Stage 4 Epiphany

"I would do anything for Plutonium, but I won't do that"

Yesterday we spoke about the book Tribal Leadership and the different stages of corporate development.  In that post I described the different hallmarks of this stage and how most brands will need to take their workers to this next level of productivity.  

Today we are going to look at the jumping off point for that stage.  Well, it is actually more of a "eureka" moment.  This goes by many other names in the business world.  Some call it business insight, others call it the need to live out their values.  Whatever you want to call it, it is the moment in which you realize that the way you were doing things had some serious limitations.  Sure, you were successful within your field, maybe you were world-class.  But in the scheme of things, your wins, while huge in your personal world, were actually small and ineffectual in the larger scheme of things.  You realize that all of your endeavors really leave no legacy because you have manipulated other people or the system to your own gains, not to further the brand.  Ultimately, you don't like what you see through others' eyes.  It is at this point that you have the epiphany that anything that is personal truly matters at all.  

In the movie Back to the Future, Doc Brown's character had his "Aha" moment when he was attempting to put a clock in his bathroom and he slipped and hit his head.  It was at that point that he envisioned the solution to the problem of time travel.  I'm sure that if we were to travel in our DaLorean back through time and interviewed different visionaries, we would see that they had a moment it all came into focus.  

The word, "epiphany" comes from a Greek word which means an appearance or manifestation.  Martin Luther had his when he realized that "The just shall live by faith".  This changed him from a monk, to a reformer.  Martin Luther Jr. had one when he cast his vision for the USA to be free from prejudice.  All epiphanies are similar in that they are a huge vision of how the world could be different and they are much, much bigger than one person.  But they can start with one person.  It just takes one person that does some self-reflection.  They ask questions like.....

What Have I Done?

This is point at which you say, "This sucks, I haven't really achieved anything."  You may have had personal success, or institutional success, but not a thing has changed in the lives of your workers or customers.  If you listen to people that have gone through this, they will all say something similar: "My impact is way smaller than I thought!"

Can I Fix It?

Idea before action.  That is the sequence of events in this phase.  The idea of a free India was conceived by Mahatma Gandhi long before he started his crusade.  This is important because  the idea needs to incubate and shine a light of awareness on the problem before you can begin to solve it.  This is an evaluative state of mind.  Before, you were viewing the world through the lens of self.  And just like you can see your own eyes without the aid of a mirror, the hyper-competitive nature of the driven professionals mindset doesn't allow for the humility 

What's My Aim?

If the first two steps in the epiphany process, the subject was in a state of self-reflection.  Once someone realizes that their beliefs were limiting, then it is time to set their aims higher.    This thinking goes from "I am a certified sales assassin" to "We need to think about the customers and how to make their lives better".  This is also the time that people start to look around for others who they can team up with to achieve something greater.  

How do I Wield Power?

This paradigm shift in thinking also causes us to rethink the purpose of power.  Or, more specifically, how we use it.  In the previous stage, people accrued power by personal victories, to make sure that no one could rise up and take that power away from them.  This leads to burnout eventually because you have to always be vigilant.  We begin to see that the only use for power is to further the tribe/brand.  

I/We

The culmination of all of these changes is seen in total in  the language that the person uses.  "I" is out and "we" is in.  Couples are exchanged for groups, and rivals become collaborators. At this point, leaders get out of the way and let others help them out.  This is not relinquishing control, but rather augmenting your power by collaboration.  This is also the point that a lot of people fail to move on.  The reason is that change is hard and scary.  People see that they are very good at what they do and don't want to move to an uncharted area.  It is ironic, though, because once people move on they realize that even though they were great at something, in comparison to what they can achieve in stage 4, it was tiny.  

I'll be back tomorrow with the Noble Cause of stage 4.