© Rick Feldman 2007
I’m on a journey here, to connect business and
organization lessons, the newest opportunities on the web, social action
values, and my general theme of thinking and acting purposefully. And,
philosophically, I’m concerned about the notions of acting-on-purpose I espouse
on the one hand, and the need to have community and shared responsibility on
the other.
It’s far too simple and easy to say that
individual responsibility will address issues of poverty, for example. I find
it necessary to remind ourselves that the individual has a range of choices and
options, and can and should act purposefully, while also being clear that
families, households, organizations, communities and nations must be founded on
ideals of compassion, shared social responsibility, and social justice. In
fact, my business oriented on-purpose approach is developed in an environment
of caring social connections.
My current journey really started while writing my initial
piece last month. I had recently started a discussion thread about acting on
purpose, I’ve even created a consulting and coaching program called OnPurpose to go along with this blog,
and in my main business --- Hassett Feldman Group --- we’re creating
publications, seminars, coaching, and “tools” all based on the theme of
“Success On Purpose” (t).
But I didn’t want to be glib or overly simplistic on the subject, and I knew that there were many philosophical as well as practical issues involved. I realized that this was a very rich subject area, and there would be the need for exploration and inquiry, as well as room for strong debates.
I then discovered that I had stumbled onto a new avenue to explore: the differences and connections between living with purpose and acting on purpose.
If you make use of the web and its opportunities, you’re probably already engaged in one of the most significant social changes in recent history. With roots in web and internet based political action, as well as in portals and virtual groups, the newest force is found in web-and-internet based global communities. I think of these as mega-sites, big in scale, big in scope, and big in agendas. Each of these communities and associated sites is dedicated to values and principles that drive very large scale social and economic actions. They take on profound issues at a global level while having immediate impacts on local and regional actions. The web technology now provides an easily traveled route from local to global and back again.
Here’s a list of some communities and sites:
Omidyar.net
FLOW (www.flowproject.net)
Communities of the Future (http://communitiesofthefuture.org)
Second Enlightenment (http://2enlightenment.com)
www.e2m.org (I’m biased about this; I’m on the board)
These are
national and international in scope. On more local to regional levels, there
are several leadership development sites (my current favorite is the one I’m
involved in, www.leadershiphampshire.org)
and business-shared value sites. One the best in operation is Hidden-Tech,
Inc.’s site, which has created a very energized and active virtual community in
one geographic area (www.hidden-tech.net).
And a collaborative site that attracts many authors on a variety of topics
while maintaining its own message is www.midlifejourney.com.
They all have
some common attributes: they invite and encourage a great deal of individual
and group interaction; they support and facilitate collaboration; they
facilitate community building; they are guided by sets of principles; they
present themselves as resources to help change or transform communities,
businesses, regions, and, in some cases, the world; and they all involve widely
diverse participants and groups. In fact, diversity is essential to each of
their missions and goals. And, finally, they each profess a new system,
approach or set of practices that are meant to provide real-world large-scale
solutions to pressing problems such that the world will be transformed through
their implementation. Economic systems will change, for example, resulting in
equality, sustainability, and prosperity. Communities will be able to
accomplish things --- social well-being for all inhabitants, for example ---
that are considered unaffordable or impossible now.
All of these virtual communities, sites, participants and founders also live with purpose. Vision and mission are driving these constructions forward. And that makes their very presence, as well as their missions, compelling. Those of us attracted to any of these, who may actually register on –line with one or more and participate in various on-line discussions and off-line actions, perceive value and benefit in engagement: changes and impacts these communities pursue will directly and positively benefit us as individuals and groups.
Break it down: with purpose involves vision, mission, compelling engagement and participation; on purpose involves planning, strategy, deliberate action, and method for making the with-purpose (the vision-mission driven organization) endeavor actually succeed. The organizations most likely to succeed are those that will completely merge the two aspects of purposeful living and action. They will be driven with purpose, and they will perform on purpose.
Acting on purpose alone is not enough; success and accomplishment requires with purpose as well. The “on purpose” approach when applied without vision and mission would become a technique without substance. One thinks of Enron-type corporate behaviors: all method, no content other than limited self-interest. One can also think of the expert who has no idea how or why to apply her or his expertise. Or think of a product that was produced without a user or the user’s interests in mind.
Having an organization with vision and mission without strategy, however, will not lead to successful implementation. It may be a compelling mission, but it won’t be accomplished, and it won’t lead to fulfillment of its own desired outcomes. I remember my own errors of omission, when I founded a wonderful business based on similar and earlier versions of internet-empowered community building technologies: we --- me and my business partners --- had amazing vision, and a compelling mission, but we lacked strategy and action-planning. We were ablaze in our little world for five years, but ended with lack of resources in 2000. Google was just launching: similar visions, great technology, and a powerful strategy.
Finally, these web-based initiatives tell me that excellent business models and highly functioning business leaders --- for example, FLOW’s founders include the CEO of Whole Foods, a flourishing supermarket chain --- can be completely compatible with mission-driven philosophies that have far more than self-interest at their cores. There is nothing about social action and public benefit that is incompatible with business success.
These web
enabled global communities may very well move the world toward successful,
publicly beneficial economies, sustainable environments and socially
responsible behaviors. They will accomplish this by having connected the
attributes of living with purpose to the best practices of acting on purpose.
Part 2: I can’t leave the discussion without first thinking about the stages of our own lives. I think of youth as being a time of all mission (living with purpose) but little knowledge and skill to know how to fulfill the mission. At a later stage, after learning that what we’ve done all our lives may not have as much impact or consequence as we had once hoped, the sense of “mission” diminishes. By that time in life, we’ve gained a great deal of skill and capacity for developing and implementing strategic actions; we get pretty good at “on-purpose” at a time when we are less compelled by “with-purpose”.
Between these two ends, most of us function in the middle phase. We have some belief in our sense of mission, feeling that we can make a difference at least locally, and we’re working hard to learn and use the skills of strategic action. In this middle phase, we stand our best chance of connecting with-purpose to on-purpose. If we work at that connection, we are very likely to alter our lives, and enable and empower ourselves to age with new capacity. We may become more realistic over time about our own powers and places in the world, but we need not diminish our sense of purpose. We will have learned that we are contributors and partners, able to be actively collaborating in community events, and that we can in fact continue to make a difference. We need to keep living with purpose and acting on purpose.I came to a life-changing and challenging realization relatively late in my life:
all I'm doing and considering --- career, job, family, pursuits, fears, actions and
non-actions ---- are, for the most part, the results of my own choices. And the
consequence is that I am living the life I've chosen. I may not like all of it; there
had been, at many times in my life, details I thoroughly disliked. There were more
than enough pains, results, disappointments, losses, struggles, and abysmal
circumstances. But they were almost all the results of my choices. Yes, there were
instances when some other person said or did something that did some harm to me,
or that created a difficult situation. Still, these were few, and even then I couldn't
really blame anyone for how I came to be in that situation in the first place.
I've read that there are really only three options available in any situation:
you can embrace it,
you can leave it, or
you can try and change it.
Complaining, worrying, wishing, re-living the situation, considering all the what-ifs
and should-haves, and regretting: none of this has much impact.
Again, every situation presents choice.
There is a large element of outside influence, those events beyond our own control.
Imagine the most horrific situations --- wars, hurricanes, being the victim of an attacker ---
and you come to the conclusion that there's more than individual choice at play. I'd then
have to ask: and what did I do inside that situation and what did you do afterward?
"Luck" may deal me the cards, but only I can play them. I make the subsequent choices.
With that realization comes thoughts about responsibility, and about outcomes.
If I have even three options (to accept and embrace; to leave; or to change the situation),
then the outcomes necessarily include the effects of my choices. I live the life ----
for better or for worse --- that I've chosen.
This is the underlying theme of my site. Within my consulting work, and in all I write
or do, is the theme of doing things, of acting or not acting, on purpose.
I had already lived out a fairly complicated and full life by the time of my little epiphany.
I had lived in poverty in one of America's worst neighborhoods while attending elementary school.
Yet earlier I had lived in Japan, when my parents were doing well, in the lap of luxury. I had studied
and earned degrees in several fields, but before that I had run away from home to hop freight trains
around the midwest. I've worked construction, I've managed businesses and organizations, I've
driven a taxi, and I've taught in high school (literature and trigonometry) and in college
(public policy analysis). During most of all that time, I felt that my life was being lived randomly,
and "things happened" by accident. I went with the flow. Yet, in truth, I was making decisions
and choices all the time.
Here's a blog, then, for those who want to engage in some critical thinking about being
deliberate, about making choices, and about being purposeful.