Rising Above

Rising above is not easy. We all have as people, as organizations,  a standard we settle into, particularly after we've stopped growing. If I had to guess, I'd say the average across all people and organizations world wide that once they are through their growth stage, that settle into a standard, is 95%.

What that standard might be would fall across a spectrum from the very mundane to the very high, but nonetheless it is still a standard that has been settled into that has become your comfort zone.
Rising above that standard is hard once you've settled into the comfort zone.

Rising above for people is hard because it takes self discipline, getting past the fear of change, inadequate support and that most people around you are not motivated enough to rise above, to grow, to set and live new standards.

Rising above for organizations is harder still, because of the cultural norms that get established once it stops growing, as an organization, it develops it's own fear of change, it employs people that fear change and growth, leaving the whole organization unable to rise up, to grow, to set and live new standards.

Adding towards the conundrum is a lack of vision of what they or it are growing towards, what standards might they want to rise up to.

I have my own vision, my own set of standards that I personally and as the unconventional consultant am growing towards, that I try incorporate into my way of life, my core being. I admit, it isn't easy. What I believe, however, is that the goal of a transformed world, transformed organizations, transformed people, and a transformed you is worth the effort. I get transformed in the bargain. I believe the social networks we'll have by working towards this goal, the shared knowledge, the inspiration for innovation will all be worth it.
Those two basic beliefs are enough for me to keep growing, keep trying to rise above every day.
Especially on the days where it isn't easy.

There is the wild misconception that there are limits to economic growth, limits to capitalistic growth. We'll look at this in depth in future posts, in today's post all I will say for now is that there is no limits to growth. There is no limit to the ideas and innovation humans and organizations harbour, that can be grown into new ways of life, new ways of doing things, new products to better our lives.
There is no limit to the ways we can address the growing--yes, growing!--challenges humanity faces in the coming decades, there is no limit to the opportunities those challenges will present to us.

To me, there is unlimited growth.
By my count, 100% of people, 100% of organizations have room for growth, some much more than others, but all have more room to grow. (We'll put aside for now the notion of 'size' as growth!) We all have room to grow, we all can rise above.