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The political climate of the United States is a reflection of the political climate changes affecting the entire world. While others point in disgust and dismay at the evolutions of the Republican nomination, as well as the enormous gaps between Republican and Democrat, our issues are not so very unique.
As a planet, we appear to have evolved socially to the point where the main arguments revolve around our sense of responsibility for each other. Who owns the responsibility to make decisions for others and to what degree?
Should we have national health care? Should we involve ourselves in the affairs of others? Are we responsible for removing dictators from power when they abuse their populations? Do we, or do we not, impose our beliefs on those who are less trained? How are we using our sophisticated weapons and who has the right and the responsibility to do what? Who is responsible for the overuse of debt as a means to finance what we cannot afford, and who will pay the debt so we can get on with our lives?
We Are All Responsible
Our issues are not about who we should blame for our potentially catastrophic choices. These choices and their consequences are natural results of how the human being reacts to stimuli. We need to make the next leap in our evolution, own the entire mess as a jointly created consequence of being imperfect, and figure out what to do about it in a much more holistic way.
Certainly we can round up and punish everyone at the top responsible for creating financial tools that were self-serving and destructive. We can identify the extremists and attempt to take them out one at a time. We can bomb others for their gall in thinking that they have the right to create weapons like our own. At the end of the day, we will have solved NOTHING and we will have created the reasons for the next big divide.
We are all a part of this shift and we are all responsible for its pain. Do you not also react in fear when you are not making your numbers, pleasing your boss, having trouble paying your bills? Do we not all hope for someone to step in and save us from the precipice? Think of the choices you make every day, that in essence, are not so different from the choices that our politicians, whom we elect, are making for us.
It is not that we have all made the SAME mistakes. The nature of the mistakes we make is all the same. We are all, no matter where we live or what political party we follow, designed to react to perceived threat and perceived gain by protecting our own best interests. In attempting to maximize our individual and group existence, we take short cuts at the expense of others. Our understanding of what is good for us varies and that is a part of the dilemma.
Defining Where We Are!
We can look at any pocket of humanity and come to different conclusions about our level of enlightenment. If you look at some of the violent, war lord situations in various parts of the planet, one might think we have learned nothing. To observe Shock and Awe, we might come to the same conclusion. The future for mankind may well look bleak indeed. When observing the corruption in our political and economic systems, we again wonder how we can create any future for next generations.
That's the dark side.
The very nature of our political impasse however, speaks to something much more hopeful, particularly if we can step above our diversity and find the common ground. We fight over whether or not there should be government mandated health care. We debate, rather endlessly, whether it is good or bad to bail out failing companies. Our discussions about whether we should build a wall along the Mexican border are more than intense. They are personal and emotional.
Why? Each person's experience of the past causes him or her to form a fear. That fear, based on a concern that someone is abused, is the reason for the bias. We take sides about who needs protection from whom.
In the following examples, there is no judgment of right and wrong. These examples are offered simply to help define the problem.
Examples:
1. Does the baby need protection from the mother's will to extinguish its existence? Does the mother need protection of her right to choose the kind of life she wants?
2. Do the residents of this country need protection from illegal immigrants because they take jobs, resources, etc. away from our own needy? Do the immigrants need protection from intolerable situations which cause them to risk everything to come to the United States?
3. Do we need protection from extremists? Do extremists exist to protect their sense of abuse at the hands of us?
4. Do corporations need protection in order to save the jobs of the innocent? Do overwhelmed taxpayers need protection against poor leadership in corporations?
5. Do we need to protect our energy reserves for the future? Do we need to develop them now to protect us now?
These are just a few of the diverse ideas that are driving us further and further apart throughout the world. The more extreme the response, the more fear behind it. The things, about which we are most divided, have RIGHT on both sides of the issue. The problem is that when we take sides, we diminish our capacity to resolve these issues, and we spin in our righteousness, with the problems continuing to build and gather the energy to take us all down.
As We Mature....
This spinning over old problems is a symptom of our need to evolve to the next level with our humanity. We must recognize that we are all afraid.
Basically we all want the same things. We want to be safe, healthy and free to pursue our own ideas and agendas. While we particularly do not want to suffer, we really don't want others to suffer. We want to have enough to eat and a place to turn when things go wrong.
Making it more specific, we could focus on what divides our politics in this country. There will be few who would say that it is appropriate for a person not to have medical care. The issue may not even be about who pays for it, as you might think. The dividing line is in the execution. Those who are too lazy to do their part often ruin it for everyone. No one really wants to pay for someone who has decided that others should pay for them and then chooses not to work when they are quite capable. We want to be treated fairly, but it seems that we have failed miserably to create and enforce a fair system where individuals know that they will be covered, AND expected to contribute what they can.
In other words, if we simply take one of the multitudes of issues facing us, and find a way to determine what we want and don't want, we are really all on the same side.
It was more than a little interesting to see how the public related to Newt Gingrich during the brief time frame when he described us as one group and suggested that we had the power to solve all of these problems together. He offered logical solutions to the problems of our social systems: take the corruption out of health care, develop enough natural resources not to be perceived as dependent, put kids to work that want to work, allow people to choose where to put their retirements, and so on. We all want health care, we all want retirement options, we all want our kids to be responsible adults, and we all want to be independent, etc. How we get there is the question. People "heard" Leadership and responded strongly.
Suddenly, he went back to divisive messages and the large group that had perked up their ears to his strong message of collectiveness, retreated. It is possible that his temporary following should tell us something about politics that the polarizing data fails to capture. Many people, who are not necessarily the active political people with a much articulated agenda, want to step up to the next level.
Resonance and Its Importance to Solving Big Problems
Really sophisticated leaders learn early the importance of creating messages that resonate. A message which resonates is one which is easily discernible as wisdom. It removes argument and friction in its clear ability to override the areas of conflict.
How do these leaders find these resonant positions? They step back and look at the problems from a distance. They ask the question, "Which problem are we actually trying to solve?"
The word AND becomes very important in this quest for solutions. For example, when you look at whether or not you bail out the large company which has made multiple bad decisions over time, you must clearly state what problem you are attempting to solve in a way that causes everyone to appreciate what you are trying to do. Where people get stuck is because they see the problem as a question of either/or. "Either we save the company and let all these bad leaders get away with their behaviors or we let a lot of innocent people go down." Some can tolerate the innocents going down because their sense of outrage at the bad leaders is greater than their need to protect those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And others write off the bad leadership in their need to keep the company afloat.
If the question becomes, "How do we protect the jobs of innocent people AND make sure that bad leadership is not rewarded?" you are solving a different problem. In the outrage over the bailouts, that was the missing piece. Good leaders would have ensured that the decision makers were not rewarded for their idiocy, while at the same time they protected the company. Had they done so, the backlash would have been minimalized.
When attempting to find resonance, it is often a useful exercise to find the divide, and place the word AND between the root needs of the audience. First you must identify the root needs. "We need everyone who needs health care to be covered." "We do not want to become a welfare or socialistic state."
Where the separation occurs is when the participants assume it is either or. If we cover everyone, we become a welfare state. Or we do not cover everyone and we maintain our capitalistic society. What if the problem we were trying to solve was, "we will find a way to make sure that people get health care and we will do so in a way that protects the values of those who fear socialism." Again, we are solving that problem vs the problem of making sure everyone has health care. We are quite capable of solving any problem. We need to be sure we define our problems in a way that is inclusive as opposed to divisive.
A good leader must also assume that most of the people they address are ultimately good people. They will respond to TRUTH. It takes courage to move beyond the repetitive assertions of being right on an issue to look for solutions which solve the problems and meet your opponent's needs as well.
What we seem to lack are the leaders (and followers) who see the whole picture. We have become so completely divided that we no longer seem to remember which problems we were attempting to solve. Letting go of conflict-ridden beliefs, and reviewing intentions might help us all to create a bridge between us.
Yes, there are definitely bad people in the world. With any evolution, there are always thought leaders attempting to pull everyone along to an understanding of a kinder, gentler potential. Good leaders are not naïve. They recognize that they must adjust for those who have not evolved past the understanding that violence and clever conniving are the means to the end. A good leader will find a means to isolate those persons' ability to harm the rest and will continue to trust that a large portion of humanity is ready to move on!
Toni Lynn Chinoy has written multiple texts on leadership, bullies, power games and more. She is the founder of Harlan-Evans, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in organizational change and leadership development. Go to our web site to watch a short video on coping with difficult times and to sign up for our free newsletter addressing common professional issues. web site: http://www.harlanevans.com/
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