I was thinking deeper of what Gandhi did not say in his famous quote, “Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits.”. Your habits become your identity.”
What Gandhi did not say is that if we lose control of our thoughts, then our words become less controllable and erupt from our mouths without assessing the damage we cause to ourselves and others.
If we lose control of our words, we then lose control of our behaviors, which become irresponsible and even less controllable, leading to much lessened controllable habits.
Less controllable means moving steadily towards complex behaviors that may end up as chaotic. We cause ourselves to become complex, and so we need to deal with ourselves first before knowing how to deal with the complex outside world.
It is of paramount importance to do self-discovery before we slide into the complexity zone, in which we do not have any control over our thoughts and words, and become erratic.
This is in line with a comment that Sujit Patel wrote on the importance of self-discovery: “Agree – Be Visionary with Self-Discovery. One should have the ability to recognize one’s own opinions-emotional state-thoughts-actions, and the influence/impact they have on the external world. In a way – identify strengths-weaknesses-emotions-limitations-values – and dissect on how your complicated internal inner world workings shape your external behavior”.
How to Manage a Complex Behavior?
A complex personality or behavior puts a person in a VUCA state. VUCA is an acronym that stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity — qualities that make a situation or condition difficult to analyze, respond to, or plan for.
I find the best one can do here to solve his complexity is to use anti-VUCA. The antidote for VUCA is VUCA, consisting of (Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility), as suggested by Warner Burke of the Teachers College at Columbia University.
Even better is combining the antidote for VUCA with the complex zone in the Cynefin framework, consistent with Probe-sense-respond.
Complex: A situation is complex when there are too many variables to identify the cause-and-effect relationship in advance and come up with a reliable solution. Complex situations are usually agile, and so agile management methods should therefore be used. A complex situation can be tackled through probe-sense-respond.
This is the magical trick. You need to probe your behavior and try to find out your repeated patterns of behavior to adjust them and break the simple rules leading to such behavior.
VUCA leadership acknowledges the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous nature of the environment in which organizations operate. Extend the same to be a leader of yourself by acknowledging your complex behavior and taking the agile steps necessary to simplify your behavior and make it more controllable.
This is the way to move out of our complexity. Do you agree?
Oh Brother Ali,
There is so much here, so many insightful points, so many connections to my thinking at the moment, that I don’t know. where to begin.
I love your elucidation of what Ghandi didn’t say. Any disruption in the process he outlined, any loss of control ends badly, but it all begins with our thoughts.
I love the antidote to VUCA (Vision, Understanding, Clarity, Agility) knowing direction, and the “why” and proceeding with cleareyed purpose but openness and flexibility are the path for the chaotic times we face. And first to apply this antidote to self-leadership is the path.
I have long been fascinated by any interactions and overlaps between Bennet and Lemoines VUCA model and Snowden’s Cynefin model and simplifying, experimenting, and establishing patterns, while maintaining flexibility, seems an appropriate path.
I am amazed that you quote Warner Burke, with whom I studied at Columbia. I met Warner because I worked behind George Litwin for ten years and was “in the wings” as George and Warner collaborated on the Burke-Litwin Model of Organization Dynamics. These two are giants in my field of Organization Development.
Thank You.
Alan Culler – Brother Alan- you mesmerized me with the depth of your comment.
You understood me perfectly well in your paragraph, “I love your elucidation of what Gandhi didn’t say. Any disruption in the process he outlined, any loss of control ends badly, but it all begins with our thoughts.”
That was really the main motive for me to share this post.
I did not have the privilege of having any personal contact with Warner Burke as you and I am sure you learnt from him a lot. I only know him through some of his writings which I admire and enough to quote him in my post.
The interactions between VUCA, Anti VUCA and the Cynefin framework are amazing and show that agility and adaptability are the torches for us to walk safely in VUCA environments as you explained wonderfully in your comment.
Great comment that comes from your brain. Thank you
My friend, I absolutely agree with your arguments………but you are attacking my ability to imagine a decent comment to your fascinating illuminations.
I’ll try!!
We are all imperfect and we know it. At the root of most emotional difficulties and human discomfort, there are precisely irrational ideas about ourselves, others and the world. What matters is knowing ourselves and developing a strategy to accept or even reduce/eliminate our complexities that can, otherwise, determine inappropriate behavior.
Therefore, knowing ourselves thoroughly we must (and can) train our emotional agility alone or with the help of a professional. If we apply a more agile and flexible mental approach, then we will be able to get in touch with our thoughts and emotions with more compassion.
Emotional agility teaches us to accept emotions, as well as every sensation, every idea that passes through our mind, in order to shape them and replace them with healthier reasoning.
Aldo Delli Paoli Now, I do not know what to add to your accomplished comment and its sharpness.
Enough to read “What matters is knowing ourselves and developing a strategy to accept or even reduce/eliminate our complexities that can, otherwise, determine inappropriate behavior.”
I also greatly appreciate your coverage of the value of netter understanding ourselves and how this help us gain emotional agility.
“Emotional agility teaches us to accept emotions, as well as every sensation, every idea that passes through our mind, in order to shape them and replace them with healthier reasoning.”
My friend Aldo your comment is enough to make me satisfied because I know the message of the post was communicated properly.
So glad you found value in this one,
Thank you for your unfailing support.
Always my pleasure to learn from your rich comments and posts. Thank you, Aldo