Compared to What?

June 3, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off 

Someone I’m close to who’d been upset about her 401k losses, said she’s now feeling a lot better about it. The reason: everyone else has lost the same percentage, so its relative.

Its an interesting exercise to notice how much of our thinking is relative. By relative I mean judging and responding to the events in our personal and business lives in comparison to others’ lives, or in comparison to our own lives, as we remember or anticipate them. This occurs so frequently that its considered natural. But when you challenge it in yourself, and in your organization and culture, you become aware of the negative results that follow:

  • scarcity – more for you means less for me
  • exclusiveness – keeping you / them out
  • superiority / inferiority
  • withholding / protectiveness

Transformational change takes place at least partially in the absolute, where no boundaries exist between or among us. Social business models and tools provide a great staging area for personal and organizational transformation but only if there’s willingness to be conscious of, and to act upon what’s true for and in us all.

Filed under: Consciousness, change leadership, expansion, inclusion, integral, shift
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