Shared truths

How to convince one or millions of people to create certain stories about gods, nations, companies, etc? Yuval Noah Harari in his book Sapiens, says that much of the history of the human being has revolved around this issue. He also says that when these “social constructs”or “imagined realities”succeed and are accepted by the many, it gives an incredible power to groups of people because it allows them to cooperate and work to achieve a common purpose based on a framework of understanding.

“When a thousand people believe an invented story for a month, this is false news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that it is a religion. “ 

Yuval Noah Harari

Never underestimate the power of a minority of people fighting for something common. Soon they will stop being a minority. There is nothing more powerful than believing. The human being in itself, by its nature, by its instinct for survival, has a natural tendency to progress, to move forward.That is why, despite the fact that the daily news bulletins are full of discouraging news that portend a near apocalypse, the world is going on. We’re still alive. This, in my opinion, happens because there are people who believe in what they do and the most important, they believe to create a better world together.

The collective consciousness in the culture of a company

Generating this collective consciousness is the first step to achieve a strong company culture. Each employee must be aware that they are part of something else that goes far beyond their individuality. Something bigger that is connected with all the elements that someone has around in their day to day and also connected with other people. To know, understand and connect with these people, means the seed to believe in something common and building those “shared truths”that later on, will be identified as the culture of an organization.

That could seem a simple approach, right? Nowadays, most of the employees of the companies do not have assimilatethis aspect. It means that they live power struggles and disputes that result in high work stress, poor work environment and also a blockage in productivity which directly impacts on business figures.

“60% of workers say they have stress in their work.”

Spanish Statistics National Institute.

Common grounds of understanding

Why does this happen? Why is it so hard to think global, to think connected? Because people and organizations needs to dedicate time for this. In the system where we all live today, time seems the greatest good of the human being and a scarce resource in companies. People in companies must dedicate time to spend time together, to be with the rest of our colleagues, to get to know them better, to understand how do they think and to understand better each other personalities. Time to reflect together about the company, what happens in their day to day and to build common grounds of understanding. Definitely, all of this means to build true human connections and culture.

Employees are slaves of their tasks. In the business world people have been educated to be very good at doing their tasks, focusing on them as the way in which each employee can contribute to the common purpose. It is common that an employee recieve messages like: 

“Please, just do your job, do your tasks, that is what is expected of you”. 

Yes, indeed, a worker is hired to perform some tasks, that is so, but …

“The time lost at work reaches 30% of the working day.”

Spanish Statistics National Institute.

 When a group of workers or a company is asked for allocate time to do a collective project (beyond meetings), the first answers frequently are … 

“I have a lot to do” or “I do not have time for that” or “I´ll try to do my best but..” 

I mean projects, with an output that is supposed to be beneficial for the company. Now try to imagine the request is to dedicate time of the working day to share spaces of understanding and reflection with others. I guess we are quite far…

Fortunately, this is increasingly evident that collaborative working formulas are necessary, accepted and efficient. Taking time to share with others, managing fears, hopes, expectations and uncertainties, has a direct impact on tasks and the flow of the tactical part of the business. Dedicate time to share, makes the executive part of the work much more efficient because it makes people more collaborative and much more efficient in their own tasks. The key? The connection with others. The human connection.

When employees connect each other in a human way, they have many more reasons to respond to their own performance beyond their own assigned responsibilities. They work for their own and also for the others, they work for what they have built together as a colleagues, as a team, as a company. They work for what they believe as a collective.

Shared truths

As we mentioned, humans need to be part of something. This is what is called, “sense of belonging”and is something basic to its nature as a species (apparently the sapiens of the past gave this key). This sense of belonging is based on two key aspects, the connection with others and the connection with what those people create together. The stories that are told, the vision of the world, the shared truths. Everyone can have their own opinions or their own vision of things, but them are not worth it if someone is alone. The shared truths are those truths, that common vision of the things accepted by the collective.Truths that have filtered the opinions of individuals, which are built by all the members of a group of people based on what really matters to everyone. This kind of truths are the ones which prevails, always and there is no greater power than that of a group of people believing in something common, right?

Carlos Murillo. Strategy & Innovation, People & Culture @Soulsight (www.soulsight.es)

If you are interested in knowing better what we do, get in touch through carlos@soulsight.es and we will be happy to tell you.