Freedom is not Fun

“You can take my life, but you cannot take my freedom” William Wallace (through the mouth of Mel Gibson)

Freedom sounds like good stuff. Generations have fought and died to allow us the individual freedom that we enjoy today.

Freedom is not the freedom from something, it is the freedom to choose to do or not to do something. Freedom comes with a price: you are responsible for your choices.

Freedom is a burden.

Freedom is not fun. Freedom is a challenge for individual human beings to handle. Few accept complete responsibility. Existential psychotherapists say that people will go to extreme mental contortions to avoid seeing two truths: we die and we alone are responsible for our life.

Andy Warhol said that if he could hire anyone, it would be a “boss”. Someone who would tell him what to do each day. It is tiring to have to personally decide what is important and what to work on each day. Much easier to outsource the challenge to a boss, or a political party, or a guru.

It takes courage to live with the responsibilities inherent in freedom. We have the power to shape our lives, and we have the capacity to take action to create and to destroy. We are responsible for our lives.

Gandhi said that all rights come with corresponding responsibilities. All rights can only be earned by carrying out the required duties. The right to be free comes with the duty of full responsibility for your actions.

Edit 14/12/2016: Added this wonderful animation of this post by @Saminsights

The Source of Passion in our Life

I’ve been meeting a lot of CEO coaches over the last 6 weeks in order to develop my business Vistage Spain. I am interested in meeting all of the people that CEOs can turn to when they need clearer vision, greater commitment and significant change.

Who are the top leadership coaches in Spain? Who should be on the list?

— Conor Neill ☘ (@conorneill) November 17, 2016

I had a wonderful coffee and discussion with Rabieh Adih, executive coach and founder of Shine Coaching, today.

We discussed passion. What it is, where it comes from, how it dies, how it is brought back…

My personal position is that passion and meaning can only come from within an individual human being. It can only come when that person knows that they have given more than has been demanded. It is only this Chosen Sacrifice that can result in a feeling of meaningfulness in a life. If you give only the bare minimum, if you treat everything as a transaction… you will kill passion and find your way to apathy. It is only by choosing to give more than is necessary that you use your freedom in a meaningful way.

“It all starts with Love” Raul Cristian Aguirre

My friend and entrepreneur Raul Cristian Aguirre wrote recently in the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation Octane magazine. His message “It all starts with love”.

Now, I’m the first to hate hippy slogans and idealism, but Raul’s message is not about Love in the US Romantic Comedy sense. He speaks of another meaning.

We often confuse love with liking or love with lust or love with enjoying being in someone’s company. These are not love. They can help you get to love. Love is not a response. Love is action. Love is giving when not being asked to give. Love is to give without waiting for anything in return. Love is Chosen Sacrifice.

It is only through daily acts of giving more than is asked that we live lives of passion.

These acts must be chosen. We must give freely. Thus, freedom is the burden… but it is the path to a life of passion.

The Freedom to Give More than is Asked by Life

Life places demands on you. You can pay the minimum price. There are a whole legion of workers in business that are the “Working Dead”, the “Quit and Stayed”… day after day after day they deliver the necessary minimum work. They achieve exalted states of Apathy. (In Harry Potter, these might be the “Dementors” creatures who feed off your fears).

You can use your freedom to choose to give more than the asking price.

I don’t mean that you pay €5 for tomorrows newspaper. I don’t mean that you pay €10 for your next bus journey.

The next email you write… take 10 seconds to make it 1% better than necessary.

The next person you pass in the hallway… take a few seconds to really look into their eyes when you ask “how’s your day?”

The next person you meet with… ask them about why they work, what is going well, what is not going so well.. and take interest in who they want to become.

Practice giving a tiny little extra in these small things.

This is where passion grows.

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

The 4 Kinds of Work

There are 2 ways to categorize work:

cognitive or manual
repetitive or non-repetitive.

4 Kinds of Work

There are basically 4 kinds of work:

Manual repetitive – Assembly line factory worker, farm labourer
Cognitive repetitive – Call center operative, Bank teller
Manual non-repetitive – Jewellery maker, Custom car builder
Cognitive non-repetitive – Project manager, Sales of large complex systems

Generally speaking, repetitive manual work requires the least self-management and is the lowest paying, and cognitive non-repetitive work requires the most self-management and is the highest paying.

Are you good at Self-Management?

“We must manage ourselves, and help others manage themselves” Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker wrote an article called Managing Oneself that is still the best summary of Self-Management. As a summary, you need to be answering these 6 questions:

What are my strengths? Feedback is the only way to find out. Do you have a systematic process for getting feedback on your behaviours?
How do I perform? How do I learn best? Don’t struggle with modes that don’t work for you. (on Mastery)
What are my values? “What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning?”
Where do I belong? Mathematicians, musicians and cooks are mathematicians, musicians and cooks by the time they are 4 or 5 years old. Successful careers are not planned, they happen when people are prepared and positioned for opportunities that suit them. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person into an outstanding performer.
What should I contribute? Given my strengths, methods and values: what is the great contribution to what needs to be done? Don’t look too far ahead – 18 months is the range of good planning. Define courses of action: what to do, where and how to start, what goals, objectives and deadlines to set.
Who can I work well with? Adapt to what makes those around you successful. Adapting to what makes your boss most effective is the secret of managing up. Take responsibility for communicating how you are performing; take responsibility for building trust

Past Posts on Work and Money

Managing Oneself

Companies today aren’t managing your career. You must be your own HR guru. That means it’s up to you to identify your place in the world and know when to change course. It’s up to you to keep yourself engaged and productive. This is the premise of Peter Drucker’s 2005 HBR article “Managing Oneself”.

Peter Drucker asks some great questions the article (available as a short book). This is a very brief summary of his article. (The summary image above is a wonderful thing to print and keep in your notebook.)

What are my strengths? Feedback is the only way to find out. Do you have a systematic process for getting feedback on your behaviours?
How do I perform? How do I learn best? Don’t struggle with modes that don’t work for you. (on Mastery)
What are my values? “What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning?”
Where do I belong? Mathematicians, musicians and cooks are mathematicians, musicians and cooks by the time they are 4 or 5 years old. Successful careers are not planned, they happen when people are prepared and positioned for opportunities that suit them. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person into an outstanding performer.
What should I contribute? Given my strengths, methods and values: what is the great contribution to what needs to be done? Don’t look too far ahead – 18 months is the range of good planning. Define courses of action: what to do, where and how to start, what goals, objectives and deadlines to set.
Responsibility for Relationships: Adapt to what makes those around you successful. Adapting to what makes your boss most effective is the secret of managing up. Take responsibility for communicating how you are performing; take responsibility for building trust

Final thoughts from Peter: In management…

Success is at best an absence of failure
People outlive organisations
People are mobile and will move
We must manage ourselves, and help others manage themselves
Each worker must think and behave like a CEO

How Often Do You Really Face Reality?

“All organisations need a discipline that makes them face up to reality” Peter Drucker

What got us to today’s success will not keep us here. No activity will remain effective for a long time without modifications. Eventually every activity becomes obsolete.

The ability to stop doing things that no longer serve is vital: in my life, in my business, in my family… everywhere that humans engage.

Broken, old cars are put in the junk yard. What are you putting on the junk heap this year?

Peter Drucker says that the inability to stop doing anything is the central disease of government and a major reason why government is sick. Businesses are just as sentimental about the past as bureaucrats. Businesses are likely to respond to the underperformance of a product by increasing the activity around it. Organisations have a high regard for “precedent”: how have we dealt with this before?

My father told me a funny story about a blue book and a green book that goes to just how dangerous this inability to stop doing even things that are no longer necessary.

We Love Yesterday

We humans come with a built in yesterday-loving-complex. We will keep doing what we have always done unless we actively identify and stop no-longer-valid behaviours.

Economics eventually either close businesses that do not change or force them to let go of the past. Government is unrestrained. How about you?

What will you stop doing in 2015?

Photo Credit: dave_7 via Compfight

Tag: peter drucker