In an era beset by an overabundance of information, fake news, digital oceans, virtual realities, we can easily feel disoriented and lost. What should we believe? How can we face the future?
We are not the first to try to understand reality. Human beings have been searching for truth, for life’s meaning and direction since the beginning of time. In the first month of the year, a time when assessments and plans are being made and our gaze turns to the near future, we can perhaps appeal to the wisdom of our ancestors to gain a wider perspective.
Widening our perspectives
For thousands of years man’s existence has been ruled by myths, unyielding forces to whom men offered sacrifices, slaughtering human beings, giving up life’s pleasures or submitting themselves to coercive practices. These supreme forces were supposed to explain events in the world and in men’s lives, to justify personal misfortune, devastating storms or moments of joy and prosperity. Myths sometimes enabled man to avoid responsibility when searching for the meaning of life and a reason for personal choices, since superior forces determined his destiny. Men suffered these forces and considered them the cause of life’s misfortunes, including those for which they may have been responsible.
Thanks to philosophy, for the first time in the history of mankind, Greek thinkers abandon the idea of a life guided my myths and face their life, their choices, their contradictions. From the very beginning philosophy finds its raison d’êtrein the search of absolute and indisputable wisdom: Truth (with a capital T).
For the early philosophers this search for Truth consists in appealing to the “Whole”, i.e. everything that surrounds us and of which we are a part.
According to early Greek philosophers Truth cannot be found in a single facet of reality, but in things in their Wholeness. Hence the cause of our fights or disagreements must be looked for in our inability to look at the Whole and our tendency to concentrate on a single feature.
Turning our attention to the Whole can help us accept a complex situation in which different parties disagree, each party standing up for his/her position. In this case, the manager/leader should stand above the fray and examine the situation in all its complexity and its different aspects in order to find a solution that will respect and benefit the common goal, i.e. the company’s mission, above and beyond personal concerns. Designing a wider perspective which everybody will find suitable, while at the same time respecting and enhancing each single role, bolsters cooperation.
Looking at facts to keep the focus
Two concepts will help us define the Whole. I promise their definition will be brief!
The first concept pertains to Physis, which Aristotle defined as the part of the Whole corresponding to reality that takes place every day under our eyes. In corporate language Physis means offices, people, business presentations, projects, etc. If we examine the word’s Indo-European root, we also find other meanings, such as “being”, “light”. The meaning of Physis is therefore “that which exists”, that which we can concretely observe in the light of day.
It is necessary to bear in mind this concept of observing reality when we start pondering on what we think others think about us or when we are faced with gossip or rumors. Physis reminds us that nothing is stronger than concrete facts and that often, in order to avoid the whirlwind of fear and corporate “psychosis”, it is healthier to stick to concrete facts.
The Whole is also the Kosmos. In the days of classical Greece (V-IV century B.C.) this word referred to the universe as an orderly and harmonious system, as opposed to the original Chaos.
The main feature of Kosmos is therefore order seen as the integration, interrelation and interdependence of all the parts that make it up, thus keeping the System in balance. This shows that each part plays a role that is not subject to value judgments, since it is necessary for the harmony of the entire System and a crucial condition for its very existence. Each of us contributes to the increase or decrease of order and balance, and also, at the same time, to its disruption. Have you ever noticed the reactions you elicit when you arrive in the office in a bad mood? Or the effect a calm person has when you are upset? Whether we like it or not our moods condition others, awaken or stifle their desire to open up with us and are responsible for the harmony or disharmony that ensues.
Would you rather be considered as bearers of Chaos or Kosmos?
Overcoming disagreements thanks to Arché
Arché encompasses all that is identical in different things, shows where things come from and go back to, explains the beginning that governs the world and the force that supports it. Based on Archè, ancient philosophers have demonstrated that appearance is a deceptive guide to things. Only the Whole, the essential principle that shapes us and in which we recognize ourselves, represents the well-founded Truth that should guide our actions. We must therefore adapt our behaviour to the principle of unity and comprehension of the interdependence of all things, roles and functions.
In this context differences no longer bring about separation, but rather enrichment, because they are nothing but a different manifestation of something that is essentially like us.
Let’s think about disagreeing with someone. As a coach, I have noticed that often people disagree because they think they are in disagreement, rather than because they really disagree. Appearance prevails over factual truth. What is lacking here is a complementary perception and some curiosity. A few days ago, in an executive committee workshop, during a heated discussion punctuated by disagreements, when the situation seemed to be stalled and everybody kept repeating his own idea without listening, the Financial Manager asked the Marketing Manager the “magic question”: “could you tell me why you think that it is so?” Suddenly, everybody calmed down and the ensuing explanation enabled everybody to understand the Marketing Manager’s logic and reach the conclusion that there had been a misunderstanding. Finally, the group found a solution which nobody had thought of before and which suited everybody. Arché at work: finding a common feature in apparently different issues.
As the American poetess Audre Lorde writes: “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences.”
How can we extricate ourselves from endless (and useless!) discussions by listening to all the parties without prejudgment or personal interpretations? What would be the implications of the acceptance of a complex situation without trying to dissect it but on the contrary attempting to find common features in each single position?
It’s what we call today “letting go”, i.e. stopping to want to impose a specific meaning to everything that surrounds us, with the awareness that our way of looking at things is only a point of view among many others, that things exist and have their own meaning, quite apart from the meaning we would like to give them so as to delude ourselves into believing that we dominate them.
Heraclitus said: “men who are awake have one common world; men who are asleep have their own world” . The latter, according to Heraclitus, are men with strong beliefs, who try to impose their own meaning to things, ultimately to no avail. Could the manager’s/leader’s role be the “awakening” of those who are still “philosophically” asleep?
Reality lies in the eyes of those who look at it. The beginning of the New Year could offer us all the opportunity of adopting a new look.
