Tyranny of Shoulds

I started blogging under duress…..As a shameless plagiarist, especially of Wodehouse let me say that without my wife, Meenu’s dogged persistence and my friend Bhavna’s metronomically maniacal memos to my meretricious memory and gentle pushes, this excrescence called my blog would never have been perpetrated on the world….however i am thankful to them both. The short pieces I pen are a kind of sharing of my experiences in dealing with and helping organizations and people do well and enjoy themselves in the process. I try not take myself too seriously, only sharing what i have learnt for better or for worse….enjoy or make whatever of it; it is out of my system and into the social media world!

Sharing my first article, TYRANNY OF SHOULDS’. I look forward to your reflections on this.

I have been a fan of Wodehouse ever since I could toddle up and say boo to a goose. Not that geese were willing and indulgent listeners in the parts where I grew up. When you look at vintage Wodehouse, his humor more often than not hinges on the concept of Noblesse Oblige (Take for instance Bertie Wooster’s inability to square up to his aunts and his consequent spiral into humorous tangles).

Wikipedia describes Noblesse Oblige as “a French phrase literally meaning ‘nobility obligates’. It denotes the concept that nobility extends beyond mere entitlements and requires the person of status, to fulfill social responsibilities, particularly in leadership roles”.

Noblesse Oblige is a whole bunch of Shoulds that society, community, family, and our own conscious and sub conscious self ingrains in us from the time we are born. Noblesse Oblige operates as a deep belief in most of us who live in civilized societies (may be in uncivilized ones too for that matter, especially when it comes to first dibs at the communal cannibal pot!). And it operates in incredibly insidious ways.

I saw this in a session with a senior member of a leadership team in a mid tier start up experiencing vigorous growth. The technology team that he led consisted of some young blood, which caused work-ethic dissensions.

And he found it extremely difficult to relate to the fact that the millennials have scant patience for the business of slogging in the trenches. He was exasperated at their sense of entitlement,  their poor dedication to work and an unending anxiety to pursue multiple interests at the same time. “They don’t stay late or work on weekends even if we have severe deadlines”, he retorted. ” However he could not deny the fact that they delivered at the same pace as the rest of the workforce. . What he sought was a connection, a way to motivate them.

It took me a while ( quite a while in fact) to get him to see the possibility that it might be his problem and not theirs. While his attitude towards this age group was a case in point, it actually demonstrated the way his belief system had ossified his thought and caged him in the tyranny of the Shoulds over time “they should be like this and they should be like that ;they should put work above everything else ;they should be patient; they should put in long hours, juxtaposed with the familiar “this is how we did things things in our times and therefore we progressed”

He was racked by the belief that anything in life ‘should’ be earned the hard way and over a period of time sans any short cuts. This had come from the struggles of his own life and career and anything else was inconceivable to him. Through the conversation it became evident to him that most of his ‘Shoulds ‘ were a burden he carried, that got in the way of his ability to derive the best out of his team and his own self; He realized the inescapable truth that this disability manifested itself in almost all spheres of his life. In short his ‘Shoulds’ had tyrannized him into responding in ways that had made him less effective and more miserable.

On the one hand a consciously adopted belief system can strengthen moral fiber and lend clarity to action. For instance, his belief that as a parent he is responsible for exemplifying and role modeling the values of kindness and compassion to his childrenOn the other hand not being aware how sub consciously adopted beliefs debilitate and misdirect response to an environmental stimulus. For instance in this specific case, the anger/frustration emanating from the violation of his ‘Shoulds’ leading to his rejection of the non-conforming youngsters ( but were effective at their jobs nevertheless), and consequent lack of empathy leading to an uninspired and uninspiring team.

In other words, imbibing a little less of Bertie Wooster and a little more of Alfie Dolittle from My Fair Lady ( who seems to have had very few shoulds except having fun in life ) would further being a more effective human being and an inspiring leader.