Don't Compromise!

Through the centuries, mankind has been oddly obsessed with its own nature and with reviewing, reflecting on, analysing and debating what we call ‘the human condition’. Such is the complexity of our experience that we struggle even to define it, embracing as it does biology, theology and religion, geography, philosophy, sociology and an academy of other disciplines. Progress – another word whose meaning we could (and do) debate – may have impacted on human life to the extent that some of our eternal struggles are easier to address for the more fortunate of us. Yet the human condition remains – if not always acute – what we might describe as chronic. Indeed those very words echo from one online forum written in the wake of the New Orleans hurricane:

Also, I think it is stories of struggles like Tootie’s in a place like New Orleans that teach us not of how separate we are in our various experiences with pain, but how alike we are in our expressions of it. There are great moments when we are reminded that the human condition is chronic.”

Great minds from many disciplines have observed and explored human behaviours. In some cases, the amoral veil of scientific endeavour has allowed them not to register their bewilderment or disapproval but it seems generally fair to say that, as a species, we have (in the dread words of old school reports) “room for improvement”. Here are just a few of the verdicts we have reached:

No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa.”
Eugene Ionesco

Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.”
George Soros

Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition. Let Othello subject Desdemona to a lie-detector test; his jealousy will still blind him to the evidence. Let Oedipus triumph over gravity; he won’t triumph over his fate.”
Arthur Koestler

If you were to describe us to the proverbial Martians, one curiously salient facet of humanity might be our capacity or penchant for escapism. If dolphins (to pick just one example that Douglas Adams might have recommended) share our capacity for whimsy or fantasy, they are keeping it to themselves: perhaps the “dolphin condition” is simply one from which there is less desire to escape?

Certainly many human lives have repetitious elements from which escape would be a relief and a blessing – for individual concerned, for others or for everyone. And even poor time management can be escapism if what’s being avoided is self-discipline or responsibility.

Behaviours such as alcoholism or substance abuse might at first glance seem considerably more challenging than a manager’s inability to delegate or to empathise with or inspire others. But as Carl Jung observed:

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.”

It’s also highly pertinent that we tend to use one set of “wrong” behaviours to attempt to tackle another. Because we value knowledge and learning – indeed, many human cultures prides themselves on it – it is often too tempting to believe that if only we knew better, we would be better. Yet most inappropriately or ineffectively behaving line managers are just as aware of their shortcomings as a chain smoker is aware of the dangers of lung cancer or passive smoking. No matter how much factual knowledge a human being may have between their ears, their hands and mouths can continue to demonstrate quote astonishing shortfalls in wisdom. Ignorance isn’t necessarily bliss – not even for the ignorant, let alone their acquaintances.

In tackling our shortcomings, it is self-knowledge that is important – although it is the start of the journey, not the end of it. And while we’re not suggesting that they stand in turn and introduce ourselves – “My name is Gordon and I’m a Regional Operations Manager” – this is as true when looking at managers in the workplace as it is for alcoholics in admitting their powerlessness over alcohol. The most famous treatment for alcoholism – Alcoholics Anonymous – is an intervention, but not a “cure”: participants have the knowledge that they remain an alcoholic, they’re just not drinking at the moment. (As we said earlier: chronic, not acute.) They also, however, have the support network and structure of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the understanding and fellowship of others on the 12 Step programme. Though the will to stop and the desire to face their issues comes from within them, they do not confront their demons.

Substance abuse and addiction is an emotive and dramatic example of an element of human life that can affect each of us: the more humdrum terminology would be to call them “bad habits”. In exploring consistent harmful or inappropriate behaviour, the 12 years of research – which they describe as “a scientific revolution” – undertaken by James Prochaska and his colleagues are almost a reference back to Jung. Monitoring and observing the progress of thousands of people seeking cures for behaviours like cigarette smoking and eating disorders, their conclusions should be illuminating to anyone involved in workplace performance improvement and development.

Not least is the finding that 95% of us are incapable of ‘self-change’ without false starts, failures or relapses. When it comes to trying to change our behaviour, failure is normal for the overwhelming majority of us – even gravity is only 5% more ubiquitous.  Though the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous may not have had intensive research to guide them, they had discovered a fundamental truth about how we change our behaviour: we call on – indeed, we rely on – the help of others

In their ground-breaking “Changing for Good“, the authors defined a “stage-based” approach to behavioural change in which subjects move through six psychological states or “stages”. While any number of techniques can be effective, timing is critical: applying the “right” technique during the wrong stage either produced no benefits or triggered a relapse.

Prochaska’s studies also showed that each stage requires the active involvement of what he refers to as “helping relationships” – people who are there at those critical moments of failure, relapse and self-doubt, to non-judgementally offer encouragement, advice and reassurance that will enable the ‘changer’ to move forward once more. Even where we avoid relapse, our momentum must be maintained.

What Prochaska and his colleagues – and the AA – teach us all is that change is difficult. Changing behaviour in particular takes time, and determination. But it also takes something else – the support and involvement of others, whether they be line managers, peers, coaches, colleagues, partners or friends. There will still be hesitations, failures and relapses … but we may get past them with each other’s help. Another of those considered to be one of our great minds, Aldous Huxley, should have felt no shame at his own observation:

It’s a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘Try to be a little kinder.’”

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