Dependency and Reactivity Lead to Disempowerment

In his must read book, The Path of Least Resistance, Robert Fritz writes eloquently on the difference between the creative stance and the reactive stance. The creative stance is a vision driven, truth telling stance where there is no room to hide from mistakes, responsibilities and whether or not the result is "working".

Vision is a clear and complete understanding of the desired end result, even if it can only be envisioned in the head and heart of a lone creator. (In an organization, there must be dialogue to really share understanding and concrete examples to true up how people see things differently.)

When what exists and what is created is tested against this vision and comes up short, you need to be prepared for disappointment and take failure head on when you come up short. You truly need to learn from your mistakes, by first admitting them and then working through the alternatives to your failed action.

If your efforts shift instead to easing the pain of failure by declaring false victory or creating secondary goals, you have actually undermined your ability to ultimately be successful. America is in the words of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, "looking for instant pudding". Deming worked with the Japanese under the Occupation Forces of General Douglas MacArthur and taught the leaders of Japanese Corporations (Toyota for example) how to manage and deliver high quality products.

This "Instant Pudding" mind set leads to all kinds of short-cuts, cheating, dropping out and blaming others for our own mistakes and failures. Our egos require instant success and our souls require, as John Lennon said, "Instant (good) Karma". We want to both have it or be it all right now.

Many of us would rather give up on our creative vision (a meaningful and compelling desired end result) than deal with the frustration, disappointment and embarrassment of our failed attempts. I have struggled with this myself.

The reactive stance is not vision driven but rather it is driven by negative consequences. In the reactive stance our life energy is not focused on creating but rather on the problems that come our way. Since the problems that come our way, have little to do with where we want to go, they are will never lead us to real progress on creating the desired results. Problems are "like tales told by idiots", in Shakespeare's words, they are " full of sound and fury, yet signifying nothing."

The creative stance can be frightening and requires fortitude, but it is also empowering. Self empowerment and the creative stance go hand in hand. Dependency and the reactive stance go hand in "hand out". When you subjugate your power to determine the path of your own life and seek to hide from or have others mitigate the consequences of your own actions then you dis empower yourself.

In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton writes about the how the power of money to buy what others worked hard to create has left the leaders of Ingen (owners of Jurassic Park gone to hell) without sufficient wisdom to know what to do with what they've acquired. To paraphrase, Never confuse a giant with someone sitting on the shoulder of a giant. A giant is grown and developed over time and gains exceptional wisdom along with exceptional capabilities. Anyone with enough money or power can sit (if only for a moment) on the shoulder of a giant and wield those capabilities with insufficient wisdom.

When you work from the creative stance you will build a giant in both wisdom and capability.