I have worked with numerous management teams during periods when an organization is growing or sees an opportunity for growth. I’m primarily referring to growth in business volume. There are plenty of techniques for managing this, and they’re relatively mundane; however, the most fascinating aspect of this growth is the psychological growth and the theme of creation and letting go that accompany it. Ultimately, the desired business growth hinges on whether psychological growth—or the lack thereof—takes hold.
At a management seminar, one participant asked an important question: “But what do we have to give up if we want to grow?”
The question arose from an earlier exercise, in which love emerged as an obstacle to the realization of the company’s potential. No, not romantic love between team members, but love for the organization’s current culture. Love for the atmosphere that is easier to maintain and create in a small organization than in a large one, where differences in life experiences and worldviews are greater simply due to mathematical statistics.
Because everything I want to achieve comes at a price. In a world based on duality, everything always has a price. When we achieve something, we always have to give something else up. By giving something up, we’re always moving toward something else. Creation and letting go always go hand in hand. Death and birth are always together, because one cannot exist without the other. I am reminded of a phrase from one of my teachers, who said that to become an angel, one must first die.
In my experience, for companies that want to grow, human psychology often becomes an obstacle to growth—the difficulty and pain of letting go of certain loyalties or things we hold dear. The cost becomes too high, so they choose not to grow and find analytical reasons to justify it (using intellect to override emotions). And very often, this is subconscious. But if we bring this to the surface and make it conscious, it can change. Because then it becomes acceptable to talk about deep human doubts, fears, and anxieties—emotions.
My response to that participant was therefore something like this:
“We must let go of the desire to be up to date on everything, of the need for control, and of the belief that we know everything and that we all think alike. Trust on a new level becomes essential —no longer merely the trust that stems from a sense of belonging, but rather the trust that, despite our differences and even when someone holds a position of authority, they make their decisions based on the best of intentions and knowledge.”
Ultimately, the question always comes down to whatever desires we have in life—what price, or what am I willing to give up, to make that desire a reality. Sometimes the price is worth it; sometimes it isn’t. And the more openly we discuss this within the team, the greater the likelihood that growth won’t remain just a theoretical number in a strategy document.
Ultimately, the question is whether “creation” or “sacrifice” is more important as we grow.
