I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change
That's part of the chorus of a song by Michael Jackson. I fell in love with the song the first time I heard it. It changed the way I look at issues and has impacted my life till this day. I will tell you how shortly after I give an example. I work with conveyor belts. When items are too much on the belt it jams. On a certain day, there was a jam and I told a staff member to stop the belt. That's all I said. The idea was to stop the belt, clear the jam and get the belt running. He stopped the belt, cleared the jam but didn't start the belt. I went back and wanted to get upset but remembered I only told him to stop the belt and didn't tell him why or when to start it up. That was my fault not his. I assumed he would know.
As I write this the world is battling a pandemic caused by a mutant strain of coronavirus called Covid-19. The most common thing I hear people say is that Covid-19 has changed the world. It has brought a paradigm shift in the way people relate, the way businesses operate, work/life pattern etc. These changes may well be permanent. For instance, because people are working from home right now many companies are starting to rethink if they really need office space.
In 2015 the opposition party in Nigeria took power from the ruling party when it won the election with a majority of the votes cast. The opposition party had run a campaign based on change. After the inauguration the new government began an advocacy that was titled change begins with you. People were excited and were willing to start making changes in the way they lived and behaved. A few months into this advocacy Nigerians discovered that government officials were paying lip service to the campaign. They still behaved the way they did. It was as if only those not in government were expected to change their behaviour and mindset. From that moment the campaign started losing steam. Today, 5 years after, it has been totally abandoned.
The new president in his speeches told Nigerians to live within their means. It was a pragmatic thing to say seeing that the price of crude oil, Nigeria's major forex earner, was dwindling. It made so much sense hearing that but then the president borrowed money to buy his party registration form. He had a fleet of 10 jets at his disposal. He borrowed more money from the international community to do projects that didn't make economic sense. He was not living within the means of the resources available to him. The moment Nigerians noticed this the slogan died. Nigerians were very loud in saying the president shouldn't be telling them to do what he can't do.
In the 3 examples above there's 3 constants: an issue is found to be a problem, change is needed, there's an entity driving the change and another expected to change. This opens the door to bring in the term change management. It has been defined as the controlled identification and implementation of required modifications within a system. There are lots of excellent and practical theories associated with change management. They have been known to be quite effective in modifying systems to make them more effective. I know this because I am a quality assurance professional. I have built QA systems with all the checks and balances and I can tell you for free that no system is perfect. In fact systems require constant modifications and variations to get the desired results. These modifications may or may not be successful depending on how they are executed.
Remember the beginning of this article where I started with a song titled man in the mirror? In my career as a QA professional I have come to agree that real change begins with the person in the mirror. I cannot talk about the person in the mirror without talking about self awareness. Self awareness is not just the conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires. It is also the acknowledgement of one's flaws (we all have them) and making intentional efforts to overcome them. This is why the person in the mirror is important. Self awareness is not a commodity that can be given, sold or bought but one that must be discovered. To make this discovery you have to set out on a journey. Self awareness, when you discover it, is a very potent tool that opens your eyes to the realities of your contributions or lack thereof to the society that you are part of.
As I write this America is plagued by protests following the death of George Floyd in the hands of policemen. The Black Lives Matter movement has gathered steam and everyone is tired of the killings of black people at the hands of policemen. It is a sad reality that we face today and action must be taken. This is not the first time in America black people are protesting about police killings. Given time the protests will stop and the police will go back to what they do. Why is this? It is so because the black man living in America lacks self awareness. He doesn't know who he is, doesn't know his true potential, doesn't know his capabilities etc. The black man has not defined the person he sees in the mirror. In my honest opinion, the best mirror black Americans can look at is present day African leaders. If they lead well and use the resources abundant in Africa to develop Africa all black people can go back to Africa and watch the economy of the Western world collapse. There's no better response to racism than that.
Climate change is another aspect of our lives today where the person in the mirror needs to be addressed. In October 2019 a climate change activist group named Extinction Rebellion blocked the Walter Dale bridge in Edmonton. It was rush hour and many people couldn't get to work. After a few hours they wrapped up their protest and drove away. Yes, they drove away. That's ironic. They finished protesting climate change and immediately engaged in an activity that made climate change worse. It was a failure to address the person in the mirror. I have since stopped engaging climate change activists who still heat their homes with natural gas, who still drive, who still use mobile phones and computers, who still eat fruits imported from Mexico, who still use plastic products made from crude oil. If they address the person in the mirror and stop doing things that exacerbate climate change perhaps there will be progress.
I can go on and on with examples of how we fail to get the right solutions because we don't address the person in the mirror but that will make this too long. The point is that while we hope to go through life without problems, it's not feasible. Our ability to solve the problems we face daily is therefore heavily dependent on how we perceive these problems. Many times we try to resolve issues by pointing fingers of blame away from ourselves. While this may be a good approach it prevents us from looking at ourselves. The mere fact that something affects you negatively or positively means you are part of that thing or system otherwise you wouldn't be affected. Knowing this should enable you to see yourself as part of the factors that need to be considered while seeking a solution.
In my consulting days, while in Nigeria, I never offered any solution to a problem I didn't experience. My interventions were always based off of me going into the establishment to observe for a few hours. I offered solutions not as an outside entity but as a part of the system. This helped me give long lasting solutions. You can do the same. To find the solution to an issue you must first of all identify how you contribute to the issue since you are part of the system. Doing this reduces the work by 50%. Try it. It works. Look at the person you see in the mirror and listen to what he or she says.
If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change.
