Increasingly we face issues for which hierarchical authority is
inadequate. No CEO can transform a company’s ability to
innovate, or single-handedly create a values-based culture. No
country president can resolve intractable political stalemates
that stand in the way of national development. It is painfully
apparent that even the most powerful political leaders and global
institutions are powerless in the face of issues like climate
change or the growing gap between rich and poor that, if left
unaddressed, will undermine the future we leave our children and
grandchildren.
Faced with this reality, we see everywhere
a growing sense of powerlessness and an increasing reliance on
force. The former reflects awareness that the big issues are generally
getting worse, not better; the latter, a desperate response to
this awareness. Few of us do not shudder at the prospect of a
continuation of today’s escalating reliance on force. Adam
Kahane’s book Solving Tough Problems poses a third option:
a transformation in our ability to talk, think, and act together.
I am convinced this is the only reliable path forward, not only
for hierarchical leaders but for all of us—as parents, citizens,
and people at all levels in organizations — seeking to contribute
to meaningful change.
We are unable to talk productively about
complex issues because we are unable to listen. Politics and politicians
today epitomize virtually the opposite of the symbol from which
their calling emerged—the Greek polis—where citizens
came to talk together about the issues of their day. Things are
little better in most corporate boardrooms, where the most difficult
and politically threatening issues often never see the light of
day. Indeed, we now have a new hero of corporate governance: the
“whistleblower” who risks it all to say what no one
wants to hear. Listening requires opening ourselves. Our typical
patterns of listening in difficult situations are tactical, not
relational. We listen for what we expect to hear. We sift through
others’ views for what we can use to make our own points.
We measure success by how effective we have been in gaining advantage
for our favored positions. Even when these motives are covered
by a shield of politeness, it is rare for people with something
at stake truly to open their minds to discover the limitations
in their own ways of seeing and acting.
Opening our minds ultimately means opening
our hearts. The heart has come to be associated with muddled thinking
and personal weakness, hardly the attributes of effective decision
makers. But this was not always so. “Let us bring our hearts
and minds together for the good of the whole” has been a
common entreaty of wise leaders for millennia. Indigenous peoples
around the world commence important dialogues with prayers for
guidance, in order that they might suspend their prejudices and
fears and act wisely in the service of their communities. The
oldest Chinese symbol for “mind” is a picture of the
heart.
When a true opening of the heart develops
collectively, miracles are possible. This is perhaps the most
difficult point of all to accept in today’s cynical world,
and I will not try to argue abstractly for what Adam illustrates
so poignantly. By miracles I do not mean that somehow everything
turns out for the best with no effort or uncertainty. Hardly.
If anything, the effort required greatly exceeds what is typical,
and people learn to embrace a level of uncertainty from which
most of us normally retreat. But this embrace arises from a collective
strength that we have all but ceased to imagine, let alone develop:
the strength of a creative human community grounded in a genuine
sense of connectedness and possibility, rather than one based
on fear and dogma.
The path forward is about becoming more
human, not just more clever. It is about transcending our fears
of vulnerability, not finding new ways of protecting ourselves.
It is about discovering how to act in service of the whole, not
just in service of our own interests. It is about rediscovering
our courage—literally, cuer age, the rending of the heart—to
pursue what Adam calls “an open way,” because the
only progress possible regarding the deep problems we face will
come from opening our minds, hearts, and wills.
