Stop Trying To Fix Other People

If you're dreaming about changing your boss or a colleague, or even influencing them to behave differently - I'm here to tell you that it's wishful thinking. One ego cannot successfully change another ego. That's not how this is set up. If we want change we have to throw out a much wider net, and inject the network with a positive virus. From now on that's the only way change will happen.

Impossible To Influence Others

You can’t change individuals that get on your nerves, and you can’t pressure parts of the company like we did in the past. Now we can only develop by creating a powerful environment that changes all of us together. Anything else is still the primitive sound of our egos clashing …?

To clarify this point, I'm sharing parts of a recent post by an organizational consultant who believes we can influence people we work with directly, which will be followed by my commentary:

"Almost every person I come across has something they would like to see changed in their manager and says - "can you please fix it?" The question is not whether the person can be changed, but whether the person and the situation can be influenced. We have a common mental bias in assuming that someone behaves a certain way because of their personality. Personality has an important part to play of course. But that can't be changed. The main problem is that we tend to ignore other factors that are external to the person, and especially ... ourselves. In other words: there is a relationship between a manager and an employee. The manager is one side of it. He is higher up in the hierarchy so is more influential in theory. But in fact, the potential for our impact on our executives is in many cases much greater than we anticipate. And this is exactly what the workshop I conducted yesterday dealt with: the upward effect. That is, in the question of how to maximize our impact potential within one of the most significant relationships we have: with our manager.

Here are a few key points for doing this -

1. Faith. Belief that things can change. If we give up in advance nothing will change.

2. Preparation: Getting into the manager's shoes. Ask the right questions before we come to persuade or ask for something: What's on his mind? What's he worried about? What is he striving for? What are his interests? What pressure is he under? And how it all connects to the goals I want to advance.

3. Selecting the tailored messages in light of the understandings we have gathered.

And above all always remember, that emotion beats logic almost every time. So do your professional work, bring all the relevant data but do not forget to ask yourself the question: What feeling do you want the manager to come out of the meeting with?"

My Commentary

There are two main points to this story: 1) Influencing a person, and 2) That the person will change.

Here is the big newsflash - people don't need to change! This is old thinking from the old world. It's actually a very egotistical thought. Where does it come from? Everyone forms a reality according to what he/she understands and feels. You know how people say, "and it seems to me that's it's better this way". Not that it's necessarily true, but this is how it appears to that individual. Every person is special and there is no other individual like them in the world. If you change or want to change something in a person, or interfere with their journey, you will end up hurting everyone because that part will be missing from our collective journey. You can't see the truth behind everyone, because each exists within the narrow confines of their own selfish perception. So the only thing I can really grasp is what makes me happy, or those who can help me be happy and enjoy life.

If you change or want to change something in a person, or interfere with their journey, you will end up hurting everyone because that part will be missing from our collective journey.

My second point is that it's a mistake to think that there's a situation that can be influenced. Look how we treat nature and each other. This is the clearest proof that we're all influencing everything in a negative manner. This is why I'm always talking about the integral method.

In A Nutshell

According to the integral method we do not change anyone. We don't try to influence anyone in any manner. We only change our attitude. What does that mean? We begin to act in a reciprocal manner in our environment. The mutual collaboration, sharing and responsibility is embedded into the environment. We create a special format for every gathering, where the participants have full control. These events generate special uplifting energy which is not created by any single individual, but rather from our togetherness.

According to the integral method we do not change anyone. We don't try to influence anyone in any manner. We only change our attitude.

How Does It Work?

We take each person's unique point, and integrate them into an integral environment that operates according to the integral method.

Then as a result of their integration, and combining their common aspirations, a new inner mental-emotional volume of opportunities opens up. How much? Based on the level of their participation. Meaning they receive this boost of EQ based on how open they are to this new thinking, and how much they're engaging in this new process. The less we resist, the more we get out of it. We need to be aware that it's our ego resisting, and put mechanisms in place to override it.

What do we get out of it? Our perspective about life in general will shift. The job we perform will look different, and we'll discover options for managing our job differently. This new ability will be above the natural and limited scope of each individual. The only way we can enter this natural system is by following nature's rules. And nature is all about reciprocity.

So if we want change for the better, if we want to get rid of all the toxic energy and back-stabbing politics in the workplace, we'll all need to learn to connect with others in an optimal manner. Not because we really want to, but because we are conscious of how this will lift us all to the next level. This is how we'll accelerate our development, beyond the limited scope of the human ego. It's getting very crowded in there because the human ego is growing and wants to be set free.

A beautiful example of this feeling everyone is yearning for but can't put their finger on is Sam Ryder's epic Space Man Eurovision song - this is the official music video and it really tells the whole story. What do we all want? We all want to be elevated.