Tag Archives: social responsibility

Becoming Sane In A Turbulent, Interconnected, Unpredictable World — Part 1

Why Emotional Resiliency Doesn’t Work In The 21st Century

It’s becoming clear that our understanding of emotional resilience – what it is and how to achieve it — (and, more broadly, psychological health) �doesn’t mesh very well with today’s realities. Conventional descriptions of resilience and pathways to mental health don’t enable you to handle the challenges and stresses we face in the 21st Century.

Let me explain. Resilience is generally defined as the ability to cope successfully with misfortune or traumatic events. Being able to bounce back from adversity and keep on going. What helps you do that includes, for example, reviewing your strengths, focusing on positive thoughts and feelings, learning stress�management, looking down the road to what you can manage better. And, by getting psychotherapy and medication when you’re unable to bounce back very well on your own.

Prior to the 21st Century, that view of resiliency and how to build it was more relevant than today. The adversity and disruptions you were likely to experience were more stable, in a sense. The world was more predictable, more linear, with respect to the kinds of stresses and disruptions that would occur – as emotionally troubling as they might be.

Most of our thinking about emotional resilience and healthy functioning, then, fits a world in which unanticipated negative events are fairly predictable. They follow a fairly understandable course, following which you can reasonably anticipate a return to some form of previous stability. In that world, wars eventually ended. The economy went through recessions, then recovered. You might suffer a career or relationship setback but could assume that there was a path to recovery.

That notion of resilience and the ways to build it remain an important foundation for mental health. But they don’t help so much when you’re faced with the challenges of today’s environment. That’s because the very notion of resilience and the strategies for bouncing back are reactive. They focus on responding to something that happens to you, rather than on what you need to be doing proactively, as part of your way of life.

Starting with 9-11, and especially since the economic meltdown that began in the fall of 2008, we’ve been living in a world that’s rapidly transforming beneath our feet. Today’s world is an interconnected, interdependent, diverse, unpredictable and unstable global community. And that’s created new psychological challenges for everyone, challenges that require a highly proactive mentality.

Without it, you might feel like the woman who consulted me recently. Even before she sat down she said, �”I don’t know whether to reach for the Prozac….or Prilosec!”

Her grim humor masked her “recession depression” and other emotional battering. She didn’t know what would help. I’ve witnessed that a great deal in the last few years: Career and financial worries or losses; the ripple effect of those upon family life; anxieties about what sort of future one’s children are headed into, especially with climate change and terrorist threats; and the increasingly polarized views about our government’s role in people’s lives. Research and clinical observation show that all of the above are taking a psychological toll on relationships, families, career expectations, and on people’s entire sense of what they’re living and working for — their life purpose.

Unfortunately, those of us in the mental health professions haven’t been much help with these issues. Most of us continue to look through the rear-view mirror at a model of resiliency and health defined by coping with and managing conflicts in relationships and the workplace; conflicts that you can bounce back from and reestablish some kind of stability…all while continuing to pursue self-interest, such as getting your needs met, your personal goals achieved, your “happiness” acquired.

But today’s world of ongoing disruptions, continuous uncertainties and insecurity has become the new normal. Seeking to bounce back to stability and focusing on self-interest, which we’ve learned to think is the pathway to success, health and well-being, isn’t the right ticket.

In short, there’s no state of equilibrium you can bounce back to. In this highly diverse, interdependent, interconnected world. �Trying to do so is a fast ticket to dysfunction and derailment. You can’t reestablish equilibrium within a constantly shifting world. But engaging these new realities in positive ways will support your success and well-being.

Research shows that you can proactively build specific emotions, thoughts and actions that are effective for adapting to life in the non-equilibrium world we now live within. That’s encouraging, because I think we’re evolving towards a new definition of psychological health via rethinking resilience.

The criteria of a new, proactive resiliency – maybe call it “prosilience – may sound contradictory because they include letting go of self-interest in your relationships and work. The new view of resilience emphasizes being flexible, open and nimble; being able to shift and redeploy your personal resources – emotional, creative, intellectual – towards positive engagement with others.

Resiliency grows from putting your energies, your values, emotional attitudes and actions in the service of the common good – something larger than just yourself. That’s what supports both success in your outside life and internal well-being. And in today’s rapidly transforming world, you need both.

In the future look for new posts about perspectives, research and actions that relate to “becoming sane in a turbulent, interconnected, turbulent world.” �Through them I hope to contribute to a revised and needed reformulation of what psychological health and resiliency are in today’s world — in all realms of life: �intimate relationships, career challenges, engagement with diverse people, and in our responsibilities as �global citizens.

Welcome To The New “Real America”

In two recent New York Times columns, both Frank Rich and Charles M. Blow dug beneath the current surge of anger and right-wing extremism and came up with some penetrating insights about the sources of the outrage; insights that are also the tip of an iceberg: �Both of their analyses reflect a broad, sweeping evolution within the mentality of men and women that’s been taking place beneath our feet for the last several years.� I�ll describe some of those broader changes below, but first let�s look at what Rich and Blow describe.

Rich points out that the �tsunami of anger� today is illogical, in the sense that the health care legislation is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare.� He also reminds us that the new anger and extremism predated the health care debate:

The first signs were the shrieks of �traitor� and �off with his head� at Palin rallies as Obama�s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since � from Gov. Rick Perry�s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to �You lie!� piercing the president�s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.

He�s pointing out that major changes are occurring in the demographics of our country.� These changes � and others, concerning what people look for in relationships and in their careers — �are beginning to have major impact on us psychologically, including our psychological health.� For some, they generate tremendous fear that can give rise to hatred and aggression; a desire to �take back our country.�

Rich points out that:

Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven�t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.

Then, in a similar analysis, Charles M. Blow writes in his column:

It�s an extension of a now-familiar theme: some version of �take our country back.� The problem is that the country romanticized by the far right hasn�t existed for some time, and its ability to deny that fact grows more dim every day. President Obama and what he represents has jolted extremists into the present and forced them to confront the future. And it scares them.

Even the optics must be irritating. A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill through the House. The bill�s most visible and vocal proponents included a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It�s enough to make a good old boy go crazy.

Blow cites a recent Quinnipiac University poll that found Tea Party members to be just as anachronistic to the direction of the country�s demographics as the Republican Party. For instance, they were disproportionately white, evangelical Christian and �less educated … than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack.� �Blow points out that this is at the very time

when the country is becoming more diverse (some demographers believe that 2010 could be the first year that most children born in the country will be nonwhite), less doctrinally dogmatic, and college enrollment is through the roof. The Tea Party, my friends, is not the future.

Well said.� Mounting demographic and psychological research are confirming and extending what Rich and Blow describe.� In fact, several strands of change have been underway and coalescing into a changing psychology of people � their emotional attitudes, mental perspectives, values regarding work and relationships, and behavior towards people in need or who suffer loss. �These are shifts within a wide range of thought, feelings and actions.� Here are some of them: Continue reading →

Your “Life Footprint” And The 4.0 Career

In a previous post I wrote about the rise of the �4.0� career, and how it contrasts with earlier orientations to work.� In brief, the 4.0 version is an emerging shift towards a broader vision of career �success.�� It includes the desire for new learning, growth and personal meaning from work � increasingly visible themes over the last few decades, and what I�ve called the �3.0� career orientation.

What�s different about the emerging 4.0 career is that it�s an expansion beyond looking for greater meaning and sense of �purpose� through one�s work. �It also includes a desire for impact on something larger than oneself, beyond one�s personal benefit.� It�s becoming visible in the pull men and women report towards wanting to contribute to the common good -� whether it�s through the value and usefulness of a product or service.

The 4.0 career is part of the emerging new business model focused on creating �sustainable� enterprises.� It�s part of what�s known as the new �triple bottom line� — financial, social and environmental measures of success.

In this and in future posts l�ll describe some 4.0 career themes and how men and women illustrate them.� This is important because the transformations now underway in global societies, which became more dramatically apparent following the economic nosedive in September 2008, have tremendous implications for career survival and success.� The unstable, unpredictable new world upon us makes the 4.0 career orientation the path towards both outward success and personal well-being in the years ahead.

As a step towards finding the 4.0 career path, consider this little historical nugget: Continue reading →

Awakening The Common Good In Our Self-Serving Culture

The eminent historian Tony Judt, author of the seminal work Postwar, about the dynamics of Europe since World War II, has written an important new book, in my view, Ill Fares the Land.� The New York Times has called it a ��bleak assessment of the selfishness and materialism that have taken root in Western societies (that) will stick to your feet and muddy your floors. But the Times adds that �Ill Fares the Land is also optimistic, raw and patriotic in its sense of what countries like the United States and Britain have meant � and can continue to mean � to their people and to the world.�

In his review, Dwight Garner explains that Judt is describing the �political and intellectual landscape in Britain and the United States since the 1980s, the Reagan-Thatcher era, and he worries about an increasing and �uncritical adulation of wealth for its own sake.� What matters, he writes, �is not how affluent a country is but how unequal it is,� and he sees growing and destabilizing inequality almost everywhere.�

It�s heartening to see at least one �public intellectual� � a vanishing breed � lay out in a direct, forceful argument the accumulating toll of greed and self-centeredness that has dominated our recent political and social landscape.� Judt describes these themes as �elevated to a cult by Know Nothings, States� Rightists, anti-tax campaigners and � most recently � the radio talk show demagogues of the Republican Right.�

Judt observes, for example, that the notion that taxes might �be a contribution to the provision of collective goods that individuals could never afford in isolation (roads, firemen, policemen, schools, lamp posts, post offices, not to mention soldiers, warships, and weapons) is rarely considered.�� Click here for the full Times review.

I think Judt�s theme about serving the �common good� is growing throughout our culture.� It�s increasingly visible, for example, in the recognition that humans are �wired� for empathy and for serving something larger than their just their own needs — many of which are socially conditioned to begin with and fuel self-centeredness and narcissism.

In that vein I wrote about healing our �empathy deficit disorder� in my previous post, and author Jeremy Rifkin has argued much more broadly and in great depth about the rise of an �empathic civilization” in his major, well-documented new book.

I also see the awakening of interconnectedness and service to the common good increasingly visible in the rise of a new business model � one that combines having impact on the common good as well as achieving financial success.� The green business movement incorporates much of this emergence, as well as related trends towards sustainable investment, social entrepreneurialism and venture philanthropy.� I would add to those the growing recognition of the need for a psychologically healthy management cultures, as well.

Interesting, also, in Judt�s book is his argument that the left and right have switched sides, in a sense.� That is, he explains that today the right pursues radical goals, and has abandoned the �social moderation which served it so well from Disraeli to Heath, Theodore Roosevelt�to Nelson Rockefeller.� He argues that it�s now the left that is trying to conserve �the institutions, legislation, services and rights that we have inherited from the great age of 20th-century reform.�� For another interesting take on the �reversal� of the left and right from the 1960s to the present, see economist Ev Ehrlich�s two-part essay on his blog, Ev Ehrlich’s�Everyday Economics.

It sounds lame, but true: We�re sure living through some interesting times�.

Vermont Proposes Creating A “Beneficial Business” Corporation

Now this is interesting: �Legislation has been introduced in Vermont to create a new kind of corporation. �Different from a non-profit, it would provide social good for the community, while returning gains to investors. �In a Burlington FreePress article describing this legislation, Seventh Generation co-founder Jeffrey Hollender is quoted as syaing that the bill “provides Vermont with a very unique and important leadership opportunity.”

The FreePress reports that the legislation calls for new and existing for-profit corporations to elect status as a for-benefit corporation with the purpose, among other things, of creating public benefit. �The bill, called the Vermont Benefit Corporation Act, defines “public benefit” as “a material positive impact on society and the environment, as measured by a third-party standard, through activities that promote some combination of specific public benefits.”

Will Patten, executive director of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, backs the measure, saying “It’s a no-cost, positive piece of legislation that might have an impact on Vermont’s economy.” �Green Mountain Roasters is reportedly a prime candidate to become a benefit corporation, upon approval by two-thirds of shareholders, should the legislation become law. �Click here for the complete article.

This kind of hybrid corporation makes good sense in this era of economic and organizational turmoil and change — one that calls for out-of-the-box thinking about ways to combine economic success and service to the common good. �Increasingly, economists and others are observing that our institutions and their leadership vision are locked into 20th Century thinking and realities; and that new kinds of thinking and structures are needed to address the complex, interconnected issues facing societies and people today. �Harvard’s Umair Haque, among others, has been addressing these issues in his writings.

Gen X and Gen Y Careerists – Harbingers Of Change In Business and Personal Lives

I often hear a similar lament from both younger and older careerists�.about each other.� The younger workers say, �These older people just don�t get it.� They expect us to just fall into line, follow bureaucratic rules, and they don�t show us respect for what we know.�

And the older one�s say, �These young people just don�t understand how to function within an organization.� They want recognition, promotion, everything before they�ve earned it, like we have.� That�s not how reality is.�

It reminds me of a couple that once said about each other � �It�s not that we see things differently.� It�s worse than that:� We�re seeing different things!�

Exactly.� So, what can we make of this?� Is it simply the current generation gap?� I think it�s more than that.� It�s part of a broader, growing shift in the mentality of adults towards career, personal life and the role of business in society.� But it�s more visible and pronounced in the so-called Gen X and Gen Y workers, who are the offspring of those �older� workers � the Baby Boom generation now at midlife.

Some interesting research and survey data sheds light on what�s occurring.� For example, a study of 3,500 wage earners conducted by the Families and Work Institute of younger workers.� One finding was a dramatic shift among younger workers in how they handle hostile or abusive work environments:� They won�t stay very long in them, in contrast to how older workers traditionally behave � acceptance and suffering.� The younger workers tend to leave, confident that they�ll find something better.� Or, they �play� with the situation, not letting it get to them emotionally, while they craft an exit strategy.

Puzzling to older workers is that younger careerists want to know, �How quickly will I take on new responsibilities? How meaningful will my work be — immediately?�� They look for a collaborative atmosphere in which all members of a hardworking team share responsibilities. �Older people see this as Continue reading →

Behind the Obama Nobel Prize “Outrage”

I think the reasons suggested for the uproar over President Obama�s Nobel Peace Prize miss a deeper issue.� First, no one would dispute that Mr. Obama has not yet achieved the level of contribution to world peace that other honorees have.� He, himself, acknowledged that. �Critics of both right and left argue that the reward reflects an unhealthy cult of personality, and that his rock star status has overwhelmed better judgment.� Some point to the Europeans� apparent delight at sticking it to Dubya.� And, needless to say, racism is part of the angry outbursts as well.

But there�s a missing source of the outcry.� It�s probably less conscious; certainly less articulated.� It�s that the award gave a new focal point for mounting fears generated by a profound shift the world is undergoing on many fronts: The economic meltdown; global dangers and threats; the impact of climate change.� It�s an interlocking world, in which everyone has to figure out how to compete and collaborate with everybody else.� And it�s a diverse world – not �out there,� somewhere, but right here in people�s community and workplace.� Moreover, shifts in how people conduct their social, sexual and individual lives are visible all around.

In today�s new era of tumultuous change, we�re shifting from an environment of �old-style �command and control,� in private relationships, careers, and organizations, to �collaborate and cooperate.�

This wave-change, this new reality that the future has arrived, is very hard to digest for some. I�m not referring, here, to the Fox crowd — the right-wing commentators and pundits.� Most probably know better; and know what�s going on throughout our society and the world.� They may not like the changes taking place � perhaps symbolized for them by a black man in the White House.� But they�ve chosen to exploit fears among segments of the public hardest hit by these massive changes.� They�re exploiting them for their own avarice and self-promotion. Continue reading →

Psychologically Unhealthy Management: A Human Rights Violation?

Four years ago, U.N. Secretary�General Kofi Annan appointed Harvard professor John G. Ruggie to be Special Representative on business & human rights. This new mission was charged�with investigating human rights abuses by transnational corporations and other�business enterprises. Since then, it�s focused on such areas as discrimination,�pesticide poisoning, child labor, drinking water contamination, sexual abuse,�and the displacement of indigenous peoples.

But I think another,�largely overlooked category of corporate behavior deserves inclusion as a human�rights violation:� Management practices that damage the mental health of a company�s own employees.?? Unhealthy�management and leadership harms employees and, therefore, their work�performance. �Most everyone is familiar with the damaging effects of abusive, hostile, arrogant and narcissistic bosses; of manipulative or deceitful leadership behavior, often directed by senior management towards each other; workaholic demands that result in burnout and diminished productivity; intimidation and threats, subtle and overt; public denigration and humiliation; destructive political maneuvering and closet discrimination.� The list goes on.

Typical consequences for individuals include depression, rage, severe stress or anxiety, withdrawal, paranoia and, increasingly, lawsuits.

As a consultant to business leadership and a psychotherapist for 30 years, I�ve helped people at both end of the spectrum — from the mailroom to the corporate suite — deal with the consequences.� Moreover, I�ve seen an increase of such practices since the economic meltdown began in September 2008.

Unhealthy leadership and the culture it spawns Continue reading →

Values and Behavior Are Evolving Towards Success & Service To Others

Great Nicholas Kristof piece in NYT about Scott Harrison’s Charity: Water http://bit.ly/yfRgm

I interviewed Scott for an article I wrote in the Washington Post in 2007 and was impressed with his ability to put his business and media savvy and talents in the service of addressing a humanitarian problem.

Even more impressive and significant is his personal story arc: From an awakening out of a self-centered life; which led to an unexpected, almost serendipity experience; which led, in turn, to creating a successful venture — one that�s having tremendous impact on people who are deprived of something as basic as clean water. http://www.charitywater.org

I�m finding that people like Scott are emblematic of a growing evolution within personal values and behavior, today: Redefining success away from self-centeredness, greed and purely personal gain; and towards using your talents to serve the common good. �My study of this evolution suggests that it reflects an emerging new definition of psychological health that fits the needs of our post-globalized era.