Cultivate an inner world that ripples into the outer world.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
—BUCKMINSTER FULLER
A famous commencement speech begins:
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” 1
As we rush through our days, overworked and underresourced, we often don’t notice the most important realities that shape our lives. We think we’re calling all the shots, but we don’t see how our environments influence the choices we make. In the last three chapters, we’ve brought to light how three key environments shape our purpose: relationships, high school, and higher ed. This last chapter zooms out further to look at the workplace and larger society as settings that also shape purpose. We are like fish—and our homes, schools, and workplaces are the waters we swim in.
The US economy has been on an incredible run in the twenty-first century. Despite two recessions, the GDP has doubled from 10.3 to 20.9 trillion since 2000.2 In the last decade, 22.6 million jobs have been created.3 In 2020, the unemployment rate of 3.5 percent matched a low from half a century ago and was only a third of the level at the start of the decade.4 Judging by these metrics, the United States is clearly winning.
Unfortunately the same can’t be said of the average American household. Average household wealth has only grown 0.3 percent5 and wages have remained stagnant.6 Meanwhile, costs of living have risen dramatically. In the last decade, the cost of attending universities has jumped 144 percent for private universities and 211 percent for public universities.7 In the same span of time, rent prices have increased an average of 8.86 percent every year, significantly outpacing wage inflation,8 and average family health premiums have increased 55 percent, twice as fast as wages and inflation.9
So where has that $10 trillion in generated wealth gone? In his book Winners Take All, Anand Giridharadas notes that “the average pretax income of the top tenth of Americans has doubled since 1980, that of the top 1 percent has more than tripled, and that of the top 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold—even as the average pretax income of the bottom half of Americans has stayed almost precisely the same.”10 The twenty richest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of all Americans—a total of 152 million people.11
Whether or not you experience income inequality directly, you are probably feeling its impact. As we noted in the beginning of this book, over the last twenty years, rates of depression have risen across the board in the United States. Young people have been hit especially hard; between 2009 and 2017, rates of depression rose by more than 60 percent among those age fourteen to seventeen, and 47 percent among those age twelve to thirteen.12 What’s especially surprising is who is at risk for behavioral and mental health problems; research suggests that adolescent health risks come from both ends of the economic spectrum, and may be driven by school contexts.13 It’s understandable that people struggling with poverty and income insecurity would suffer from such health risks. Yet those who are “winning” the economic race are also clearly struggling.14
The psychological effects of inequality affect everyone. Consider this: Do you feel like you are winning? Do you feel stable, safe, or secure with your position in life? Are you satisfied with what you have? Are you navigating life with a sense of ease, fulfillment, and contentment?
Or do you feel the need to prove yourself? Do you feel an urgency to keep hustling and striving just to maintain? If yes, you’re experiencing the psychological effects of scarcity generated from a society shaped by inequality.
As described in chapter 1, scarcity is the feeling of “not enough.”
Not having enough.
Not being enough.
Not having enough education, work experience, or expertise. Not having enough healthcare, savings, or days off. Not having enough time, attention, or energy.
Not being smart, funny, creative, skinny, good-looking, rich enough … and on and on. Scarcity comes in all shapes and sizes and is the respecter of none. No matter how much we have going for us, few escape the tentacles of scarcity thinking.
When Americans were asked how much money would be “enough” to get by, people who made less than $30,000 a year said they needed $43,000 to get by.15 People who made $40,000 said they needed $55,100. People making $60,000 said $69,400.
We tend to think that “enough” is more than what we have. Also notice that everyone’s definition of enough is different. In other words, we tend to feel like we don’t have enough, even though we don’t know what “enough” is. Is it affordable rent? Owning our own house? A job with a dignified title? How much is enough, really?
From a money perspective, there are two ways to gauge enough-ness. One focuses on whether you have enough money to meet your material needs. This is called absolute income. The other focuses on whether you have enough based on how you measure up to others. This is called relative income.
Research has shown that an increase in absolute income does indeed make our lives better. The increase gives us an opportunity to buy material goods, experiences, and a sense of security. Money does buy happiness … but not for everyone.
Increased absolute income is most helpful to people who don’t have enough to meet their material needs. If you’re homeless and hungry, your neighbor’s salary is not your concern. You just want enough money to put a roof over your head and food on the table. And having the amount you need to cover this will be a huge boon to your well-being. In countries with greater levels of poverty and lack of access to education, absolute income is positively correlated with life satisfaction.16
What about for everyone else? How important is absolute income once your material needs are met? Research shows that there are diminishing returns to the happiness we feel from absolute income.17 Contrary to what we think, buying more and more material things beyond those actually needed will not satisfy us. The more our basic needs are met, the less absolute income impacts us. The link between happiness and absolute income is weakest in more materially rich, educated countries.18
That said, why do so many of us strive to death over increasing our incomes even when our material needs are met? Seems as if the more money we make, the more we want. This brings us to the second way we gauge enough-ness.
Once our basic needs are met we shift from worrying about our absolute income to worrying about our relative income. Perceived relative income is an invisible yet powerful motivator. In The Broken Ladder, Keith Payne notes:
When a neighbor pulls up in a new car, we don’t typically say to ourselves, “They have an Audi, so I need one, too.” We are more sophisticated and mature than that. We might tell ourselves that our neighbor’s good fortune is none of our business, or that she deserves the new car because of her hard work. If we do have an immediate impulse to keep pace with her, we might banish the thought as soon as it appears. And yet, the next time we get in our own car, we notice just a little more than yesterday how worn the seat is getting. Social comparison is inevitable.19
Which amount would you choose to earn, A or B:
In one study, a majority of people chose option A.20 It felt more important to make more money than others, even if it was half of what could be earned.21 People tend to prioritize relative income over absolute income.
Seems absurd, but it’s real. This built-in drive we have toward social comparison consumes people. Feeling like we have less than other people makes us miserable. People who live in wealthier neighborhoods report lower levels of well-being than those with comparable incomes who live in poorer neighborhoods.22 Having rich neighbors makes us more unhappy.23 Why is this? Because it causes relative deprivation: the more we feel that people around us are doing better than us, the worse we feel about how we are doing. Relative deprivation makes us feel like we’re not enough. And our relative standing makes a huge difference in our happiness and health. Compared with actual social status, perceptions of oneself as lower than others in social status were more consistently correlated with psychological and physical health problems.24 In other words, we gauge whether we are enough by how we compare with others more than by whether our needs are actually met. Even if we’re perfectly well-off, we feel like we might not be if our neighbors have more than us.
Our sense of “not enough” keeps growing, in part because of the growing hole in our social safety net. Sixty percent of millennials don’t have enough money to cover a $1,000 emergency.25 Two out of three Americans live paycheck to paycheck, especially millennials.26 And two out of three worry that they won’t be able to afford healthcare in the coming year.27 These numbers tell the story: a majority of people feel they don’t have the absolute income they need to just get by. Is it any wonder that the poorest Americans are getting depressed? They are getting left behind, even as the United States boasts the highest gross domestic product ever generated by a country (over $22 trillion in 2021).
Income inequality isn’t just a problem for absolute income. Relative income is also becoming an increasing sore spot. Especially for more affluent people. Imagine that income was akin to levels in a pyramid. For every dollar of income earned, you can add an inch to your location in a pyramid. One in five Americans have zero or negative wealth28—they are on the ground level of the pyramid … maybe even the basement. Fifty percent of workers make $18,000 a year, so their location in the pyramid is roughly equivalent to the height of the Empire State Building. The median household income is around $68,000, making an average family’s location in the pyramid a mile high.29 That’s twice as tall as the tallest building in the world. Seems like a pretty sweet view until you consider that your distant neighbors in the top 1 percent income bracket are eight and a half miles above you, in the penthouse.30 Their view level is nearly twice the height of Mount Everest. But wait, there’s another level to the pyramid. The top .01 percent are 110 miles high in the clouds,31 over ten times the height of Mount Everest and well above the Kármán line, which serves as the border between earth and outer space. Their wealth is literally out of this world. Speaking of which, Jeff Bezos’s real estate is on another planet. His earnings in 2020 would place him in the loft of the pyramid, so high up that it is the equivalent of going to the moon and back.
Twice.
The average American has it much better than a poor American, and someone in the top 1 percent has seven times more money than an average American. But someone in the .01 percent has thirteen times more absolute income than someone in the top 1 percent. It’s clear that 99.99 percent of all Americans will never be at the top of the game. Not even close. So if our well-being is riding on how we compare with others, we’re not going to feel good anytime soon.
Because our larger society is one giant pyramid system—birthed from inequality, scarcity, and the performance mindset—many of the organizations within it follow suit. Most schools, colleges, and organizations are designed like mini-pyramids. And the people within these pyramids are the fish who don’t notice the waters they swim in. The students and employees who work and learn in pyramids are perpetually dissatisfied with their status. They are constantly swimming upriver, fighting for limited resources, trying to do the breaststroke past others to get out front. Swimming in these waters for long enough eventually influences how we view the world, and ourselves. Pyramids are designed to make us conform to three central beliefs and behaviors:
Pyramids |
|
|---|---|
|
Belief |
Behavior |
|
“I want to be the best.” |
Maximize. |
|
“I am not enough.” |
Compare myself with others. |
|
“Only the strong survive.” |
Act out of scarcity. |
The sense of not being enough drives us to want to do more, be more, get more. We need to be the best to be enough. When our self-worth is defined by being the best, we become maximizers.32 Maximizers obsess over external outcomes, rather than their internal purpose. We focus on the ceiling—whatever is the biggest, fastest, best. Maximizing can permeate every aspect of our lives. If you have ever spent hours researching the very best smartphone, read countless reviews merely to decide whether to watch a movie, or obsessively scoured Yelp for the best restaurant while on vacation, you’ve had a brush with maximizer thinking.
Maximizing isn’t bad in itself—sometimes you want to get the best deal. When college graduates try to maximize the salary of their first job out of college, they make 20 percent more than their peers.33
But here’s the rub. We can get sucked into thinking we need to maximize every decision and outcome in life. Maximizing causes us to relentlessly search and strive, and second-guess the value of what we have: Do I have the best smartphone? The best house? The best wife? The best life?
It makes us ambivalent: Maybe I should replace them all.
It causes us to obsess over future decisions: What’s the best path forward?
It fills us with regret: If I had only done my best in college, I wouldn’t be stuck in this dead-end job.
People who maximize are more depressed and less happy, optimistic, and satisfied with life and themselves.34 Those college students who got 20 percent higher salaries because they were so worried about getting to the top weren’t happier than their peers—they ended up more dissatisfied with their jobs.35
One high school student in our study described it this way:
I’ve been dealing with insecurities … like everyone I know. I’ve had all the thoughts. Am I good enough? Smart enough? Popular enough? Do I look nice enough in this outfit? And I’ve always been such a people-pleaser. I’ve always felt the need to cater to everyone around me, and live up to how they see me. Being a teenager, growing up in a pandemic, with such high standards being set by social media, magazine covers, whatever you look at—it’s just hard for me to hold on to the fact that those opinions of me don’t matter. How do I get to that point?
Most of us growing up in a pyramid society have experienced these thoughts. Looking to the left and the right, and up, and comparing ourselves with other people. What’s unique about this student is that she recognizes it, and isn’t willing to settle for it. This is rare because so many students just assume that this is how everyone feels, and so we should just accept it. But as you’ll see, that’s not true. It’s possible to look beyond pyramids to see our value and truth from other sources.
The more a setting emphasizes position, rank, seniority, or any other comparison metric, the more the people in the setting are prone to a sense of inadequacy. We stake our self-worth on how we stack up to the competition. We constantly feel not enough because our eyes are on the people around us and above us. We can see that we aren’t measuring up.
Often we think the best strategy to deal with this problem is to win the race to the top. But the truth is, the race never ends. There’s always another ladder to climb or another foe to vanquish. It’s exhausting. You strive to be the biggest fish in your high school. When you arrive, it feels fantastic for a flicker, and then you’re off to college to compete with even bigger fish. Then off to the job market. Then off to climb each rung of the corporate ladder. And on and on. It’s not the urge to better oneself that’s the problem. It’s the sense that you are not enough because of how you compare with others. The relative deprivation created by social comparison takes a tremendous toll on minds, bodies, and spirits. College students who focus most on status and self-image have the highest rates of depression and anxiety, learn less in their classes, get worse grades, have the poorest relationships, and feel like they don’t belong.36
The “big-fish-little-pond” effect explains that students’ views of themselves depend on the size of other fish in the pond. The bigger the other fish and the more comparative the setting (for example, the degree of emphasis on grades, test scores, accolades, etc.), the worse students feel about themselves. A large-scale study of secondary school students from thirty-three countries demonstrates a direct link between highly competitive programs and students’ negative self-concepts.37 Students in high-achieving schools (compared with the ones with the same ability in low-achieving schools) felt worse about their talents, abilities, and, ultimately, themselves.
The structure of a pyramid creates a feeling of scarcity. While there is plenty of surface area on the bottom, the higher we ascend, the harder it is to get to the next level, and the fewer goodies there are to go around. There’s a small number of coveted spots in selective colleges. Only a handful of people are promoted to the top of an organization. And there is one valedictorian. To be the best, to reach the top, we have to battle for limited opportunities and resources. This sense of scarcity contributes to zero-sum thinking. If someone else gets the spot, there won’t be a spot for me. Remember the game of musical chairs? Do you see kids standing politely to the side so that others can take their first grab of chairs? No one wants to be left standing.
Heather McGhee argues that this type of thinking, that others will profit only at our expense, has been a foundational belief that has stoked racial tensions and aggression toward others throughout the history of the United States.38 The same ideas that have created racial inequality have created economic inequality; there just isn’t enough to go around. We can’t afford to give anything up, to extend more opportunity to more people, because it will come at our expense. The taller the pyramid, the bigger the gap between the haves and the have-nots, the harder we have to fight for our slice.
In February 2021, a group of junior analysts at Goldman Sachs made headlines when results of their internal survey went viral. The survey detailed the working conditions and overall well-being of the analysts. They were making around $80,000 a year, which is a great salary for someone right out of college. However, they were also working almost one hundred hours a week, sleeping five hours a night, and suffering from plummeting mental and physical health since their arrival. On a scale from 1 to 10 (with 10 being the best, and 1 the worst), they scored their happiness at work a 2. And their personal life as a 1. Each analyst was miserable and none expected to last six months at the company.
A junior analyst position at Goldman Sachs is highly coveted and competitive. Only 4 percent of applicants earn this spot.39 So the young professionals surveyed were the elite of the elite. They were the winners. Top of their pyramid. What did they have to show for it? Sleep deprivation. Crippling anxiety. A growing sense that their days in this workplace were numbered.
We are not commenting on whether to pursue careers in finance. Just that when students are driven from a place of scarcity, insecurity, and comparison with others, we know where this road will lead.
Maybe we’ve convinced you that the pyramids that humans have built stink. They’re exhausting. Maybe you’re a manager or policy-maker and you recognize the ways you contribute to sustaining pyramids every day. But a nagging voice in the back of your head reminds you that this is the reality of the world you live in. You might not like it, but you best stay in the game. Sure, pyramids aren’t fair, but that’s not your problem. You didn’t create the system. Besides, playing the game well is what’s gotten you admission to top colleges, top jobs, and all manner of success and accolades. Perhaps it’s why you’re reading this book—anything to give you an edge. By gosh, you’re certainly not going to be the dope who stops playing and gives up your chair.
We get it. We get the fear that pyramids are all we have. That it seems like we don’t have a choice. And yet we also know that we were made for more. We can live a different life. In one of two ways. First, we can change ourselves. We start by resisting the urge to play into the rules of the pyramid. And we take responsibility for our part in it.
Maybe we remain working in pyramids but initiate small decisions that begin to shift culture there, or maybe we hatch new systems altogether. Indeed, it’s possible to create ecosystems: groups of people who work together toward a shared purpose.
Ecosystems support people to have three freeing beliefs:
Ecosystems |
|
|---|---|
|
Belief |
Behavior |
|
“I want to be my best self.” |
Fulfill. |
|
“I am enough.” |
Fix eyes inward. |
|
“Everyone can win.” |
Act out of abundance. |
Recall that people in pyramids relentlessly reach higher toward the ceiling, because what they’ve done and what they’ve got is simply not enough. People in ecosystems, on the other hand, are freed up to embrace the present. Rather than reaching for ceilings, they find floors. Finding a floor is creating a line in the sand that says this is enough to make me happy. It’s saying that this is enough money, enough prestige, enough status. It’s standing comfortably in that place. They feel grounded once they’ve found the floor and they’re standing on it. They’ve moved away from the maximizer’s impulse to seek excess in everything. They’ve become fulfillers. Rather than forever striving for ceilings to prove themselves worthy, they remain grounded once their needs are fulfilled. This is not the same as underachieving or lacking ambition. These people are constantly growing, motivated to be their best selves, rather than someone else.
Research shows that there are immense benefits in becoming a fulfiller. Fulfillers are less depressed and anxious, more optimistic and happy, and more satisfied with their decisions and lives.40 No longer a slave to perceived relative needs, they fulfill absolute needs. Instead of constantly pushing toward more than they need, they marvel at what they have. They feel grounded and content.
Recall that people in pyramids struggle with never feeling satisfied for long. It just seems that they’re not as good as the people they’ve got their eyes on. People in ecosystems are valued for who they are. Right here, right now. They’re not looking outward for approval or for a reference point to compare themselves with. Instead they are listening to their inward call. It may not even be a call for any power or prestige. And that is just fine, because they know that who they are is enough. Their self-image is not solely based on what others think of them. No person (or societal measuring stick) gets to tell them who they are or what they are worth. Instead they attune inward for who they are and who they’re called to be. They recognize their own inherent value. No one needs to prove their self-worth.
This is not the same as “everyone gets a trophy,” which is still a pyramid goal. Where pyramid cultures promote a feeling of scarcity, ecosystems foster a sense of abundance. And profound gratitude. A fundamental belief of a thriving ecosystem is that what goes around comes around. When we are for each other, committed to meeting the needs of the community, individual needs will be met as well. Since people are contributing to one another, a sense of trust grows that there will be enough for everyone. And since there is enough to go around, we don’t need to be stingy and tight-fisted. We can be generous and openhanded.
To be clear, it’s not that ecosystems are perfect because they’re filled with perfect people. And it’s not that there’s no competition in an ecosystem. It’s possible to cooperate and compete at the same time. However, our motivations for competition differ in pyramids versus ecosystems. In pyramids, we compete to outperform others. Our self-worth feels dependent on how we stack up. In ecosystems, we compete to become the best versions of ourselves. Our self-worth doesn’t depend on the results of the competition. Tom Brady described cooperative competition this way: “You do your job so everyone around you can do their job.”41 Similarly, Bill Russell said: “My ego demands, for myself, the success of my team.”42 This is the opposite of zero-sum thinking; true communities create win-win situations. Success isn’t defined by how you compare with others, but by how you contribute to them.
“Survival of the fittest” is the phrase that people tend to associate with Darwin’s theory of evolution. And it fits with the pyramid rule of thumb—that “the best person wins.” Yet individual selection was just one small part of Darwin’s theory. He pointed out that groups that cooperate with one another win out over groups that strictly compete against one another.43 Think of prairie dogs using systems of predatory warning and elephants raising their young cooperatively.44 Thousands of honeybees cooperate in building their nest, collecting their food, and rearing their brood. Each member makes a valuable contribution to the brood.
Darwin’s theory applied to pyramids might predict that individuals climbing the pyramid may beat out other individual competitors, but a group of people who work as a team will rule the day. David Sloan Wilson put it this way: “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups.”45 Effective groups overcome individual self-interest to advance the well-being of the entire group; this is the great unlock of the human race. Humans haven’t advanced due to any special physical strength, speed, or the sharpness of their teeth. Whether it was hunter-gatherers, agrarian farmers, or the twentieth-century social state, humans have prevailed when we cooperated with one another.
The scientist William Muir provided a powerful illustration of pyramids.46 He created two groups of chickens and bred them to see which group could produce the most eggs. In the first group he selected the chickens who produced the most eggs and mated them with other super-successful chickens. He did this for several generations to create a group of superstar chickens. At the same time, he selected a group of run-of-the-mill chickens to compete against the superstars. Some of these average chickens were great producers; some barely produced any eggs at all. After seven generations, what happened?
The superstar chickens got crushed by the average chickens. Muir actually had to stop the experiment early because only three superstar chickens were still alive—the rest killed each other off in the effort to become the alpha chicken. The average chickens ultimately produced 160 percent more eggs than their superstar compatriots.
Muir attributed the average chicken’s overwhelming success to one thing—they didn’t care about the pecking order. Instead of a pyramid that fostered intra-group competition, theirs was an ecosystem where every chicken could contribute. A cooperative group defeated a group of selfish chickens.
It’s not only chickens who suffer from pecking orders. In pyramids, our worth is defined by our position in the pecking order. When humans obsess over where we stand, live, or work relative to others, resentment reigns and teamwork deteriorates. NFL and MLB teams with greater degrees of pay inequality (that is, members of the same team living on very different floors of the pyramid) perform worse on the field and lose more games.47 In factories with greater pay inequality, employees are less productive, and are more likely to miss work.48 Companies with greater pay inequity make poorer-quality consumer products.49 College professors who work at institutions with greater pay inequality are less productive, less likely to work together, and less satisfied with their jobs.50 The more organizations are structured as pyramids marked by inequity, the worse the morale of their members, the worse that organization performs.
Sports journalist Sam Walker spent eleven years trying to find the secret ingredient that made the best teams thrive. He analyzed more than twelve hundred teams in thirty-seven different sports over the past 150 years.51 He then identified the top 0.1 percent of teams that had garnered the most success over time. Dynasties. His list included the 1960s Celtics, the 1990s US women’s soccer team, the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, and the Cuban women’s volleyball team, among others. He was looking for evidence of any similarities across these uber-successful teams.
One common characteristic surfaced. Was it a “once-in-a-generation” talent? A collection of superhumans? The amount of time spent practicing? A legendary coach? Well, many of the teams in the study had these characteristics, but there was only one thing that every single great team had.
A captain who rallied the team.
Walker’s research found that the beginning of a successful run always coincided with a captain taking on team leadership, and the end of that run concluded with a captain vacating their role. This held true across all teams. What’s even more interesting is the type of captain who led the team. These captains were rarely the best players. They weren’t necessarily giving impassioned locker room speeches. It wasn’t their talents that made them effective, it was their character. These captains—including the likes of Yogi Berra, Tim Duncan, Bill Russell, and Carla Overbeck—all had three character qualities.
Unwavering commitment to the group’s purpose. They had what Walker describes as “extreme doggedness and focus on competition.” They would do anything needed, including testing the limits of the rules combined with aggressive play. They made clear that the team’s success was the most noble and supreme goal.
Glue that holds the team together. While they may have played loudly on the field, these captains were never the center of attention off the field. They led by example; they were willing to get their hands dirty and do the thankless jobs, and they motivated others with “passionate nonverbal displays.” When they communicated, they did so with understated, practical, and democratic communication styles. Not to put themselves at the center of the group, but to draw the members to the center.
Leadership aligned with personal purpose. These captains were not perfect. Sometimes they clashed with coaches, owners, and people outside the team. Yet they were respected for their courage in standing up for strong, personal convictions, especially to protect the team. So, while they were all about team outcomes, they were intentional about leading and playing in a way that aligned with their own clear sense of self.
In sum, creating harmonious ecosystems was at the heart of team success. These ecosystems were marked by collective individualism. The entire team valued what each individual brought to the table. And each player fully bought into what the team was trying to accomplish. Win-win relationships.
Harmonious ecosystems understand that helping members become their best selves is good for the community, too. After all, individuals make up the ecosystem. The ecosystem needs them to survive and thrive. Where a pyramid causes members to all dive for the biggest piece of pie, an ecosystem inspires members to contribute to making the pie bigger for all to enjoy.
Can we really influence the water we swim in? As it turns out, fish can make a difference. Researchers have shown that fish contribute more nutrients to their marine ecosystem than any other source.52 The impact they make is enough to cause changes in the growth of the organisms they live with. We, too, can influence the waters we swim in with the daily choices we make about how we spend our time there.
There is a popular urban myth that if you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump right out. But if you put it in lukewarm water and slowly increase the temperature over time, the frog will stay put until it boils to death. Rising income inequality has heated the waters we swim in, slowly. Insidiously turning our world into a pyramid. If we want to change the waters we swim in, start with this temperature check:
What type of systems do you and your students live in?
Critically reflect on your high school, college, or organization. What’s its mission or purpose? In other words, why does it exist? Is there a shared mission that everyone in the organization would agree on? Stated purpose is not the same as lived purpose. What are the most important or tracked outcomes? What metrics are held in highest regard?
If the school’s ulterior motive is to get its students into as many prestigious universities as possible, you’ll see evidence of this in its structures, rules, processes, and people. GPAs will be a top indicator of success. Same with Advanced Placement courses. Students will feel pressured to take the hardest classes they can, not because they love to learn, but because it will strengthen their college applications. As will service and volunteer work. It’s important to do that, too, for the sake of looking good (rather than doing good). And even after working their fingers to the bone at great personal cost, they’re still likely to believe: I am not enough (there are people better than me). I have to be the best (I must try harder). Only the strong survive (there aren’t enough resources for everyone).
How do we change persistent outcomes like these? This process begins when leaders and members reflect honestly on whether their mission or purpose promotes pyramid thinking. Does the purpose or mission create:
Does the purpose or mission cause people:
If you answered yes to the questions above, chances are you’re stuck in a pyramid. Another sign of a pyramid is you have trouble articulating the organization’s purpose. Without a clearly defined shared mission, any organization’s goal defaults to fighting for the biggest slice of the pie, be it grades, college admissions, or market capitalization. Thankfully, there’s a simple first step toward changing organizational culture, one that you’re now fully aware of: purposeful reflection. Bring your community together and consider:
Redesigning pyramids starts by giving people the space to reflect on the organizational purpose and their own purpose. This simple and small act can have outsized results, especially in the world of work. When it comes down to it, people from all walks of life experience fulfillment at work and general well-being when their workplaces help them meet five needs: survival, contribution, mastery, connection with others, and purpose. “Decent” work meets these five needs.53 When people are given the autonomy to change and design their work so that it aligns better with their purpose, they experience improved well-being, work engagement, and performance. In contrast to a top-down approach that forces the same changes on everyone in an organization, the benefits of this bottom-up approach demonstrate the importance of giving workers the freedom to reflect on personally meaningful aspirations and skills. And when workers are given this freedom and choice to shape their work accordingly, it makes them more satisfied and more productive.54 And interventions at work aimed at building a sense of belonging and community improve well-being, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment while lowering absenteeism and turnover intent.55 The only way we can break down pyramids is by getting intentional about the ecosystems we want to inhabit.
Once when Belle was in graduate school, her significant other, David, asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She answered, “To be a professor.” And to her surprise, he responded, “Your dreams are too small.” What was he talking about? As a first-generation doctoral student, she thought most would agree that she was shooting pretty high. She was baffled by this response, and has never forgotten it. Today she understands her humble (now) husband’s meaning so much better. His words were not a condemnation of professors. Nor a criticism that she wasn’t shooting high, or maximizing enough. He was asking, “So, you want to be a professor … but to what end?” His words were a charge to dream bigger. To set her sights on more than what she could be (an end destination), to the reason behind becoming a professor. Toward the more expansive calling that’s not fenced in by a particular role or job. What work was she longing to do? What contribution and change did she envision she could make by becoming a professor? This book on the work she and Tim are doing is about this bigger dream and purpose.
Dear friends, we wish the same for you. There is so much adventure that awaits you.