4
The Thematic in a Nutshell (A brief explanation of the Intent Thematic as explained by its key terms) The Problem 00:00 - Current common sense dictates that our lives are concerned with the pursuit of self- interest and that altruism, at best, is enlightened self-interest. This assumption has had catastrophic consequences for ourselves as individuals, for the groups we interact with, and for the power relations we participate in. GROUP/TEAM EXCELLENCE 00:15 - It is intuitively sound to say to somebody that groups succeed when individuals act for reasons bigger than their self-interest. The measure of the success of a company, for example, is the profit or the surplus it produces. By definition a surplus only exists because the people who are co-operating in an enterprise produced something bigger than what they collectively took out. In other words they gave more than what they took. PERSONAL EXCELLENCE 00:38 - The issue is that people actually think that when they act for reasons that are bigger than their self-interest they are cutting their own throats. And when they acting in their own self-interest they are doing what is good for them. In truth, exactly opposite is the case. 00:50 - When you ask people what they want out of life, you always get a bag of words that have four themes in them. 00:55 - Firstly, there will be a theme around security: “it’s important to feed my family, to have a roof over my head, to pay the bond” and then there is a theme around fulfilment: “it’s important to have a sense of learning and challenge” there will also be a theme around significance or power: “that it is important for me to be recognized by others.” And there will be a theme around harmony. 01:14 - Security, Fulfilment, Power and Harmony 01:16 - And they think that to pursue their own immediate self-interest is the best way to get those four things. 01:22 - What they don’t realize is that those four things are the product of acting on the basis of everybody else’s interests rather than your own. Every moment that you’re in, you are always faced with two issues. There is a set of issues around what you are getting from the world, and a set of issues related to what you are giving to the world.

Introducing The Schuitema Thematic (Transcript)

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Introducing The Schuitema Thematic (Transcript)

The Thematic in a Nutshell (A brief explanation of the Intent Thematic as explained by its key terms)

The Problem

00:00 - Current common sense dictates that our lives are concerned with the pursuit of self-

interest and that altruism, at best, is enlightened self-interest. This assumption has had

catastrophic consequences for ourselves as individuals, for the groups we interact with, and for

the power relations we participate in.

GROUP/TEAM EXCELLENCE

00:15 - It is intuitively sound to say to somebody that groups succeed when individuals act for

reasons bigger than their self-interest. The measure of the success of a company, for example,

is the profit or the surplus it produces. By definition a surplus only exists because the people

who are co-operating in an enterprise produced something bigger than what they collectively

took out. In other words they gave more than what they took.

PERSONAL EXCELLENCE

00:38 - The issue is that people actually think that when they act for reasons that are bigger

than their self-interest they are cutting their own throats. And when they acting in their own

self-interest they are doing what is good for them. In truth, exactly opposite is the case.

00:50 - When you ask people what they want out of life, you always get a bag of words that

have four themes in them.

00:55 - Firstly, there will be a theme around security: “it’s important to feed my family, to have

a roof over my head, to pay the bond” and then there is a theme around fulfilment: “it’s

important to have a sense of learning and challenge” there will also be a theme around

significance or power: “that it is important for me to be recognized by others.” And there will

be a theme around harmony.

01:14 - Security, Fulfilment, Power and Harmony

01:16 - And they think that to pursue their own immediate self-interest is the best way to get

those four things.

01:22 - What they don’t realize is that those four things are the product of acting on the basis of

everybody else’s interests rather than your own. Every moment that you’re in, you are always

faced with two issues. There is a set of issues around what you are getting from the world, and

a set of issues related to what you are giving to the world.

Page 2: Introducing The Schuitema Thematic (Transcript)

www.careandgrowth.com

2

Security

01:38 - If you base your security on what you are getting from the world, you’ll never be secure.

Whereas if you base your security on the basis of what you are contributing or giving you’ve

always got control over that, and you’ll therefore be secure. And the asset that best

demonstrates this is the house: because a lot of people think that security is wrapped up in

owning a house.

01:57 - The brand promise of security is that it promises to make you secure, it promises to

stand between you and catastrophe. Like your house is going to do that. If someone beats you

to a pulp today and you go home I don’t think your house is going to say: “Caroline who beat

you up?” On the other hand if you walk up to your front door and you see the neighborhood

hooligans have sprayed a red X on your door, you’d probably be annoyed. So, are you there to

look after the house, or is the house there to look after you?

02:22 - You can make a very solid argument to say that the more assets you own, the less

secure you are. So your security is never based on what you have or get. Your security is based

on what you are able and willing to give.

Fulfilment

02:33 - Exactly the same argument has to be true for happiness and fulfillment. If my happiness

is based on what I am getting from the world, I will be discontented. If my happiness is based

on the quality of what I am contributing, because I’ve always got control over that, I will be

fulfilled and happy.

Power

02:48 - The implication of this to power becomes very obvious if you consider what happens

when you want something from somebody else. Say you want somebody’s watch. Clearly their

ability to withhold the watch gives them power over you. So if you want something from

somebody else, their ability to withhold what you want gives them power over you and makes

you manipulable.

03:05 - Whereas if I want to give somebody something, what I’m trying to give them they have

no power over. In other words my weakness is based on what I am getting from somebody and

my power is based on what I’m willing to give or lose. This is true in any context. It’s true in any

transaction.

Harmony

03:21 - This is implications for harmony too, your ability to withhold your watch gives you

power over me, you can manipulate me and that makes you dangerous to me. Not only are you

dangerous to me, but precisely because I’m trying to get something out of you, I am dangerous

to you. So while I want the watch, you are dangerous to me and I am dangerous to you. And

because we are dangerous to each other, we are going to have conflict.

Page 3: Introducing The Schuitema Thematic (Transcript)

www.careandgrowth.com

3

03:42 - On the other hand, if I shift my intent in the engagement from what I’m trying to get

from you to how I can be helpful, then first of all you can’t withhold the watch so you lose your

power over me and I’m safe from you. But precisely because I want to be helpful to you, you’re

safe from me. And if I’m safe from you and you’re safe from me, we have harmony.

03:59 - So what we have to understand is that things that we try to pursue in our lives, which is

security, fulfillment, power and harmony, are actually based on the intent to give

unconditionally. The more you construct your intent and your engagement with the other on

the basis of serving them and acting in their best interest, the more you earn those four fruits

of life.

04:18 - So there isn’t this contradiction between the social good and the individual good. It’s

the same thing. When people act on the basis of their immediate self-interest they are

producing an experience of the world which is hostile to them, they’re acting in conflict with

the world. They are discontented, and insecure. Whereas people who are doing the opposite

achieve the opposite.

LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE

04:37 - Now the question is: what does that mean for relationships of leadership in the world?

When we ask people to define leadership they normally say something consistent with the idea

of achieving a result through people. The intent of that statement is clearly to take. The

implication is that people are the means. Now if I am using you as a means to achieve

something from you, clearly I am out to get something from you. So the current take on

leadership is that they are there to get things out of subordinates.

The Ideal Boss

05:04 - If ask people, intuitively, to construct an ideal boss, they will say a boss who is kind, who

is approachable, who listens, who is supportive, who is honest, who is fair and who gives me an

opportunity to learn. What you get is a huge bag of words. But there are synonyms in that bag.

And you can distill them it to two core themes.

05:24 - The first is concerned with care. What the subordinate is actually saying to the boss is:

have a genuine interest in me, don’t just be in this relationship to get something out of me.

Care about me. But then there’s a harder theme. If you are looking for someone who is honest,

they won’t always be nice. Sometimes they will say things that are upsetting. The reason why

you want the honesty is because it helps you to understand where you are, and what you can

learn and therefore how you can grow. So the two themes that come out of this ideal boss is

care and growth.

05:55 - These themes are universal: we found them from Japan, among employees in gold

mines in South Africa, in military organizations, wherever you go, every human being on the

planet says: the boss I work for because I want to, cares for me sincerely and gives me an

opportunity to grow.

Page 4: Introducing The Schuitema Thematic (Transcript)

www.careandgrowth.com

4

Care and Growth and Legitimacy

06:10 - If you work for somebody because you really want to, because they do all those things

for you, if that person asks you to do something, you’d probably do it. Which means you give

that person the right to ask you to do something, or to exercise power over you. Which

suggests that these criteria of care and growth are the universal criteria for legitimate power.

06:29 - The first relationship of power you have with another person in your life is with your

parents and there are two people in that relationship: there is the big one, and there’s the little

one. The job of the big one for the little one is very specific its care and growth. In other words

the job of the big one for the little one in any relationship of power is care and growth.

Achieving People through Results

06:45 - Now that requires a shift in the intent of the boss, from the big one, from being here to

get something out of the subordinate, to being here to give something to the subordinate.

What care and growth requires of people in command relationships is that they invert how they

view their jobs. Their role isn’t to achieve a result through people. Their role, and it sounds

bizarre, is to achieve people through results. And very often people in executive positions say,

you’ve just left the planet, you must have been smoking your socks, doesn’t make sense.

07:11 - If you think about it however that’s exactly what a good coach does. A bad coach walks

to a team and says: my job as coach is to achieve results and I am going to use you, Mr. Athlete,

as my resource to do that. In fact, it is the athlete’s job to produce a result. The coach’s job is to

care for the athlete, to grow the athlete. That does not mean to say that the coach loses

interest in the job. Clearly he watches what happens on the field and what happens on the

scoreboard, because those things are his job, those are the means of doing his job which is to

coach the athlete.

07:42 - He literally uses the job as the means whereby he produces an athlete. His product is an

athlete. Until people in command relationships – whether in the state, whether in corporates,

whether it is enterprises, understand that their product is the people working for them we will

stay in crisis, we will continue to turn the forests into chop sticks, we will continue killing off the

frogs in Canada, we will continue eating up this big cheese we are sitting on until there’s

nothing left.

08:08 - We have to change this insanity of thinking that self-interest is the way to pursue our

wellbeing as a species. The pursuit of self-interest destroys you as an individual; it destroys you

as a group that you’re working for and completely undermines the legitimacy of the

relationships of power in any establishment.

08:25 - End