Human Potential
The Problem and the Solution
Earlier this week a colleague reached out to me to help him promote a leadership development event he is holding. The next day he wrote me and said this.
“I’m surprised at the number of folks who serve others like you do that didn’t want to look at another way to add value to those they serve.”
My response.
“I'm finding that there are many people who understand the basics of "running" a business, and have no interest in "leading" their business. … right now feels like 2009, when the recession was hitting hard. People are not looking to do new or different things. They are hunkering down to wait out the crisis. The problem is that this crisis is a game-changer. I don't find anyone trying to better their position. It is as if they crawled into a hole during the pandemic and decided that they can live there.”
What should we make of this? Why is there a lack of motivation to improve, to grow, to innovate, or to change? It is still an open question.
What Is This Problem?
Daily, I am thinking about what it takes to help people. I bring everything I have learned, created, and accomplished to this task. I reflect upon my failures and successes. This is how I see myself. I am constantly analyzing my situation to make sense of it so I know what to do.
My business purpose has remained “to strengthen organizations in order to strengthen families and communities.” Circle of Impact is a proven leadership model. It has been used for over twenty years to problem-solve, plan, evaluate, and network with people. Everyone in an organization or a family or a community can use it with great effect. My book, Circle of Impact: Taking Personal Initiative to Ignite Change, describes my model of leadership. I have traveled the world speaking, training, and networking to help people develop their leadership capacity. With all that I have done over the past four decades, you’d think there would be a line around the block waiting to access my help. Nope. It isn’t happening.
What is this problem?
It is not a question of a lack of knowledge, a lack of skills, a poorly identified market, a poorly designed product, or inadequate staffing.
The problem is not a technical thing.
I can distill it down to a pattern of behavior.
This pattern has many manifestations.
It can be seen in risk avoidance, scapegoating to avoid accountability and basic laziness.
The problem is rooted in our self-perception. And that has everything to do with our belief in our potential to be a person of impact.
Human Potential Movement
During the last half of the 20th century, the human potential movement emerged. It appeared as a movement of speakers, writers, coaches, and performance experts who essentially sold the idea that you could be anything you wanted to be. Out of it came the phrases, “Name it and Claim it.” It was a mind-over-matter mindset of “thinking and it will happen.” It emerged as a mixture of the science of human performance, contemporary psychology, and a particular philosophy of capitalism focused on success. Even this description doesn’t capture the universe of approaches of this movement. The media industry grew out of it as books, seminars, podcasts, television shows, coaching businesses, and even mega-churches began to sell the idea of personal potential.
In my early years of leadership work, I was a part of this world, a very small fish in a very big ocean. Many of my ideas are representative of this movement. Over time, I began to feel that this social psychology fostered a limited understanding of human potential.
What is the Problem Here?
The problem is that the movement focused on the interior development of a person. Again, it is mind-over-matter. Or, as another popular saying goes, “Fake it ‘til you Make it.” I don’t believe that works. It just creates anxiety and quite possibly a fragile, defensive ego.
The problem is that we can’t just say something to be true and it is true. True for me and not for you only means that I am a rule unto myself. The consequence is that no one can tell me what is true. This doesn’t liberate me to realize my true self. It encloses me in a defensive mindset.
Think I am being too harsh? Look at the problems our world has faced over the past thirty years. Do any of our elected leaders accept responsibility for these crises? When you are only accountable to yourself, you never know how truth and reality come together.
We are unable to acknowledge what reality is. Alienation and uncertainty set in. This is where the idea that we live in a simulation finds its origin. A simulation is an artificial or virtual reality. It is maintained through the day-to-day series of spectacles that hold our attention and tell us how we are to think of ourselves.
A reality that we can access is as much about knowing what isn’t real as what is real. How do we gain a reality-based understanding of ourselves? This is part of the reason why I developed the Circle of Impact model. People and organizations were unable or unwilling to address the problem that would be discussed with me.
Circle of Impact Reality
The Circle of Impact model is based on three dimensions that I find fundamental to human functioning. Each of these dimensions has a quality measure to be able to recognize the real effect of each dimension.
The Ideas dimension, with the four connecting ideas of values, purpose, vision, and impact, is measured by the clarity of each of those ideas.
We need values that are not only fundamental to our life, but also nonnegotiable when applied to our decisions and actions. Do you have a life purpose? A way that you can see (vision) how that purpose fulfills your life through actions that create impact. Without clarity, we become muddled in our thinking and easily manipulated. To think clearly is not to say that “I am the final arbiter of truth.” It is rather to be able to say, “I know who I am and, where I stand on the issues that are important to me, and I am open to learning more.”
The Relationship dimension is measured by the level of respect, trust, and mutual accountability that exists in our relationships.
If our life lacks relationships of this caliber, then quite possibly, we may find ourselves in social and emotion isolation. We turn to other people or groups seeking validation even if those relationships lack the character of respect, trust, and mutual accountability.
The Structure dimension has two sides, social and organizational.
The organizational structure side consists of four basic components: products and services, operations, financial, and governance functions. The social structure operates within the organization as its culture. This culture is born out of the values and practices that come from the Ideas and Relationship dimension. I identify this culture as “a persistent, residual culture of relationships.” This culture persists because it resides in the shared values that bind people together within an organization or community.
There are two quality measures for the Structure dimension, agility and impact.
Agility is the capacity for the whole person or organization to adapt to changing circumstances. We live in a time of transition. The past has passed. It is not returning. The future is still unknown. Without a clear sense of impact, we may find ourselves seeking to replicate the past. It feels like we are always walking backward into the future. A focus on impact clarifies the change that we see needing to be accomplished.
If your life or your business is functioning with clarity of purpose for impact, through relationships of respect, trust, and mutual accountability, as a demonstration of agility and impact, then you will have a better grip on reality than the person or the organization that cannot articulate those qualities and results.
Human Potential
To realize our potential, we need to understand what it is.
Here are three principles that I use to help people understand their potential.
Potential is unlimited and never fully realized.
Early in my life, I came to the conclusion that potential is not a quantity. We are not given a defined amount of potential that runs out when we finally retire. Instead, I believe that our potential is not only unlimited but grows in availability to us. On the day we die, we still have unrealized potential, that if we planned appropriately may still reap benefits after we are gone.
My high school track coach told us, “Run through the finish line, not to it.” I don’t know how you view your life. My plan is to live to 105 years old. On my 100th birthday, I am planning to publish my last book. I’ve been working on that outline for twenty years.
The way to measure your potential is by the impact that you create. When you place your focus there, it gives you something meaningful to live for, even after you have retired.
This leads to the next principle.
Potential isn’t random or occasional, but purposeful and talent-centric.
Your potential is based upon what you know how to do, how to do it well, and the impact that results when you are utilizing your talent to its greatest effect. The more you develop your talent, gain new skills, and focus your energy on creating impact, the greater your potential will be made aware to you. Then, there is no question about who you are. You are a person of impact.
Potential is not just personal, but social.
Potential compounds exponentially through relationships. If you are the head of an organization, the question to ask your team is “What is OUR potential for making a difference for every person connected to our business?” This mindset not only focuses the individual on their potential but also demands that the team or the office engage in conversation about their potential.
In many offices, they don’t want this conversation because they view this kind of talk as adding pressure to the requirements to their job. This is an indication that relationships of respect, trust, and mutual accountability are missing. Creating a team that can fulfill its potential every day requires an alignment of the three dimensions of the Circle of Impact.
The Solution is …
The solution to the problem is to start believing in your own potential to make a difference that matters. Go find support. Don’t settle for platitudes. Don’t settle at all. Don’t be lazy and indifferent. Don’t be apathetic and pessimistic. Don’t hide and wait for things to get better. They aren’t.
This is sooo good, Ed, as was The Spectacle of The Real link within. I may not respond to your FB posts or blog, but know that I'm reading them. Thank you.