How You Can Change the World
It is rumored that in the late 1800s the famed psychologist William James was invited to speak at a conference about the history of psychology and its role as an emerging science.
The room was full of academics and researchers, all of whom were nestled in for what was expected to be a several-hours-long discussion. It is said, however, that upon James’ arrival to the podium he spoke for only a few seconds. “They’ve asked me to talk about the last hundred years of psychological research,” he is said to have told them. “It can be summed up in this statement: people by and large become what they think of themselves. Thank you and goodnight.”
This story is one of many that we tell in our upcoming book, Think Talk Create as it illustrates an important lesson of making an impact: to create change in the world, you must first believe yourself capable.
Suffice it to say there is ample opportunity for improvement. The coronavirus still has the world reeling, all while the existing problems we already had are only getting worse: civil political discourse has all but eroded, bad corporate actors are still poisoning the proverbial well, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians is still going off the air. (Okay, one of those is not like the others.)
Nevertheless, believing yourself capable of changing the world can be an incredibly daunting thought exercise. This can be reframed, however, by changing just one word. Instead of changing the world, change your world.
A few years ago, I was working with a senior manager at a large financial services organization. The company was a bit buttoned-up; beige walls, grey cubicles, blue shirts… you get the idea. This manager was sick of it though. He liked the work, but he couldn’t stand the company culture. Plus, it wasn’t an innovative environment. He led a technology team that needed to be ahead of the curve and constantly creating new solutions, which can’t happen by embracing the status quo.
During a meeting he shared his frustration. With gusto he shared his ardent belief that the company needed to change its ways. But, instead of strategizing with him about how to best email the CEO, I began to engage him in a fundamental aspect of the Think Talk Create process: active inquiry.
By posing an open-ended question, this manager began to see the forest through the trees. “What is something you might be able to do to as a manager to improve the culture of your own team?” I asked him. No matter how eloquent his email to the CEO was, it was unlikely that my client’s message would change the company. But he could certainly have a positive impact by focusing on his own team. Think of it as leading upwards by example.
One of those changes came with the meeting process itself. Instead of his team running through a laundry list of issues and assigning ownership, he encouraged team members to instead come prepared with an open-ended question about the problem at hand. By applying active inquiry to his team meetings, he greased the gears of innovation and soon his team was the envy of the building. Everyone wanted to work on this unit because of the culture my client built. Higher-ups noticed, and soon the larger company began to evolve as well.
So, while believing yourself capable is undoubtedly a necessary first step when changing the world, it can be helpful to reframe your mind and focus first on changing the world around you.
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Co-authored by David Brendel and Ryan Stelzer, Think Talk Create: Building Workplaces Fit for Humans will be published by the Hachette Book Group under the PublicAffairs imprint on September 21, 2021. Now available for pre-order.
