In prior weeks we have discussed concept, belief, and ego. We discovered that a concept is an idea that we extract from the world around us. Belief is our stance that concepts exist in a certain way. Ego is the ultimate conceptual belief that we are an entity with fixed definition. All of these are necessary to build, for the security of every ego, the assumptive state.

Many years ago as the French Revolution erupted in Paris, the inspired soldiers fighting for freedom entered into the most notorious prison in the city. Their thought was to free all of the prisoners, because it was clear to them that the prisoners would immediately burst from their cells to join the swelling revolution. 

And so, they simply ran down the prison rows as quickly and as efficiently as they could opening the lock on every cell door. Some of the soldiers noticed that after they had left the prison, a large contingent of helpful prisoners were not leaving their cells. They returned to see what the problem might be and what they found came as a shock to them. In every cell they found the assigned prisoner who had spent, most likely, a lifetime there. 

They asked the first prisoner that they encountered why he had not left his lifelong cell. To their surprise, the response came that they didn’t realize that the doors were unlocked. Because they had lived a lifetime assuming that the doors would be locked, even the obvious act of the key entering the lock with its confirming click had not registered to them as freedom.

It is precisely in this state that most leaders find themselves. They assume that they are a single entity that is self-contained and the author of their own activities. They assume that all other embodied individuals that surround them are exactly the same thing. And because they make this assumption and live as though it were true, it never occurs to them to search for their own natural expansion or connectedness.

In the work that I do, coaching executives through their own continuum of maturity, the first recognition I undertake to expose is this assumption. Most actors in their own drama have built a model of how they see themselves. And believe me, it typically is the most flattering version. You can imagine their surprise when they encounter how others view them, especially since that view varies widely from their own. It is in that moment that they experience the puncturing of their own assumptive state. They have the initial whiff that they may not be what they thought they were. In fact, they are shocked to find that the landmarks that they have placed in their own assumptive state are no longer there to find.

So the challenge I give to you is the same as the challenge I give to them. Notice your activity every day as you move mindlessly from one task to the other. 

Does your life and your personal actions amount to what you assume them to be? If not, what could the possibilities be?

Tags: assumption, ego

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2012 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Alan Shelton. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.