Belief

This might seem like a strange topic for me to write about given my usual subject matter, but strangely it fits. One of the things I’ve noticed is how important it is that both people, and companies, believe in something. This week I’m going to write about what I mean by that, why it matters, and what it looks like in practice, for both people and groups.

Belief is a very unfashionable word these days, but unlike a lot of people who talk about it, I’m not going to tell you what you have to believe. I honestly think it doesn’t actually matter what you believe, as long as you believe in something. A purpose, or a set of values perhaps that help you make sense of life. For the spiritually minded, some sense of purpose might come from your relationship with the divine. But regardless of whether you have this or not, I believe that everyone can find it in a sense of integrity.

Integrity is a word that I’m using in a very specific sense here. I don’t mean it in the way that a lot of people do. They mean sticking to the rules. I mean sticking to your rules. I like the word because it has the same root as the word ‘integrated’, which I’ve noticed is how it feels when you live in a state of integrity.

Knowing what your personal rules are is a difficult thing. There is no external source or authority to turn to, you have to find them yourself. The approach that I took was to think a lot about my values. I tried to take a hard, honest look at my life. I saw what values I was living when I felt most whole. Most integrated. What was I really committed to in life? What values did they reveal? There’s a relevant quote I’ll always remember from a book I read years ago:

”Commitment is a statement of what is. From our perspective, you can know your commitments by your results, not by what you say your commitments are.” - The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success - Dethmer, Jim; Chapman, Diana; Klemp, Kaley.

Commitment and values are inextricably linked. The above quote originally hit me like a tonne of bricks, it certainly leaves you nowhere to hide. Once I knew what my values were at that time, I could think about what I wanted them to be. They lead to some drastic changes in life, not least of which a new job.

That’s why talking about values and belief is relevant to the kinds of things that I write about here. Your choice of career, company to work for and role all have to align with your values and beliefs. Otherwise you won’t feel that sense of integration, and it’s integrity that frees us to do our best work.

There’s a stereotype about Millennials, that unlike prior generations it’s not enough for them to merely get paid, they have to feel they are working towards a purpose. As with most cross-generational things, it’s looked down upon by some members of the previous generations, but I think it’s because they’ve collectively realised something that Yuval Noah Harai describes as ‘The Modern Covenant’

…”modernity is a surprisingly simple deal. The entire contract can be summarised in a single phrase: humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power.” - Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus

In this case, I interpret ‘power’ to mean the ability to self-determine, to do what we want free of the strictures of other people. The problem with this deal is that people are wired to seek meaning. Without it we feel something profoundly important is missing. We get sick. We resort to numbing ourselves with endless shopping, social media, substances, whatever is to hand. In the rest of Homo Deus, Harari goes on to lay out his view that Humanism is modernity’s attempt to fill this gap by giving desires meaning.

”The highest aim of humanist life is to fully develop your knowledge through a wide variety of intellectual, emotional and physical experiences.” - Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus

But desires, knowledge and experience are all intrinsically meaningless. None of it matters. Unless it matters to you. My argument is that it’s your values and beliefs that give these experiences meaning. Given the number of hours that we spend working, your job is a key part of these experiences. It has to have meaning for you.

Perhaps this is why, in Built to Last, Jim Collins found out that great companies have strong core values. Only it doesn’t matter what they are.Maybe it’s because when a company is clear about its values then it attracts people who share them. This gives the people who work for the company a sense of meaning, which in turn unlocks their potential. They are motivated by the feeling that what they do matters, because the work contributes towards their sense of self actualisation.

This is why this all matters to you as an individual and as a leader. On a personal level, noticing these things can make your life more fulfilling. As a leader, it’s critical that you understand the values of your organisation so that you can express them in your day to day work. It’s only through doing this that you create the environment for your team to do their best work - assuming, of course, that you hired people that shared the company values in the first place.