Living a sustainable life! Content V Context!

How context can make or break us…

There are so many cliches that come to mind when I think about how we live our lives. However, when I think of context, an old Bushido saying comes into the forefront of my mind “We should never obsess about if we are going to die, but instead focus on how we live as those whom live an honorable life will always die a glorious death.” Whilst meant for the warrior elite of Japan’s Samurai, the wisdom it holds has value and meaning for us all! If nothing else in our time here, living an honourable life is a context for all things great! Even in failure, it’s a respective premise for living and without that context, any ‘grand’ content is meaningless.

I have come to conclude that in business as in life, if we want to have an honourable existence, we should at least learn from or adopt in part or in full the Samurai’s code for defining honourable living.

Rectitude (義): Courage (勇氣): Benevolence (仁): Respect (禮 ): Honesty (誠) : Honour (名誉): Loyalty (忠義)

Rectitude - A morally correct method of thinking otherwise known also as righteousness

Courage - Courage to do the right thing. It’s a commitment to the world to be inherently good through ones intent and resulting actions

Benevolence - Kindness and well meaning to others

Respect - Respect for oneself as much as for others. Even in conflict, respecting one’s enemies existence in this world is required for honourable living

 Honesty - Never leaving a path of honest discourse and engagement with the world. In essence, be true to others, thus be true to oneself

Honour - Holding oneself in high esteem and never deviating from morally correct intent or a morally correct course of action

Loyalty - Holding true to one’s feeling of strong support for one’s leaders, family friends and society to which one is loyal to

To me, this is an arguably complete set of attributes that defines honourable living and is transposable into any area life with a degree of accuracy that impresses. So, if we can set our life on a road that embraces this context, what are benefits and pitfalls:

Benefits:

Like attracts like - Those who live an honourable life have a lighter spring in their step through the good times and a look of resilient character in the bad times. As the old saying goes “When we surround ourselves with like minded people, we can do great things”

Stress weight - The weight of anything we feel living an honourable life even in abstract failure is far outweighed by the mounting weight of dishonourable living where betrayals, deception, immoral and/or criminal actions of all kinds take a toll on body and mind

Clean Heart -  If we are to engage life and liberty in the pursuit of happiness, living an honourable life allows us a clean heart and a good context to be happy. There is no point having all the gold in China if all we can feel is the prickly thorns of bad behaviour we set ourselves up in.

Positive Impact - In giving and not taking, we use our abilities, our courage and commitment to contribute to this world in a sustainable manner where we leave a positive imprint as a legacy for others to benefit from. They in turn are inspired to do right by others and the cycle of good intent to positive outcomes continues.

 Pitfalls:

Giver Taker Mentality - Ever have a favour done for you and be asked nothing in return? Well if you are “that guy” and want to positively impact somebody else’s life in a similar manner then there are those who will admire you for it (givers) and those who will target you because of it (takers). Takers perceive givers to be weak and thus target them in an exploitative manner.

Short Term Loss - There is no doubt in my mind that doing the right thing can bring a downside that should not be overlooked. “Learned helplessness” is a term coined to capture the feeling of justification in business for allowing others to do the wrong thing because of their standing, associations or some other criterion that can come back to hit the observer where it hurts causing short term loss.

Troubleshooting Tip: Networking is a great way to make a coalition of like minded people who look after one another. Be careful to make your network in your likeness so you have like minded people around you. If you become targeted, their support could limit your losses and prevent untold suffering on your part. A single twig breaks easy in the wind, whereas many twigs together bend but never break in the wildest of storms that rip the mighty oak tree from the ground.

Betrayal - As you become who you want to be, there will always be people in business and in life looking to profit from, take advantage of and/or abuse your good nature. The most dangerous of these are those who can deceive you into thinking they are good folk when they are really targeting you to exploit you. Know your enemies so you can understand your friends and why they are by your side. In doing so, you limit your exposure to betrayal.

It is up to us to take responsibility for our lives, our actions and our mistakes as much as our successes. When we are old and grey in our chairs many years from now, wouldn’t it be nice to look back knowing you not only made a good life for yourself but you made a positive impact on the world by being true to yourself and how you chose to live! I know I’m on board, are you? Leave a comment with your opinion…

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Pics;

www.hobicell.com

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www.4photos.net

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The Moral Imperative... is it a leader's burden?

Is there a cost in “doing the right thing??”...

E.O. Wilson once said, “If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavour alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honourable and failure memorable.” It’s an agreeable point that those “committed” should carry a moral imperative and thus are influenced by honourable behaviour in the execution of their duties. In my view, this concept extends well beyond team leaders and manager to us all.

So, how does a moral imperative influence individuals, groups, cultures and companies? Its an open question for further consideration but In my view, it simply acts as a ruler for good behaviour highlighting bad behaviour when it occurs. We can be very quick to criticise our leaders and in some cases, the criticism is very warranted. However, its never all their fault despite how it may seem so what overt lessons do we take from their behaviour and apply in our own lives?

Outlook determines how we govern ourselves. If we claim to do the right thing considering the consequences of our actions on those around us, then our outlook will accordingly lend to decisions based on an outward looking viewpoint. This may place the individual at a disadvantage in the shorter term for just doing the right thing. However, the longer-term benefits are undeniable when a committed individual moves beyond short-term loss to longer-term gains.

Values determine the content of our moral imperative. If we believe in a sustainable future that is community based where our common success today will dictate the type of future for our children’s children, then our values will be more circumspect, social and interdependent in nature. They will also allow us to be more insightful as the power of people is engaged more readily through the values we carry in ourselves that drives our behaviour towards others.

Endeavour to embrace the vision of the enterprise, whether it is in short-term projects or long-term plans growing the business into a multi national giant of its time. When thinking about this, think about the moral imperative and how does good behaviour influence the company lifecycle. Does it take a longer to reach a more sustainable plateau of operational performance when doing the right thing? Is this agreeable with management and colleagues alike?

Results are important and sustainable results are the consequence of a sustainable business model being run by a management group that respects the moral imperative, making sure their people are equipped and supported in an informed manner to make their company great over time. Do results solely dictate how business is done or does the business dictate what results are possible? There is little time for “doing the right thing” if a business is doggedly driven to achieve unsustainable results at any cost. The cost over time will always outweigh the gain in the short-term acquiescence of unrealistic targets.

Turnover of staff can kill a business very fast. Many consider finance to be the king of business success, which is not the case. People are the king of business success from ideas to engineering to process to daily operations; people make or break a business. People nowadays don’t leave companies; they leave bad managers, so why not think about employee CHURN as a key metric in how culture, practice and vision are married in a tripartite chemistry defining the working environment for staff. Genuinely engage your staff and they will engage you! Profit will follow and continue to do so where leaders do the right thing and exercise the moral imperative.

So, to be O.V.E.R.T. is not only the right thing do so, its is the decree of the better professional who places the welfare of their company, their colleagues and their customers over their own knowing a better future for them lies in the success of the whole rather then any individual part. They give themselves over to the common success rather then taking short-term success for themselves at the expense of the company and/or their colleagues to their left and the right. When we do the right thing in business and in life, we notice the moral imperative is something others tell us about and we just do…  

Sources/Credits:

Pics:

www.relevantinfo.org

www.iamrambling.com

www.bizwords.co.uk

http://www.brandonbaney.com

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