The 10 Action Items of Engagement

Q3 c - 2006
Recently, an acquaintance approached me, rather disingenuously, about contributing an article to a book he was editing, about Judaism and social justice issues.  The book was to be called “Righteous Indignation.”  And I was indignant.
            So why were you pissed off?
I guess I was indignant because he really wasn’t interested in what I had to say.  He just wanted me to contribute money to the book project.
            So why did that make you angry?
On a more rational level, it reminded me of Emerson’s description of contemporary society as one that breaks down people into component parts.  In this case, there’s this world of intellectuals out there thinking about all these big thoughts, and then there’s this world of business people out there who ostensibly don’t and can’t think and are simply expected to “pay the freight” for people of the Book who do our thinking for us.  More personally, I felt his approach invalidated me as a whole person.  He was looking at me as simply a personified wallet and not someone who could think, and express himself, and act.
            Why is that so upsetting though?
I think he reminded me of so many moments in my own life, college for instance, where people got fired up about apartheid in South Africa or acid rain or gender inequality – and I felt this type of social activism rang hollow.
            Why did you feel it rang hollow?
It seemed these moments of righteous indignation were ones where folks raged against the injustices of the world but paid little attention to treating their own neighbors with compassion and empathy.
            But why would that upset you?
Maybe because I felt guilty about not caring passionately about issues as others did?
            Why would you feel guilty?
I guess because I knew that I was simply getting on with my own life in my own selfish ways and that I was simply denying that there was a whole world out there that I was connected to. . . .
           
But why?
In sharing this inward meditation with a close friend of mine,  I found myself thinking a key point in Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, namely: that we all too often move from a position of Denial to a position of Despair, without ever considering that there is a whole world between these two polarities, a world that makes change possible.  My friend challenged me with the following query:  “If there is a whole actionable area between Denial and Despair, how do we help people move into it?”
I reflected a while over my morning coffee.  The household is still asleep at this early hour, it is not yet light, and there is a sort of quiet that lends itself to reflection.  I thought about the Jewish notion of tzedakah, loosely translated into English as “charity” but more appropriately defined as “justice.”  Jewish tradition defines 8 levels of tzedakah or giving, each level a refinement and improvement upon the previous one.  What would a system of actionable items look like that addressed social engagement in a pragmatic fashion, that did not look like a collection of accomplished intellectuals howling at the moon for change?
I’d propose something like this:

1.  Teleology: Begin with the end in mind.  The phrase is Stephen Covey’s and asks us to consider what we would want people to say about us once we died.  Are we doing the types of things now that would lead to our eulogy-to-come?
2.  The Mirror of the “5 Whys”.  Toyota is known the world over for revolutionizing manufacturing processes through its Just-in-Time system of production.  Less known is that the heart of Toyota’s system is what it called the “5 Whys,” a process of self-examination that drills down into the root causes of problems (the internal dialogue that begins this essay is an example of Toyota’s “5 Whys,” an approach any psychologist would see as basic and rudimentary).  The process calls for looking at oneself in the mirror, recognizing the basic fears that impede living, and simply asking, “what am I afraid of?”. 
3.  Curiosity.  The preeminent author on business leadership, Warren Bennis, notes that we spend much of our lives re-discovering the things we always knew to be true, jettisoning much of the learning that had supplanted true curiosity.  The key here is asking questions of people, reading, inquiring.
4.  Small Steps.  The old saying of a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first steps holds true here.  I have found that in my own business, endlessly debating the big issues ostensibly in order to find THE CORRECT PATH serves as an excuse for not making easy adjustments, as imperfect as they may seem.
5.  Re-discovering Passion.  The first few small steps serve to break old habits and the numbness of prior ways of going through the motions of daily life.  Almost without noticing, the new deliberateness brings one to an exhilarating purposiveness.
6.  Re-connecting with Community.  With the passion comes a desire to take part in an activity that can be shared with others who are similarly passionate.
7.  Bigger Steps.  With community comes the sense of a being able to effect change on a scale that the smaller steps could not. 
8.  Become Infectious.  As the saying goes, “nothing succeeds like success.”  The more scientific riff on this has to do with S-shaped diffusion curves and tipping points.  The point is, you are creating activities that enable you to share what you are passionate about with those who may be less curious and more skeptical.
9.  Change through Creativity.  As Buckminster Fuller pointed out, you make the thing that was the obstacle of change obsolete.  Sometimes that obstacle is a product.  Sometimes it’s a system or way of doing things.  Sometimes it’s the people you work with.  Sometimes it’s you and the way you have always approached things.
10.  Re-discover Jouissance.  It’s the french word for “orgasm” as well as “joy.”  Some companies talk about the need for “fun” as the glue that coalesces work-life compartmentalization.  Others talk about the “mojo” that courses through the veins of an organization, an ineffable sense of playing together.  Somehow “jouissance,” with its powerful sense of release, says it for me.
Yvon Chouinard, founder of the clothing apparel company Patagonia, points out in his book that the metamorphosis his own company went through is analogous to that of zen archery, where the emphasis is on the deliberate concentration of the component parts of picking up the arrow, fitting it into the bow, drawing it back, the breathing that is integrated into each movement, etc.  I think he’s right.  Rather than a hierarchy of levels, as found in the Jewish notion of tzedakah, I would hope the above ten action items of engagement would prompt a zen-like ballet, one that choreographs certain basic movements of self.