatively new development in man’s thinking. He is referring to that dynamic mental capacity known as imagination. Imagination is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts in our minds when they are not perceived through any of our senses.This allows us to see hidden truth in myths and archetypal meaning, and make conscious our place in the universe, indeed - broaden our concept of and understanding of reality. We do this naturally when we dream, and active imagination in a wakened state is possible. The collective unconscious is like a ship that has sailed over the horizon – you can’t see it but it’s there. We can access truths and possibilities previously lost to us. Our boats are driven by the movement of waves far beneath the surface.
In Tarnas’ view, Freud showed us how “an unconscious part of the psyche exerts decisive influence over human perception, cognition and behavior”. Jung, who incidentally coined the word ‘synchronicity’, then opened up for us how deep see tides flow through everything – what he called a “vast, archetypally patterned collective unconscious”. He describes the collective unconscious as the “inherited potentialities of human imagination”.
Imagination helps us plumb those depths and get to know the sea. Jung wrote: “it is only when the human mind actively brings forth from within itself the full powers of disciplined imagination and archetypal insight that the deeper reality of the world emerges”.
Thus imagination allows us to tap into the deep sea of the collective unconscious to intuitively produce outcomes of great value. Find new solutions. Quickly.
Nasrudin, en route to market, loads bags of salt on his donkey’s
back. They come to a river. Nasrudin tries to tell the donkey to
cross at the shallow causeway, but the donkey chooses to cross at
the deepest part. The salt dissolves in the water. The donkey trips
lightly up the other bank and trots off. Next market day, Nasrudin
loads the donkey with bales of wool. Once again Nasrudin tries to
tell the donkey to cross at the shallow causeway. The donkey once
again chooses the deep part of the river. The wool absorbs the
water. The donkey staggers up the river bank, the bags weighing
heavily on his back. Nasrudin turns to it and says, “You thought
that every time you entered the river you would come off lightly,
didn’t you?”
And business thought-leaders are now beginning to open up the way for business to harness mindfulness and imagination in order to transcend today’s challenges. For example, Otto Scharmer’s Theory U 4 calls for modern organizations to operate from an inner place and the use of listening, observing, sensing, presence (mindfulness) and then move into crystallizing, prototyping, and performing (imaginative, instant action).
Story is a way forward
In our shortly to be released eWorkbook Story Matters @ Work5 we advocate and teach imagination (in constructing) and mindfulness (in telling and listening) as the keys to successful story in business.
Nigel Nicholson of the London Business School rightly points out that we find meaning in stories and narratives, not data. He refers to us as being hardwired in evolutionary terms – and possessing a ‘fiction impulse’.6 This is a survival technique in which we construct narrative out of random thought in order to make sense of things (whether dreaming or awake!)
Story helps to create a space where we get to know selves and others, evoke deeper connections. Story stimulates engagement and evokes images, insight, creativity. Story allows us to tap into mythology, archetypes,and the collective unconscious. Story is a basic means of training the imagination. As philosopher A. C. Grayling has said: “Throughout human history story-telling has been a central means of informing people about possibilities beyond their personal sphere, and inviting them to understand those possibilities better”.7
The age of story in business has arrived. We are all immersed in and surrounded by stories throughout our lives from cradle to grave. Story is a natural part of our humanity, and straddles all cultures and groups. Story is the fast lane to the brain. Here’s the thing – when there is mindfulness and imagination in a group, then there is deep communication and rich communion. And the face to face medium that is story brings clarity, immediacy, intimacy, insight and promotes meaningful answers and ideas.
Let’s embrace and utilize the inherent power and potential of story to connect people at a deeper level, to impart concepts, co-create new business responses and a better world, to stay afloat and reach the right destination.
When we do this we ride that sea no matter how turbulent.