Always hoping there is brightness in your world! The Quantum Sociological Perspective addresses all areas of our social reality. You can apply its concept, principles, and axioms in any area of your social life especially your primary gathering places like home, school, and work. On this Blog I do try to address some of the specific issues that arise in the workplace from the perspective of both employers and employees. We began this topic back in November 2011. If you are a first time reader or have been away for a while you can use the Blog Archive to the right to catch up on Axioms 1 thru 7. Axiom 8 begins our discussion of Multi-Causality from the perspective of QSP.
Multi-Causality states that any social phenomenon is invariably the result of more than one causal element. In other words, every social interaction is an emergent event that results from the convergence of many preceding events. The statement seems obvious but if you are not careful your mind can trick you. Even though you know intuitively that there is a before and an after to your personal experiences, you may often find yourself treating each occasion of its occurrence as if it were unique. As a result you may fail to see patterns forming and thereby limit your opportunities to avoid, evade, or deflect the things that cause you to most stress and distress. Remember that you are always immersed in the Quantum Field of the Cultural Fish Tank and that your life and experiences are inextricably interconnected to the life-choices of every other person. The workplace can be one of the most dynamic and turbulent areas of the cultural fish tank because the complex, constraining, demanding, insecure, competitive, hierarchical, authoritarian, and nepotistic nature of the modern workplace is a breeding ground for emergent phenomena.
Axiom 8: Emergence
Anything that emerges has a source from which it comes.
Things do not just happen! There is a chain of causal elements, influences, and conditions that converge to create the context in which that particular phenomenon can occur. We have several fan palms in our front yard. Several years ago we noticed first one, then two, three, and now four fan palms growing in our back yard from seed. Nice surprise! We did not plant them but they could not have seeded in more ideal locations around the yard, aesthetically pleasing and convenient for us, and obviously nurturing for them. To fully explore the chain of events leading to their emergence we would have to go back to the origin of the trees in my front yard that were planted with the original construction. But lets just start with the palms in our front yard, the only ones in the area. Their seeding is obviously one of the causal elements. But the seeds did not settle in the front yard near their parents but nor did they have the ability to move on their own initiative. Something had to influence them (wind, birds) to explore the backyard options. And of all of the places the seeds could have settled in the backyard they chose to settle in the conditions that best suited their survival needs, and that fortunately also pleased us. I won’t go on about the wonderful tasting cherry tomatoes that are growing under one of our other trees and how they ended up there, after our opportunistic water melon died. The point is that in your and my reality things are always emerging, some of them bringing positive beneficial consequences and some of them bringing negative detrimental concomitants.
The fan palm and tomato seeds are not much different from the employees that fill workplaces around the world. Regardless of what they might settle for because of their unique determination for survival, what they want is to find a workplace that will receive them and nurture them to perfection like the locations in our backyard are doing for the fan palm seeds. Three of our opportunistic palm trees are doing fine and standing about five feet in four to five years. However one of them seems to be stunted in its growth. The location it settled in is very close, maybe too close to a queen palm and it seems to be struggling for survival. Maybe there is some unhealthy competition going on. You have employees who are experiencing the same struggle right there in your company or organization. We’ve considered what seem to be our only three options. Wait and see how the struggle turns out – live or die poor little thing. Try transplanting the baby fan palm – risky and where would we put it. After all, we did not plan on any of them. Our third option is the down the queen palm (it’s not doing too well anyway) and give the baby fan palm a better chance to survive (not too far from one of its siblings). Option three is a bold move but sometimes bold-moves are necessary. The fan palm would provide more shade, color, and beauty to our yard. It deserves a fair chance. The queen palm is just not fulfilling either the shading or beautifying roles. The queen palm has been around for the longest but the opportunity we see in the fan palm has us leaning toward option three. Letting the backbone of your organization (your worker bees) hang out to dry may be easier but not necessarily the best move in the long run. Sometimes older well-rooted trees will provide shade from the intense sun, protection from the strong winds, and hold moisture in the dry soil to nurture the younger trees growing beneath them. That is the way is should and could be in your organization. But sometimes not! When older trees begin to inhibit the sustainability of the environment, nature will often fell the older trees by disease or fire. Where nature fails to act, sometimes in order to enable future growth, some older trees, those that drain the earth of nutrients, provide no reward, and put the entire ecosystem at risk, they may need to be cut down so that new life can emerge. Yet, nothing must be wasted. There is a delicate balance required. It is Survival and Sustainability 101 in nature's classroom. It applies to all human institutions and organizations as well.
Axiom 9: Persistence
Anything that persists has a source that continues to feed and sustain it.
If we want to give that baby palm a chance we have to make a choice and act. A little extra fertilizer is not going to solve the problem. The problem between the queen and fan palm persists because we have not made a decision and acted. (Gee! This is really pushing me.) The queen palm will never provide us with what we want and the fan palm though struggling does offer us the possibility of getting exactly what we want. It’s like that sometimes in your organization isn’t it, problems persisting because you or the people around you fail to make a decision and act? Meanwhile no one benefits and your organizational garden begins to wither. Everything that emerges has a source from which it comes! Anything that persists has a source that continues to feed and sustain it! Good things and bad things both have to be fed. You choose which thing to feed! We all have to do that. Feeding the good things may not always bring you good in return but for sure, feeding the bad things will certainly shower you with their negative consequences.
Did I tell you that we have a few raised-bed gardens? Three exactly. Wish you could taste our lettuce, cilantro, thyme, oregano, chives, Chinese cabbage and other goodies. YouTube is great! I recently learned when and how to harvest the Chinese cabbage so that it will continue to grow. That is exactly what we want, multiple harvests from each single plant. We harvest the lettuce the same way, for multiple rewards from our efforts. Isn’t that really what you want from your employees? Multiple rewards for your company or organization from the role each person performs in its growth and perpetuity. You can get what you want and so can your employees if you understand the chain of causal elements that give rise to the emergence of the experiences around you, if you choose from among your options, and if you act. Gardening not only provides us with some good food but with some important lessons as well. If we do not understand the nature of the plants, nurture them according to their unique characteristics and needs, and harvest their fruits and leaves in the proper manner they will wither, die, and go to the compost – their potential gifts lost. Are you managing your human resources to produce a beautiful and productive garden? Wow, fourteen hundred words already! Lets continue this discussion in my next Post when we talk about Axiom 10 – Management.
There is more to life than what touches our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, or skin!
There is another way of Knowing!
There is another way of Being!
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