I have been reading Peter Block’s book ‘The Answer to How is Yes- Acting on What Matters’. In the last ten or so years, I’ve been reading and enjoying academic- type text books. As a result, I’ve had a very low tolerance for self-help books or ‘airport’ books. Whether it is pure coincidence or whether I was unconsciously moved by my present situation to reach for this book- Peter’s writing has surprised me.
In the last few months I have been heavily involved in a large post merger integration project. Having turned away from this type of project for some time, this time round, I am aware of coming to it from a different place. This time round, I have found the moral complexity of such projects much harder to grock. Way ‘back there’ when I was immersed within the corporate world, I dedicated myself to the success of ‘the business’ without hesitation. Even though way back then, I was totally aware of 'business'/ 'markets'/ shareholder value etc., I hadn’t quite ‘seen’ the realities of it, what it’s really like. This time round, as someone from the 'outside' I am struck by how much clearer I see the moral and ethical complexities. Deals like this one could be seen in many different ways: a handful of people making a lot of money for themselves; Shareholders/ investors being very happy with the 'performance' of the firm; a ‘eat or be eaten’ marketplace where acquisition is a way of surviving; a system morphing and changing it’s shape and form; natural dynamics of contraction and expansion; culture clashes etc. What I have found particularly difficult is to stand up for the value of people when everything that is happening seems to run contrary to this.
In the melie of structural integration and a drive for speed on return on investment through rapid realisation of cost synergies, it is hard to attract attention on the issue of value- in particular, that human value cannot be mandated, that value is created over time, that value is not just held by individuals but is developed within a social and cultural field and that real breakthroughs can only come about when we have time and space to make the ‘right’ decisions that not only make sense but they sit right with us morally and ethically. In this context, value is intricably tied up with knowing what matters to us as people who matter and to take action based on what we know to be true. What I am struggling with most is the feeling that at the highest level of organisations- often described as the ‘strategic level’ of an organisation, people become more relative and more complex- I often find it difficult to get a solid sense of what is ‘true’- that there are many layers of ‘truth’ and that there is always something cooking in the background that cannot be shared. In the company of people who operate on a ‘it depends’ basis, I feel like I am in a hall of mirrors. In a transactional environment, it is very difficult to do the kind of work that is about people- not people as names and numbers but people as people- with lives, feelings and infinite creativity- without being regarded as ‘soft’ or ‘touchy feeley’. In this world of numbers and processes, work that does not lend itself to KPIs or targets seems utterly irrelevant. Everyone says it's important but does it matter? Do we matter? Of course, the loudest critic is me and the person to convince that what matters to me has value beyond the conventional organisational KPIs and targets is also me. It has taken Peter’s book to remind me of the importance of knowing what is important for me and to be more intentional and conscious in making a commitment to that which matters to me.
Another theme that has struck a chord with me is the subject/ object aspect of our existence. Peter argues (and I agree with him) that in our transactional world, we have been swept into the default culture of objectifying ourselves and each other as we allow ourselves to be treated as consumers rather than citizens, authors and artists of our lives, our communities and our society. The consumerisation of people is so insidious that we are mostly unaware of how much we have turned into steps in a process. We consume and are in turn consumed by a process-driven society. With this renewed awareness of citizenship, my mind turns to my epic journey in Poland in trying to set up a foreign legal entity here. It has tested my patience until I had no choice but to give into the process taking it's course.
It has taken three months in the making and today, finally, everything seems to be in place. We have arrived. The enormity of the epic journey would have completely passed me by had I not been asked by a local bank to hand them a variety of documents. In their infinite helpfulness, our accountants put together a large folder of documents for us to take to the bank. Yet none of this would have really registered with me had I not opened this folder and read it’s contents. Then it dawned on me. That this folder was a physical testiment of the huge amount of human effort it took from an idea in my mind to the actuality of a legal entity being officially registered and recognised by the polish courts. At a minimum, it took: Two trips from Poland to the UK, my accountant in the UK, accountants in Poland, Solicitor in Poland, Sworn Translators, Notaries, clerks, Court officials, banking staff, bank manager, courier in the UK, agents at the FCO, postal service staff and taxi drivers to make this whole thing come together. I read with renewed fascination at the sworn translations- that someone had faithfully translated official documents so that they can be verified. I was deeply touched as I realised that every page was touched by helping hands that made it possible for us to be here to do what we were here to do. The question is, why am I Here?
