PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT - DELIVERING VALUE

It was a pleasure to be invited by the NCRIB ( Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers ) to speak at their just concluded #CEO #Retreat. The topic was “#personal #development – #deliveringvalue”. I was rather afraid about this topic because of the fact that #business #owners of a certain average age were being addressed. They were, each, at varying levels of successes and would have experienced life in many varied ways that they each can talk about that subject richer than I could ever present to them. So, I had to choose the path of #camaraderie. #Philosophy. A talk that was #esoteric and reminiscent of our #life patterns and #diverse enough to encourage the much younger ones amongst us to reflect and improve on value deliveries. Much of business management discussions are replete with the generic how-to-dos of personal developments and #customer #valuecreation. Yet, these how-to-dos tend to take the average success factors of different persons as a tool kit for other people to emulate. Alas, there is a Yoruba proverb that states that: “we do not use a person’s watch/time for another’s race/work”. So, the accepted average management or leadership toolkits can only inspire like character and should not be used in robotic manner. Of course, the latter still delivers value but the person using the standard toolkit may never fully realize self.

Because of the fact that we are each different, depending on our nature and life’s journeys, I chose to speak about character stones and logs. Stones/Rocks are parts of elemental earth said to be composed of 32% iron, 30% oxygen, 15% silicon, 14% magnesium, 3% sulphur, 2% nickel and trace elements of calcium and aluminium. Logs are from trees of varied kinds, weathered and blown in the winds of time, continuously regenerating itself in rebirths of lives through a kind of death (decay) /regeneration. What more can be used to describe who we are - imagined, sculpted and carved over the years. Some of us crumble fast and require greater support to hold still, while some of us are quite hard and need to be chiselled carefully by an experienced sculptor or carver to prevent or reduce the chances of splits, cracks and breakages. Even then, these have their values. In our lives’ journeys, we would have been formed and shaped by different sculptors and carvers and, with that experience, we also become sculptors and carvers of the materials that we are or are familiar with. We may have built sandcastles and watched it slowly wash away because it is the nature of it to merge back with the sand with the ebb and flow of waters. It cannot become hard rock until elements of hard rocks are piled into it with mortars of reinforcement rammed in. So, for effective personal development, we must first understand our #characterstones or #logs and the types of #sculptors we have experienced and have become; and, if we have developed the patience of a carver along the way and how we use our carving skills to beautify others in whole.

So, given that humans are like elemental earth in character, it is important to understand which #characterlogs or stones reflects who we are. The following are a guide.

Once a character is determined, the tools to form, shape and refine must then be resourced and the appropriate sculptors (the visionary) and carvers (the operator/manager) must be aligned with each. The tools are all the operational, management and leadership courses and trainings that we undertake, including the books that we are moved to read in relation to these. Having the tools that help form, shape and develop us are not enough unless they are in the right hands (each again formed of character stones and logs of time and chances of experience). In being formed, a person must know self and, in that knowing, empty self out to become whole. In this journey, time is invaluable. Emptying of self (essentially managing the impact of stone/log dusts of character, i.e., human ego) also requires the continuous use of water and protective equipment to prevent and reduce the impact of the toxicities that come when the work on a character stone/log is in progress. These toxicities are egos that cling on to their elemental stones/logs and reject a sculptor/carver that is not quick, easy, pliable and malleable - preferring quick sandcastles to lasting granite/marble/ebony stones/log of character in relation to itself. Then again, in the right hand, with the right tools, stone or log dusts (ego dusts) are part of the beauty of chipping off and washing out. What is required is to flow with each character stone or log as each become the image reflected and delay judgment on outcome until the whole yields itself to be seen clearly. Resplendent in its true nature.

In delaying judgment of character stones/logs, particularly where ego dusts can become dangerous, it is important to think of human value perceptions and how these can be realized and delivered for the benefit of self, staff, community and society at large. The mistake that we often make is to think of and simply classify characters as either “good” or “bad” without looking at the interplay of nature. Life itself is a revolution of daylight and darkness. Most human societies find their mores in their traditional religions and these help to shape how they deal with the dusts of life that blind our perceptions of value. If we consider the Yoruba traditional religion, for example, we will find it quite similar to the #Chinese #philosophical #concept of #yinyang, which describes the connectedness of adversarial forces in using the chaos/energy of life to achieve revolutionary continuity of human existence. There are collections of works on “#Ifa” called “#Ifism” by C. Osamaro Ibie and also a book titled “Odun Ifa” by Dr. Abosede Emmanuel which can help to enrich knowledge of our character stones/logs, but sadly, because of how our perception of value has been coloured in simplistic “good” and “bad”, we have largely stunted our sculpting and carving processes, creating factions and refractions of selves without achieving wholeness from the energy of #chaos. For example, within our much discarded traditional philosophical/belief system is what we call the #divination board. At the centre of the divination board is the eye of “esu”, which our anglicized semitic faiths call “satan’s eye” or “devil’s eye”. Perhaps the appropriate meaning could have been the eye of chaos, chance or neutrality from where life itself is reported to proceed. So, it is told that a person/community/society will always reach various crossroads in life. The persons have choices of moving forward, turning sideways to go left or right, or go back. Each choice has series of happenings that must be experienced and series of outcomes that must be endured. These are codified into #geomantic points in stories of similar events that have happened during various human foundational stones - farming, fire and medical ages to advice and chide the person(s) that must decide which path(s) to take, all dependent on the character stone(s) that the person(s) represent(s). A person may choose to stay without movement and what has been ordained for lack of movement will also be experienced and outcomes endured. Ultimately, what we are is predetermined but what we become can be shaped without affecting our elemental selves, even with our ego dusts, and it is only when we allow each other to be the best of selves by sculpting, carving, rinsing, buffing and polishing the envisioned image in the character stones/logs that we are whole. To paraphrase a quote of Leopold Kronecker: God created the integers, the rest are the work of humans. Indeed, one of the books so titled “God Created the Integers” by Stephen Hawking is a must read for an avid insurance practitioner.

So, speaking to the different character stones/logs of the #insurancebroking #industry, it is important to not classify each other into “good” and “bad”, but to help each other to understand the usefulness of chaos within the #insuranceindustry and seek to use it to create #advancements and further #developments. Understanding what leads into the path of #marketdestroying practices can help to evolve #marketdevelopment practices. Negative reactions are outcomes of #survival #habits that only sees the ego of self than the expansiveness of the limitless sky and the wholesomeness of joint success which naturally rewards according to character stones/logs of what we each are within the market. In this, our experiences as sculptors and carvers can help reinforce, impress, shape and polish the #younger #managers in an unbroken continuum of development, regeneration and advancement. The #management / #leadershipdevelopment toolkits are there, but they are nothing beyond academic theories and labels except when matched to character stones and logs and placed in the hands of sculptors (leaders) and carvers (managers) who have emptied themselves of factions.?