I was thinking about fear this morning and its debilitating effects on us all of us. Granted it has helped in our survival, on this jewel of a planet in this solar system’s goldilocks zone, as being part of our fight or flight reaction. I wonder how much we recoil and dart the other way, and hide.
As part of my research I searched for the word ‘fear’ within my digital collection of information and found a short essay about fear. Here is the closing paragraph;
“I agree with the author, when she said that fear holds you back from so many opportunities. I agree with her, because through out my life I have turned down so many opportunities because I was listening and leaning on my fear. I think we need to listen to what our heart says not our fear. It is a lot easier to turn down something scary than to conquer it.”
How many of us stop ourselves from trying something new?
When you are in the midst of flight – running from what made fearful – you are focused on how I get to a safe place instead probably missing possible clues to improve your odds in facing the fearful challenge.
With fear you focus too much on the future, too much on the ‘what if’ and trying to please some crappy person; we all know a few (I like James Altucher’s description of crappy people). Dealing with people who have no idea on how to manage people, just how to fulfill their own personal agendas. To know and work with these people you will need a heat shield to protect yourself.
How many of us are in jobs where control by fear is exercised and then we created more of what we fear?
You just cannot stop thinking about something fearful. You have to replace it with a new thought or action. Be aware, listen to yourself. Come to some understanding of why you are thinking or acting the way you are. Then Act to replace that fear with an idea or activity that is positive; that will leave a smile on your face.
Talk to a good friend
Do an activity you enjoy doing
Write what you are grateful for
… and remove yourself from the crappy environment and relationship. Why be and stay unhappy all day.
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Every idea is like a wedding dress. Something old, something new. The old is thousands of years of thought, of story, of emotional conditioning, or horrible parenting, of wars, of sickness, of fear, of marketing, of education, all added together to create the emotional baggage that is intensely programmed into your psyche.
The new, is you and everything you can do to re-assemble the old into something you like, something that makes you tingle, something that gives you pleasure. Your pleasure is your body and mind telling you that what is in front of you is uniquely yours and nobody else’s.
A GREAT idea has to be old and new.
It’s a party in your brain!
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(source: James Altucher http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/03/the-only-good-idea-is-an-unoriginal-idea/)
During many months in 2008 I worked on a high performing culture (HPC) initiative which identified these as barriers to achieve pace, customer, and growth objectives.
- Employee survey highlighted empowerment as an issue
- Need for greater delegation: communication, skills, competency, trust, expectations
- Traditional organizational discipline and hierarchical authority could be a barrier to cultural change
The goal of the HPC was to:
- Foster Independence and Empowerment
- Leverage Recognition and Rewards
- Define and Communicate Shared Goals
… to ultimately enable and support the staff to decide on the best course of action to satisfy overall objectives and to lessen the effects from the evil twins of fear and doubt from performing their job.
It was recognized that the world around this IT organization was changing and was deemed critical that the IT become efficient, high performing, laying the supportive ‘tracks’, and to precede the business’s strategic direction.
With the expansion from a North American based economy to a global economy the competition for share of the consumer’s wallet has increased dramatically and as Seth Godin writes today in his June 10, 2013 blog ‘Memo to the modern COO’ at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ … organizations need to operate differently. As James Althucher echoes independently new ideas will be made up of the old and the new.
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In the post-industrial age, when thriving organizations do something different tomorrow than they did yesterday, when the output is connection as much as stuff, the objectives are very different. In today’s environment, the related functions are:
Increase alignment
Decrease fear
Alignment to the mission, to the culture, to what we do around here–this is critical, because in changing times, we can’t rely on a static hierarchy to manage people …
As the armed forces have discovered, it’s the enlisted man in the village that wins battles (and hearts and minds) now, not the general with his maps and charts. Giving your people the ability to make decisions and connections is impossible in a command and control environment.
And a decrease in fear, because this is the reason that we’re stuck, that we fail, that our best work is left unshipped. Your team might know what to do, might have an even better plan than the one on the table, but our innate fear of shipping shuts all of that down.
So we go to meetings and wait for someone else to take responsibility. We seek deniability before we seek impact. The four-letter word that every modern organization must fear is: hide.
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Change, where society intermingles and where IT interacts with action, manifests fear and its cousin doubt. IT, still very much in it’s infancy as being a tool to support an organization’s operations, is under much pressure to change to adapt at much greater speeds of information collection, consumption and mobilization – to operate differently.
With Change comes doubt. Doubt is raised as we wonder how this change will impact us, our families, our careers and our ability to maintain our lifestyle and provide for our families, and so we become fearful of future events; not what we can do now to lessen the blow.
Perhaps there is hope. From the ruminations of Charles S Peirce he states that “the action of thought is excited by the irritation of doubt”. Do not focus on the negative outcome of doubt, however revel in the positive thought provoking thinking and solutions that will emerge. James Altucher recommends having that “party in your brain!”
These tidal changes to our IT professional careers could be what drives you to hide or to be brave and follow your own goals for yourself; to consider the old with a new perspective to create something new for yourself; what do you like to do, to read, to study, to acquire?
Life is a wondrous journey
We touch and are touched
Moments life these allow for and need reflection
Intersect of IT 