During our trip to Turkey, we went to visit the ruins which were just outside the city. The guide took us to the ruins where the hospital had once stood, and he said, ‘This hospital was famous for not having a single patient die on them.’ We all looked at him expectantly and then said, ‘That’s because they never took on those patients who might die.’
For as long as humans exist – I can guarantee that if a system exists, we will know how to game it. How is it what the Turks did any different from the corporates of today who slightly modify their metrics to tell the story they want.
It makes you wonder – Have we been caught up so much in the gaming the system that we have lost sight of the fact that it is a system – not THE system. Sometimes I wonder that is why we lack imagination. Don’t agree with me. Let’s journey through history to see the standard plot lines.
- Kings occupied other countries and waged war. (This is a cyclical process)
- World War 1
- World War 2
- Even now, the squabbling of the territory continues like Palestine/Kashmir…
If you think the story will change in the future – think again. Aliens and planets will replace people and Places in the above examples. It’s like we don’t know anything else except fighting for land and amassing power. These are the stories that continue throughout the history of humankind and will continue to dominate the future too unless something changes.
The question that arises now is why change? To understand the answer take a look at the state of your country, the world. Are we in a better place than when we started – no, in fact, we are regressing at such a rapid rate that at some point we might not exist at all. Life on earth might be better off if you took humans away.
Why haven’t we changed? Because we are focused on playing the game that we have become the character and forgotten that it’s just a game. We are so focused on getting through the daily grind of our lives that we seldom stop to wonder if there is any point to the daily grind? So many of our societal models are outdated, like the entire production floor in factories. Our education system, our offices, even our traffic lights are designed to support the mindless thinking required from a factory worker. There was a time when that was needed. But in today’s day and age, we need self-managed, innovative, creative people.
In schools, kids are expected to sit at their desks quietly for five to six hours a day – which kid can do that, but this is all training so that when you grow up, you can go and do this in a factory. If you look around, you will see a lot of examples where active questioning is discouraged. Things are changing like Montessori schools, remote offices – these changes are happening in small pockets. We need to embrace these and refine these models to arrive at a new system that will ensure a sustainable future – one that is vastly different from where we started.
How are you going to embrace change, today?