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Every Revolution Needs To Anticipate Its Own Counterrevolution | Digital Tonto

Saul Alinsky noted that every revolution inspires its own counter-revolution. “Once we accept and learn to anticipate the inevitable counterrevolution, we may then alter the historical pattern of revolution and counterrevolution from the traditional slow advance of two steps forward and one step backward to minimizing the latter,” he wrote. We are at an inflection point, with multiple pendulum’s beginning to swing the other way. The Business Roundtable denounced shareholder capitalism, Russia’s failures in Ukraine, military and otherwise, exposed not only the bankruptcy of the realists but the importance of values and living up to them. The New Brandeis movement is beginning to strengthen antitrust enforcement and promote greater market competition. Underlying these trends is a convergence of power shifts the most important of which is demography. The Boomer generation, because the Generation X which followed was so small, has wielded political dominance since the 80s, but is now being displaced by Millennials and Zoomers who hold vastly different values and priorities. Yet as power is shifting, we need to ask where it is shifting to, who will benefit, what narratives they will build. The ultimate adversary of genuine, lasting change is excess. The ideas that are now being discredited arose for a reason. They filled legitimate needs and produced real benefits. That’s how they gained traction in the first place. That’s why if we really care about change, we need to learn to love our haters. They’re the ones who can keep us in check, point out flaws in our ideas and even point us toward shared values and shared purpose. Transformation can’t be an end in itself, it needs to be in service of the people it affects.

If You’re Serious About Change, You Need To Be Explicit And Focus On Shared Values | Digital Tonto

John Lennon wrote that life is what happens when you're planning other things and truer words were never spoken. We live life in the moment and moments are dictated by events. That’s why so many change efforts fail, because they do what feels good, choosing to signal identity rather than leverage shared values. Never underestimate the primordial need to signal identity. We want to show that we are not only a full-fledged member of our tribe, but a star player on the team. That’s why we engage in the type of moral outbidding that results in a purity spiral. Before you know it, we are voicing opinions and taking actions that are not only out of the mainstream, but that actually turn away those who might support our objectives. That’s why Occupy protesters slept in parks and shouted obscenities, why women wore pussy hats after the election of Donald Trump, why DEI activists claim that anyone who doesn’t agree with them is racist, why a Cornell professor said he was exhilarated by the murder of innocents, and why America's far-right activists identify with murderous dictators. It feels good to show that we are different, that we have status. Yet while these efforts may make their point, they fail to make a difference. Occupy protesters soon went home and achieved nothing. The World Economy Forum has found that MeToo has undermined women in the workplace. DEI programs across the country are being crushed, Hamas has lost legitimacy, even with Palestinians and hundreds of January 6th insurrectionists have gone to jail. The challenge and discipline for leading change is to focus on shared values, so even people who don’t agree with you can identify with your motives. The truth is that success doesn’t depend on how radical or how moderate your vision, but how well you can appeal to common goals. Or, as Nelson Mandela himself put it, “to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

If You Want To Lead, You Need To Embrace The Basic Human Need For Status | Digital Tonto

A simple truth about status games is that we all play them, whether we are aware of it or not. It is our drive for status that helps us form and signal identity, figure out who we are in relation to others and derive a sense of meaning about our existence, whether that meaning is rooted in achievement, care for those around us or our ability to enforce our will on others. One of the reasons that the various schemes of leaderless organizations that have arisen over the past decade ago have not taken root is that they ignore these basic facts of human nature. They are, in large part, a cop-out. Without the formal recognition of status conferred by a hierarchy, people resort to informal signals and, often, a kind of law of the jungle takes root. One of the things that I’ve learned in two decades of studying social movements such as the Color Revolutions in Eastern Europe is that, while to the outside they may look amorphous, the ones that are successful have very clear governance structures. They are explicit about their values. Everybody knows the rules and follows them. As leaders, we also need to understand that the drive for status is also an underlying element of culture. Lou Gerstner wrote that “I came to see, in my time at IBM, culture isn’t just one aspect of the game—It is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value…What does the culture reward and punish – individual achievement or team play, risk taking or consensus building?” So we need to ask ourselves, how are we conferring status on others? Do we recognize those who take credit or those who support their colleagues? Do aspiring executives get credit for launching new initiatives that never go anywhere, or successfully managing operations? Do we prize cruelty over kindness, avarice over honesty, dominance over hard work? Everything is a choice, whether we know we’re making it or not.

There Is No Formula For Success. We Need To Prepare For Luck. | Digital Tonto

The French writer Albert Camus believed our existence was absurd. He compared the human condition to Sisyphus, the mythical Greek king condemned to roll a boulder uphill, only to see it roll back down, for eternity. Incredibly, Camus imagines Sisyphus, returning to his labors at the foot of the mountain, as happy, having found meaning in his task. That is the nature of existential rebellion, to find meaning for yourself in a universe that provides none. In two decades researching innovation, transformation and change, one constant I have found is that you can’t control your luck. Anything can happen. “Sure things” often fail while low-probability events occur all the time. Bill Haley performed “Rock Around The Clock,” because it spoke to him, even over the objections of the record labels. He had no way of knowing it would be a hit for the ages. In a similar way, Einstein pursued physics as a clerk at the Swiss patent office to answer his own questions. Anti-corruption activists worked for years in Ukraine—at great risk to themselves—when it seemed pointless or even, absurd. Yet it is not hard to imagine Haley joyfully jamming away, even if incredible fortune had not smiled on him, and that Einstein would have lived a fulfilling life even if his miracle year had never happened. Activists like Dasia Kaleniuk and Vitaliy Shabunin continue to investigate corruption in Ukraine, even while being subjected to vicious attacks. It is a simple truth that we can’t control our luck and luck greatly influences our successes and failures. But we can pursue meaning in things that we define ourselves—an idea, family, justice, compassion or anything else. Or, as the mathematician G.H. Hardy put it, “The case for my life, then… is this: that I have added something…”